Film Review: How going ‘away’ might help Missouri find offensive flow

Missouri’s season was barely a minute old when the need for fine-tuning arrived. 

The issue? A lack of operating room for Josh Gray. Against Memphis, the Tigers tested the fifth-year senior’s reading comprehension at the elbow, calling delay sets on each of their first three possessions. The results were stilted. Dain Dainja crowded Gray on entry passes, and Memphis smoothly switched high split cuts that followed. 

Unsurprisingly, the results matched the stilted flow. Tamar Bates saw his corner 3, launched late in the shot clock, ricochet off the side of the backboard. Mark Mitchell shuffled his feet when driving from a stationary handoff. And to cap it off, Mitchell watched another late-clock jumper kick off the heel of the rim. 

Even two weeks after the fact, it’s hard to attribute the proper proportion of blame to opening night jitters or stellar defense. 

The results were somewhat better when the off-ball action was a low split cut. As the clips show, it produced decent rim attempts for the Tigers. 

What’s evident, though, is that coach Dennis Gates and his staff didn’t hesitate to peruse their playbook to find a solution. Their decision wasn’t radical, either. Creating more operating room required changing how a delay set – the base for Gates’ triangle-inspired offense – gets triggered.

Sure, it’s early. The schedule remains squishy for two more weeks. And the lifespan of the change is unclear. Yet what we’re about to review is a fine reminder that the adjustments people sometimes clamor to see are so modest they still might escape notice. 

Sometimes, it’s the subtlest recalibrations that yield the greatest return. 

Now, let’s dispense with some basic mechanics. You watched a delay set in its most basic form in the earlier clips. When MU comes down the floor, it aligns in five-out spacing. A big man flashes to the elbow and receives an entry pass. 

Once the ball handler feeds the big, he cuts to the strong-side slot, where he and a fellow Tiger run a split cut. In the past, teams used split cuts to keep a help defender from digging down and helping on a big man posting up. But nouveau pace-and-space schemes for Golden State and, more recently, Miami inverts the big man at the high post.

The basic idea is that a big man can feed a guard slipping to the rim or reverse the ball to the other guard popping out. Meanwhile, you can also run low split cuts closer to the baseline, which can flow into secondary offense like zoom action. 

How complex can this get? This summer, MU installed and repped a dozen different reads from high and low split cuts. It’s not hard to scout how the Tigers start a possession. The stress comes from off-ball players reading how their defenders guard the screen – and the big man making timely decisions.

But this assumes a traditional big like Gray or a small-ball five like Mark Mitchell cleanly snags a pass and quickly maneuver to scan the floor. Memphis made that problematic. Howard took a cue from that scout – and then had a guard wedge their body between Gray and a teammate to nuke handoffs. 

The solution: Task Gray with setting a down screen in the weak-side slot away from the ball handler. Usually, the guard receiving the screen curls over the top and cuts through to the strong-side corner – taking a defender with them. Once the guard clears, there’s enough time and room for a big to take a pass to their outside hand. 

From there, the progression remains routine. The passer springs into a high split cut while the big dissects what’s unfolding. Below are the results: slips to the rim, skips to shooters in the corner, dribble-handoffs on the wing, or straight-line rim attacks. 

The real intrigue begins once the Tigers incorporate some bluff action. Sometimes, the man feeding the big at the elbow sprints toward him for a potential handoff. The big pulls the ball often, and the guard trots into a low split cut. Still, there’s ample opportunity – even if an opponent cleanly switches the screen. 

Two-man games are built in as secondary options on that play side because once a guard cutting to the rim clears out, he’s taking a help defender with him. That leaves the options you can watch below.

The big can reverse the ball to a guard, chase the pass into a side ball screen, and roll to the block. The guard drives the middle gap and surveys the floor. All the while, there’s no help defender positioned on the baseline to tag the big. And if any help defender stunts to the dribbler, there’s an easy kickout or feed to a cutter.

Or instead of a low split cut, the guard who made the entry pass to the big sprints to set a down screen for a guard in the corner to start zoom action. That taxes the defender stationed in the corner in a bind. Usually, they’ve already cheated off their man. Then, the pindown has them scrambling from trail position. And finally, they must swerve around a big man handing the ball off at the elbow. 

The modification also smooths the way for Gates to shrink his lineups. He’s allocated almost 51.6 percent of minutes through four games to using Mitchell or Aidan Shaw as small-ball centers. Using this iteration of a delay set creates mismatches in isolation. The juniors can use their burst to blow by a traditional post or back a smaller guard down into a post-up. 

Setting an away screen also tees up more straightforward play calls like a high pick-and-roll. Once the guard cuts through, he leaves a double gap – perfect for a drivers like Tony Perkins or Tamar Bates to exploit once they turn tight around screener and to attack downhill. 

And there are moments where the away screen itself gins up potent potential. 

The first two clips are prime evidence. The consequences can be dire if the defender guarding the cutter falls behind even a little bit. Even if there’s a defender positioned to provide some help by sagging back – as in the second snippet – the Tiger streaking off the pindown can zip right past them. 

To round out that montage, we see Tony Perkins using the away screen to find a clear sight line, set his feet, and get off a catch-and-shoot 3-ball. Even if that attempt didn’t drop, it’s a rudimentary way to spring him, Caleb Grill, or Tamar Bates for a quality jumper early in a possession. 

In this case, Gates didn’t need to look beyond his playbook for a patch. In late July, away screens – called Korver in MU’s parlance – were a building block when his staff began stacking drills to teach his system. All that’s changed in three games is a shift in emphasis. 

But again, the question worth asking is whether this signals a long-term shift. The structure of MU’s non-conference slate, which features a run of six Quad-4 games, offers Gates a controlled setting to implement and refine ideas. So, will the next two weeks reveal this as a more permanent tweak? Will lineups be optimized to match it? And if the answer is yes to both queries, will the Tigers find a steady rhythm? Because as Matt Watkins has shown, a team’s performance in buy games frequently foreshadows how its season might unfold.

Right now, we don’t know. But sometimes, the subtlest recalibrations can signal a shift – and yield the best return. This season, going slightly away from a base setup might be the solution.