Lineup Review: Mizzou showed boring — and welcome — competence against Bethune-Cookman

On Sunday, Missouri achieved a boring feat in an 82-60 win over Bethune-Cookman: executing a scout. 

Ahead of the last buy game of the season, MU’s staff probably allotted a decent chunk of film review to slowing point guard Arterio Morris. Their talking points probably mirrored ours. The former McDonald’s All-American craves angles created by ball screens. But if you show him bodies, he’ll settle for jumpers. Or he’ll reject a screen and attack baseline.

The plan laid was probably easy to understand: a big man will, at the very least, play at the level of the screen, or softly hedge. Should Morris reject it, stay attached to his hip, use the baseline as a defender and usher him toward help. 

How did the Tigers do? Check out the tape.

Morris finished with 11 points on 4 of 9 shooting and committed three turnovers. Was it his worst performance of the campaign? No, that came last night at Saint Louis. But we’re grading on a curve, folks. 

Mizzou posted its third-best defensive rating of the season, including its second-best turnover rate and second-best rebound rate. It also kept Daniel Rouzan, an undersized post-up technician, under wraps. Although the Tigers still leaked oil – posting a minus-14.3 net rating – in roughly nine minutes of garbage time.

Even a modicum of defensive consistency can help you overcome issues like, say, turning the ball over seven times in the opening nine minutes. When the opponent’s chief creator is locked down, and the rest of his teammates are also coughing the ball up, you can withstand your offense sputtering early on. 

Matters got a little dicey when MU gave up back-to-back threes in transition, letting the Wildcats draw within 20-18 midway through the first half. Yet MU got back to the yeoman’s work of stacking up stops and steadily stretching its lead back to nine points by the under-four timeout and to 39-24 by halftime.

Just looking at the substitution pattern, which is below, wouldn’t leave you thinking too much was amiss inside Mizzou Arena. 

Out of the locker room, MU promptly went on a xx-xx run to blow the lead open to xx points, maintaining it until garbage time started with 8:55 to go. That’s what NCAA Tournament teams routinely do – showing bland competence. How many times has that happened over a dozen games? Maybe three times?

We shouldn’t blow this data point out of proportion. That said, we can bask in a little sense of relief. Moreover, the result came during a week where MU clearly embraced what has been apparent for a while: the jumbo lineup was a doomed experiment.

The starting lineup has been amended in the past two games. From our seat, the changes could be more, um, radical. But internally, there’s still a belief that Shawn Phillips Jr. can be helpful and that he’s not the sole culprit for wonky spacing. For example, there are possessions where guards attack when they should be looking for Phillips to duck in and seal. 

Yet there are also adjustments worth noting. Mark Mitchell spent zero minutes on the wing. Now out from under the weather, some lineups on Sunday used Jevon Porter for longer stretches at the five. Luke Northweather is getting more run with key cogs. And Mack’s time with Phillips on the floor has been lessened. 

Should those adaptations have come sooner? Sure. But what matters now is the MU’s staff is making the kinds of incremental changes that – over time – produce buy-in and build toward optimizing talent. That’ll get easier once Jayden Stone finishes ramping up his stamina before SEC play begins. 

Yet look at the position performances from Sunday. We know it was a banner day for Mitchell, Crews, and Anthony Robinson II, but the scoring margins were equal among the Tigers seeing the heaviest action. (Poor Seb, though.) In some games, there’s been a wide gap in the scoring margins for Northweather and Phillips at the five. Not on Sunday, which suggests better lineup construction. 

So, the staffing is doing its job and trying to position its talent for success. The players did their job in digesting a scout and carried it out. Any lapses in concentration were brief and didn’t ratchet up game pressure. And in the end, Mizzou beat the forecasted margin by four points. 

At times, these reviews descend into minutiae about micro adjustments to the scheme, but I’ve tried to avoid that this time around. 

We took our fair share of whacks at the Truman-shaped piñata that was rotation management coming out of Border War. We bemoaned the lack of focus shown against Alabama State. But Sunday was – objectively – an improvement. And when gripes are addressed – even if partially – that merits a reprieve from bellyaching. 

To be clear: I have no idea if Sunday marks a turning point. 

What I do know is that it was nice to spend a couple of hours watching a team do what it’s expected to do and move on. 

And we’ll see if Braggin’ Rights gives us more evidence for optimism.