Lineup Performance: Missouri vs. Miss. Valley State

Let’s state the conclusion: It was a good night for almost every Tiger except for freshmen T.O. Barrett and Trent Burns, neither of whom action in Missouri’s 111-39 romp over Mississippi Valley State.

Sure, seeing Marques Warrick find a semblance of shooting rhythm was nice. There were long stretches where underclassmen-led quintets shared the floor. This setting is ideal for asking players like Peyton Marshall to push through fatigue and get low-stress reps as a reader and connector. 

Crass as it sounds, MU cut a check for the Delta Devils to be a tomato can. They obliged. My biggest takeaway is the Tigers didn’t lollygag, while Dennis Gates clearly outlined the objective. As we’ve said, these games get scheduled to juice the margin of victory. Well, the Tigers didn’t leave much pulp.

Reviewing the substitution pattern shows some lulls and combinations that fell flat. Make no mistake, though, the first five groups swiftly built a 37-11 by the under-8 timeout. Garbage time arrived at the start of the second half, but the first two units peeled off a 13-0 run and smothered hope.�

To me, though, the most ruthless stretch unfolded out of the under-8 timeout in the second half. MVSU gingerly cobbled together a 6-3 stretch before that break. The Tigers greeted that faint sign of life with a 17-2 bludgeoning over four minutes to push the lead to 70. 

You can’t draw many nuanced insights from a game like this one, but the hope is we saw a team find and embrace its killer instinct. 

As far as combinations, Dennis used 26 distinct groups. The ones that didn’t post positive scoring margins tended to log less than a minute together or featured a walk-on. The best one led the run I mentioned a minute ago. In general, MU cleanly passed the baton.

Now comes the gaudy graphical display. Just two tigers posted negative scoring margins: JV Brown and Jeremy Sanchez. Among scholarship players, Trent Pierce’s time at the four-spot was a push. Otherwise, the rest of the rotation accrued surpluses. 

Practically speaking, MU balanced its ledger last night. Analytic models expected the Tigers to have a scoring margin of plus-31 points. Instead, they had only outscored foes by 14 points, slipping 12 spots in KenPom. Now, their balance is plus-86 – almost 14 points ahead of where algorithms expect them to be. 

Simply put, crushing MVSU ensures that the Tigers, now 55^th in Pomeroy’s rating, enter an eight-day layoff in mostly the same place where they started the season.