Lineup Performance: Missouri vs. Arkansas

Sometimes, a basketball game hinges on a coach’s tactical nous and savvy management of their rotation.

Then, there is what we witnessed on Saturday, where Missouri inflicted an 83-65 defeat of Arkansas, leaving coach John Calipari’s multimillion-dollar roster sharing the SEC cellar with South Carolina. 

The Tigers tore off an 18-0 run over nearly six minutes to open the gap – a surge rooted in transition defense was, um, poor. It was jarring to watch. That phase of the game isn’t one with any great complexity. You’re expected to sprint back, find the ball, stop it, hem in a dribbler on one side of the court, and then sift through cross-matches.

While I try to avoid armchair psychology, it can also be a microscope for a close-up look at a team’s buy-in at a cellular level. Here’s what the Hogs offered up as a sample.

That’s your ball game. MU forced tough shots or created deflections. They pushed hard down the channels, and Arkansas would fail to stop the ball or locate Trent Pierce or Mark Mitchell trailing the play. On the one occasion the Hogs matched up, a defender went under a ball screen against Tamar Bates. 

Yes, we’ll look at some charts and what they mean. Fundamentally, though, MU cut the figure of a team discovering just how good it might be. Meanwhile, Arkansas looked like a team about to buckle as losses pile on more pressure. 

 There’s zero schematic insight related to MU’s first three lineups. Eight of the Tigers’ opening 10 possessions unfolded in transition. It wasn’t until the 11:38 mark in the first half that they ran something of modest complexity: a box set that used a rip screen to supply Mitchell with a post touch, which he used to kick the ball back out to Pierce for a 3-ball. Otherwise, MU relied on a continuity offense triggered by a Euro pick-and-roll.

Consider this: During the first half, roughly 50 percent of the Tigers’ offensive possessions unfolded in early clock or via a live-ball turnover. That ratio is up there MU’s handiwork in buy games against SWAC schools. 

No matter the lineup configuration, MU’s switches routinely forced guards like Boogie Fland and D.J. Wagner into taking contested pull-ups. When Arkansas tried to use bigs like Jonas Aidoo or Zvonimir Ivisic as hubs at the top of the key, MU’s guard swarmed and swiped down on the ball. 

The chief critique also has nothing to do with personnel. 

Arkansas’ only lifeline came when the Tigers rolled out a zone intending to disrupt an already stumbling outfit. And I get the rationale. It’s something MU does routinely, and it has sometimes thrown off Calipari’s staff, famously against Baylor. However, Adou Thiero adores flashing to the SEC logo in the lane for floaters, and spraying passes out to the corners is one of the few reads he makes. Rebounding out of the Tigers’ iteration of the zone – which bumps wings further out – also gets trickier. 

That’s how Arkansas whittled down the Tigers’ lead multiple times in the first half. Thiero or a big would get an easy mid-post catch or find a teammate. If a jumper kicked off the rim, the Hogs might snatch it or tally a tip-in. 

However, the second half (again) highlighted and underlined that MU still grapples with wandering focus. The Razorbacks mounted an 8-0 run during a string of four defensive possessions where the Tigers committed a fundamental error:

• 17:04: Bates gambles to jump a ball reversal, allowing Johnell Davis to drive and kick the ball out to Fland, who blew by Mitchell for a layup
• 16:41: Thiero trots into the middle of the zone to the SEC logo for an easy catch-and-finish
• 16:03: Poor PNR coverage by Mitchell and Anthony Robinson II – plus a delayed tag by Caleb Grill – lets Ivisic score on an easy roll after setting a drag screen
• 15:22: No Tiger checks out Thiero, who sails in from the top of the key to hammer down a putback

No, the Hogs never landed a kill shot. The lead never dropped below 10 points, either. But once MU stretched its margin back to 16 or 18 points, a few miscues cracked the door again. Just like we saw against LSU, Vandy, and Florida. The sooner MU kicks that habit, the better. 

The ease with which MU dismantled Arkansas comes through when you look over the Tigers’ lineups tasked with the gig.

The starting lineup rode the early wave to a plus-10 margin while the quintet of Perkins, Robinson, Grill, Mitchell and Marcus Allen salted the game away down the stretch. We already listed the sins of the group that posted a minus-6 margin in 3:30. Meanwhile, the minus-4 figure put up by Grill, Allen, Mitchell, Jacob Crews, and T.O. Barrett unfolded during a one-minute spell where neither team valued the ball or converted in transition. 

Otherwise, any lineup that logged more than a minute together was, at minimum, breaking even. For roughly 34 minutes, the Tigers outscored the Hogs by 30 points. Debatable schematic tweaks and lapses in focus are the only reasons it didn’t finish that way. 

Unsurprisingly, most Tigers graded out well for the shifts they put in.

The only bugaboo for Mitchell was rim finishing. The Duke transfer sometimes seemed intent on proving he could attack from the elbow and neutralize Ivisic. Well, the Croat held his own around the cup. That’s fine. Mitchell still stuffed almost every column on the stat sheet. 

As for Caleb Grill, I think we can say his acclimation period is over. Matt Watkins will cover this topic more extensively in the verdict, but even if Grill’s not taking a shot, he’s straining defenses. The gravity he creates forces defenses to top-lock on screens or show aggressively in handoffs. That creates space for cutters. Grill also exploits it by using away screens to curl toward the rim. Meanwhile, the senior rebounds well on the defensive end and creates deflections. 

With Pierce, foul trouble limited him to 18:28 of action, but Allen did outstanding work plugging that gap at the four. At least defensively. Allen did fantastic work sliding and staying attached to drivers before walling up. He also created several deflections on angle cuts and bothered bigs. That makes it easy to overlook the two times he was denied when jumping against the Hogs’ rim protectors. 

Meanwhile, Perkins and Bates each embodied their reputations. Bates rode an early heater to score 13 of his 15 points, and Perkins brutishly punished Arkansas’ young guards on early-clock rim attacks. 

Above all, Gates and his staff continue offering us more evidence they’ve found a coherent structure for the rotation. Thirteen Tigers saw action on Saturday, but only eight played more than 10 minutes and consumed more than 94 percent of the total allotment. 

Contrary to recent trends, Calipari leaned heavily on Ivisic, a stretch five, which eased the need for MU to feed heavy PT to Josh Gray or Peyton Marshall. Meanwhile, the play of MU’s backcourt meant Marques Warrick’s services weren’t in high demand. 

It’s also not something to fret over. MU’s reached a point where it knows who it can rely on each night and retains the flexibility – as in the case of Allen – to adjust based on a scouting report or how a game flows. 

And as we noted before tip-off, it’s a circumstance that probably leaves Calipari a bit envious of his colleagues in Columbia.