Last Study Hall I did mention this Q4 games were starting to wear me out. So watching this game isn’t particularly something I was looking forward to.
While Houston and Tennessee were battling it out in Las
Vegas in a terrific battle of titans, I flipped away as the SEC Network+ was broadcasting the Tigers takings on 349th ranked South Carolina State. Then, to almost make matters worse, the Tigers jumped out to a 19-1 lead, then 27-5, then 32-7. They had a 25 point lead within the first 10 minutes of game action.
A 25 point lead after 10 minutes is a good result, you would say.
Sure, but it also showed just how poor of an opponent Missouri had on the night that from the tip it was just a disaster of a game.
But then the more frustrating part is Missouri won by 32 points. So basically they spent the rest of the 30 minutes of game action winning 66-59. Gross. Add in a few technicals for trash talking, and you run the full gamut of “what are we doing here?” responses.
Over the years feast week has been a series of lackluster performances from the Tigers. In their defense, this is a tough time to get too excited for a game, in particular a game you’re likely to win easily with a middling effort. The crowds are light and un-energetic, and you’re typically playing a sub-300 KenPom team. Last year it was a sluggish 20 point win over Lindenwood, two years ago it was a sloppy 8 point win over Loyola of Maryland. At least this year they hit the expected win margin, I guess.
TEAM STATS
If you wanted to feel good about this game, Missouri probably needed to score over 100 points and win by 40. And on a decent shooting night they probably hit those margins. The Tigers on the season have been one of the better shooting teams in the country, so I guess they were due for a down shooting night. Coming into the game they were shooting almost 44% from three, and last night they hit just 7 of 25 shots. That’s still one more three than their season low for makes, but in the two games they only made 6 threes, they also only attempted 11 and 15 shots from beyond the arc.
- The rebounding margin again favored Missouri, wait. Have I said this before? I’m really curious to see how Mizzou’s rebounding holds up against more adept opponents. The Tigers are 15th in the country for offensive rebounds and 77th for defensive rebounds. Both good marks. And would be high marks for a Gates coached team at Mizzou.
- The rebounding is good but it is against a lesser string of opponents, and they’ve sacrificed the turnovers. Mizzou’s 17% defensive turnover rate was the second lowest of the season. The other? Prairie View. So apparently SWAC and MEAC teams aren’t bothered by the Tigers defense.
Another point of contention for me is the defensive free throw rate. Mizzou gets the free throw line, but they’re also sending their opponents to the line way more than they need to. Last night was a season high for that number to. Gifting your opponent 27 free throws is something I hope the coaching staff is going to spend time talking to the team about.
INDIVIDUAL STATS
Trifecta: Mark Mitchell, Shawn Phillips, Annor Boateng
On the season: Mark Mitchell 14, Jacob Crews 8, Jayden Stone 7, Anthony Robinson 6, Jevon Porter 3, Shawn Phillips 3, Annor Boateng 1
For me the biggest win of the night was seeing Annor Boateng look like he did against Kansas State. He looked far more comfortable than he did against South Dakota. A quality wing like Boateng who is able to attack the rim on straight line drives and off ball cuts, while also being at least a modest threat to make a three pointer, is a thing this team has really needed. He rebounded well, he got a putback on an offensive rebound, and he got to the free throw line. Keep doing all those things.
Good on Mark and Shawn for being efficient around the rim. My advice to Shawn though is to STFU when you’re dunking on low major opponents. Save the trash talk for teams who can fight back a bit more.
I don’t know if Anthony Robinson is still working to figure out how to be more of a primary offensive option or not, but he just needs to work out when he should take the offense into his hands, and when he should seek to penetrate and distribute. He’s been a little messy the last few games in that regard. Plus both he and T.O. Barrett were struggling with the officials whistle last night, leading to some more hastily made subs than usual.
Although credit to TO he was much more sound with the basketball than he’s been. You can see he’s taking to coaching. If he’s able to limit his turnovers, he’ll see the floor a lot more because he does good things defensively.
It was a rough night for Jacob Crews. That’s ok. He’s been awesome so far this year, you can have an off night shooting the ball every once in a while. Get back on the horse the next game and maybe even save a few makes for Notre Dame & KU.
It was also good to see Trent Burns in action, while disappointing it seemed to come at the expense of Jayden Stone. Missouri continues to have rotational players miss game action. But with Burns, he showed why the coaches are excited about him, while also showing he’s still a bit of a work in progress The rebounding and physicality is still something they’re working on, but he really impacts the angles around the rim.
So one more of these before we see another high major.
I’ve moved the glossary to a static page at RockM+ to reduce the size of the bottom of this post.
So if you’re looking for what any of these stats mean, Check out the Glossary!
In attempting to update Study Hall, I’ve moved away from Touches/Possession and moving into the Rates a little more. This is a little experimental so if there’s something you’d like to see let me know and I’ll see if there’s an easy visual way to present it.
If there’s something you’d like to see more of an explanation on, drop a note and let me know!
