The roller coaster of a basketball season is always wild. I expect it to be even moreso this year in the SEC. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again now, winning is hard, winning on the road is really hard.
Before this game if you’d have asked me if I would be happy with a 1-1 split on the road, I’d have said yes in a heart beat. But things never go how you want them, and when Mizzou won at Rupp, a place they’d never won before, we got greedy. After all, Ole Miss was bad, right?
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Well, that’s not a direct question. For the SEC this season, Ole Miss has been one of the worst teams. But they’re still a top 100 level team with some good players and a few of those good players had very good nights.
Still, having watched Missouri beat two of the better teams in the league only to lose to one of the worst, it feels like a big missed opportunity. Missouri zoomed out to a 22-12 lead and prompty went to sleep. They made only one basket over the course of 8 minutes of game action, and missed six three pointers in that stretch. Plus six turnovers.
Missing threes and turning the ball over ended up being a theme for the day, and the Tigers short-lived two game winning streak was done.
TEAM STATS
On the rebounding, Missouri ended up +1, but allowed four offensive rebounds in the final four minutes, including two in the final minute on a single possession when Mizzou was down 3 and needed a top. Instead the last Offensive Rebound resulted in a tip in that virtually clinched the game.
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You make your life a lot harder when you shoot 29.2% from three and 50% from the free throw line. Ole Miss hasn’t been a good shooting team all season and they were shooting it well from outside thanks to Malik Dia and AJ Storr combining to hit 6/9 threes, and 9/10 free throws. Meanwhile players not named Jayden Stone and Mark Mitchell made 3 of 18 from distance, and 2/9 at the FT line.
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The other frustrating part of the turnovers is how success Mizzou was on offense when they weren’t turning the ball over. Granted the FT and 3PT shooting was poor, but they were generating good 2PT looks when they took care of the ball. They just needed more of them. Ole Miss attempted 12 more 2s than the Tigers did.
INDIVIDUAL STATSTrifecta: Mark Mitchell, Jayden Stone, Shawn Phillips
On the season: Mark Mitchell 32, Jacob Crews 19, Anthony Robinson 17, Jayden Stone 12, Jevon Porter 5, Shawn Phillips Jr. 5, Sebastian Mack 3, Trent Pierce 1, T.O. Barrett 1, Annor Boateng 1
This was a game where Missouri really needed one more player to step up. As I mentioned above, Stone and Mitchell were excellent. 36 points, 7/9 from inside the arc, 4/6 outside the arc, 10/15 at the FT line, plus 12 rebounds and 11 assists.
Ant had a really rough shooting night. And I didn’t know it was possible to make 6/7 shots from the floor and still end up with an ORtg of 77.6, but that’s what Shawn Phillips did. He was really good attacking the rim, but three turnovers, missing all your free throws, I guess will do that to you.
We’re now at three SEC games, and Dennis Gates has shortened the rotation and deployed a lot of Anthony Robinson and Mark Mitchell. T.O. Barrett and Annor Boateng continue to see the floor in short stints, and neither have been able to provide any type of offensive punch.
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The Floor Rates also tell the story the rest of the stats do: Mark+Jayden = Good!
Everyone else = bad.
Fortunately for Mizzou they’re back at it at home on Wednesday. Unfortunately for Mizzou it’s against a team Gates has yet to beat. Fortunately for Gates that team is no longer coached by the guy who’s beaten him 3 times. Auburn comes to Mizzou Arena after throttling the Arkansas Razorbacks, but they got that game after starting 0-2, including a weird loss to Texas A&M, and an Overtime loss at Georgia.
Missouri really needs to win this game, I think. After picking up a road win, you don’t want to give a home court game right back. You want to stay one up on the road, and undefeated at home. If they play as well as they did against Florida they should win.
I’ve moved the glossary to a static page at RockM+ to reduce the size of the bottom of this post.
So if you’re looking for what any of these stats mean, Check out the Glossary!
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In attempting to update Study Hall, I’ve moved away from Touches/Possession and moving into the Rates a little more. This is a little experimental so if there’s something you’d like to see let me know and I’ll see if there’s an easy visual way to present it.
If there’s something you’d like to see more of an explanation on, drop a note and let me know!