Let’s start this review with a quick guessing game: At what point in the first half against Prairie View A&M did Missouri run a set that wasn’t rudimentary zone offense or pick-and-roll?
Answering is tricky, no?
There was a stretch where the Tigers reeled off eight consecutive transition chances in a row as part of a 20-2 run that supplied a commanding margin in MU’s 91-73 victory on Monday night. The game fell into an easy rhythm: solid defending for 20 seconds, a contested two-pointer, the Panthers bailing on the defense glass, and MU steaming into the front court to hunt early-clock offense.
It wasn’t until 71 seconds remained until the break that coach Dennis Gates signaled for a horns set – a possession that ended with Shawn Phillips missing an easy lob at the rim. By then, the Tigers already led by 26 points.
My point? This game was largely dull – until Nicholas Randall’s fouling spree ushered in a 21-6 surge by the Panthers to make the scoreline respectable. I’ll abstain from a stemwinder about slippage in garbage time. Sam Snelling already gave you that in Study Hall.
That late-game leakage sullied a straightforward blowout. Sometimes, these matchups offer a glimpse at teams tinkering with sets or lineup combinations. Unfortunately, Tuesday didn’t supply those insights. Almost half of MU’s possessions unfolded in transition or early in the shot clock. Otherwise, the Tigers defaulted to five-out or four-out alignments and ball-screens.
Personnel-wise, we saw Shawn Phillips Jr. struggle – again – with bringing the ball down to his waist and exposing it to slaps and digs. Meanwhile, T.O. Barrett’s slipshod handling – he finished with a 43.5 percent turnover rate! – keeps undermining his case as a reliable backup for Anthony Robinson II.
I’ll show you the substitution pattern below, but it only reveals that the talent gap between these programs meant most groups found success.
The arrival of garbage time with 12:32 to play in the second ushered in a stalemate. Then, Randall checked in and delivered a display that would make Jeremiah Tilmon’s foul woes seem modest. The free throws he supplied to Prairie View served as kindling for their run, and it was telling that Gates left the freshman on the floor, an implicit demand that a foundering group figure out how to stop the mess it was making.
Similarly, most lineups that saw more than a minute of action posted positive returns. And it’s easy to spot the quintet that allowed the rope to slip by allowing a 14-6 stretch over the final 3:30 of game time. Let your eyes drift to the column denoting who was running the point, and you’ll see that the lineups with negative scoring margins had Barrett at the helm.
The variety of frustration on Tuesday night was distinct from the kind induced by SEMO, a game in which MU’s focus and communication were lacking. That wasn’t the case for long stretches against Prairie View. The Tigers only allowed 0.78 points per possession in normal time – their best mark of the season. Often, Prairie View’s makes came down to tough shotmaking. The opening 20 minutes also saw MU put together its most surehanded stretch of the season, posting a 3.0 BCI going into the locker room.
Point being, MU spent roughly 30 minutes putting together the kind of controlled performance you expect from quality teams. Then, they spent the final minutes undermining its importance. The stain is obvious in player performance, too.
Here are the margins for affected players if you subtract the final 3:30:
- Sebastian Mack: +7
- T.O. Barrett: +7
- Jacob Crews: +20 (Wing)
- Jacob Crews: +2 (Hybrid)
- Jayden Stone: +8 (Wing)
- Jayden Stone: +26 (CG)
- Luke Northweather: +6
Now, it doesn’t totally override a bleak stat line for Mack, who had two points on 1 of 7 shooting and a couple of bad-pass turnovers in transition. However, Barrett notched six points on three touches and only allowed 0.4 points per possession defensively in a little more than 15 minutes of action. That’s quality work from a reserve ball-handler. Yet he was given a chance to land the plane in the closing minutes. Instead of touching down safely, he’s prompted a review of black-box data.
Should we deem the display a dark omen? It’s the second time in five games the Tigers have underperformed forecasted margins by more than 10 points. That only happened once in non-conference play last season.
Well, I’ll hedge. I think part of the issue was acute and attributable to keeping Randall in the game and, after he checked out, rolling with a four-guard lineup that lacked a proven initiator. But if you want to point to poor stretches against Howard, SEMO and VMI, that’s a fair rebuttal.
Tonight, Missouri supposedly gets Annor Boateng back for limited action, and as I noted in a review of lineup data earlier this week, it’s probably overdue. We’ve probably seen almost all reasonable lineup combinations you would expect from having 10 players available. Until we know which Tigers will be long-term components of the rotation, it’s hard to know how much weight to place on these performances.
Assuming Boateng and Trent Pierce are steadily reintegrated, we might look back at games like this one as a byproduct of operating short-handed. Conversely, if those perimeter players are only sporadically involved, they might shift from outliers to the baseline.
What I do feel sure about is that MU used the waning to minutes to create intrigue where it didn’t need it at all.