Lineup Performance: Missouri at Georgia

Putting a finger on the inflection point in No. 21 Missouri’s 87-74 victory over Georgia on Saturday isn’t taxing.

With 16:16 left in the second half, Trent Pierce walled up against a stumbling RJ Godfrey during a drive from the elbow. Off the miss, the Tigers pushed up the floor on a secondary break, and Mark Mitchell made the sound choice to skip the ball to Tamar Bates in the left slot. With an open gap, the senior slashed to the rim for a dunk, pushing MU’s lead to six points.

Missouri’s kill shot of a run – 15-0 over roughly three minutes – was still a ways off, but those 10 seconds saw the Tigers flip the switch. 

Getting buckets wasn’t a problem for MU after halftime. They scored on 18 of the first 20 possessions, averaging 2.1 points per trip. Getting stops is what proved vexing out of the locker room. To paraphrase UGA coach Mike White, the Bulldogs “explored” big-little mismatches created by MU defaulting to switching all screens – and creating easy high-low plays for finishes at the front of the rim.

It wasn’t until the Tigers stopped switching and starting blitzing ball handlers in pick-and-rolls that the momentum shifted decisively. 

And that schematic adjustment mattered more than any personnel grouping coach Dennis Gates trotted out in Athens. Once he dialed up pressure, it pushed UGA’s offense out, created longer passes for bigs, and saw the Bulldogs, who struggle with turnovers, start coughing the ball up. That meant easy transition buckets for MU – and a swift lead expansion.

You don’t have to work hard to see that shift on the chart outlining Gates’ substitution pattern. 

In the first half, MU’s engagement routinely slipped. Perimeter defenders opened their stances too easily, closed out sloppily or didn’t always make multiple efforts in rotation. And while MU created a couple of quick takeaways with its amoeba zone, UGA quickly countered by flashing a big to the nail, where it was too easy to catch entry passes and exploit 2-on-1 situations against the back end. 

It’s what made the opening minutes of the second half so infuriating. It didn’t matter who Gates had on the floor because MU’s tactical choices let Georgia’s frontcourt play in actions, spots and matchups it covets. By amplifying pressure, MU also created optimal conditions for Anthony Robinson II, who had a stellar day, to make intelligent gambles on defense, which allowed the Tigers to get out in transition. 

Unsurprisingly, the lineups that graded well were logging action while the Tigers outscored UGA 41-20 over a dozen minutes. 

The worst-performing quintet – Robinson, Pierce, Mitchell, Caleb Grill and Jacob Crews – gave up a 5-0 spurt to close the half and allow UGA to take a 41-38 lead into the locker room. It was punctuated by Grill failing to contain Silas Demary at the point of attack, allowing the UGA lead guard to attack the baseline, flatten out the defense, and dump the ball off to a cutting Asa Newell. A possession later, Crews closed out late and flew by Blue Cain, creating an easy corner drive for a bucket. 

Otherwise, the other two units that encountered choppy waters featured Marques Warrick, who settled for two quick shots on offense and lost Cain in transition, resulting in an open catch-and-shoot 3. Live, and on the rewatch, you could quickly conclude the grad transfer, who has seen volatile fluctuations in his minutes, might have been pressing a bit offensively and wasn’t entirely comfortable with MU’s rotations at the top of the zone. 

Our chart outlining performances by position reinforces Warrick’s struggles, coinciding with a span where Gates used Grill as a small-ball four. Later, Gates returned to that experiment in garbage time, but the results (-4) weren’t better with Perkins, Robinson, Bates and Mitchell in the mixer.

Mitchell’s outing epitomizes his shot diet. He had a couple of buckets running the floor on secondary breaks. He snatched a lob on a backscreen. He knocked down a pick-and-pop 3. And the junior faced up R.J. Godfrey and attacked from a post-up around the logo spot. Because he mainly was finishing plays, he amassed his 15 points and five rebounds rather quietly. 

You can make the same observation about Bates. He logged a trio of triples by simply being in the right spot for a ball reversal. There was his dunk on a secondary break and another savvy rim attack off the catch after he shed a defender on a zipper action. And as Sam Snelling noted in Study Hall, Grill struggled from distance but left thumbprints on other areas of the box score, including four steals. 

Up and down the rotation, getting buckets proved easy. MU required enough stops to present Georgia with possession arithmetic it couldn’t solve. And while there was some frustrating lag time, Gates eventually made the modification that helped the Tigers acquire them.