I’m not going to sugarcoat it. That was a dismal first half of basketball. Just all around not fun to watch, The two teams combined to shoot 16-62 from the field. Yuck.
Missouri played good defense for the most part. The Tigers held SMU without a field goal for nearly seven minutes, and the Mustangs shot 9-29 on the half. The problem for the Tigers was their offense was even worse. Missouri didn’t score a point in the final 7:19 of that half. That is woeful. SMU, on the other hand, got it together and finished the half on an 18-0 run. And thus the Mustangs lead 29-18 at the break. I had typed something up about how that was an ugly half but as a team that just lost to UMKC you can’t be upset about being in the game, no matter how it looks. Deleted that. I’m really not sure 11 points is a manageable deficit for the Tigers given how the offense looked in that first half.
What went wrong on the offensive end? Pretty much everything. Mizzou looked stagnant. It settled for a few threes from the perimeter, shooting 3-10 from deep. SMU wouldn’t let the Tigers get anything going in transition. Mizzou turned the ball over 10 times (I’m going to go ahead and declare this team leads the country in charges with no research). And when Mizzou did get decent looks, it missed a lot of them around the rim. Add it all up, and the Tigers shot 7-33 from the field.
The deficit would be even worse except for Missouri’s rebounding. The Tigers grabbed nine offensive boards compared to five for SMU and lead the total rebounding battle 25-22. Jordan Wilmore had five of those boards. He may be frustrating on the offensive end, but this Mizzou team actually looks like it needs him on the floor. Kobe Brown looks like the only player Missouri has who can create decent shots for himself and others, but I think Brown is trying to do too much, and also SMU knows that and is keying on him. Missouri needs someone else to step up. I don’t know who that could be.
Missouri played good defense for the most part. The Tigers held SMU without a field goal for nearly seven minutes, and the Mustangs shot 9-29 on the half. The problem for the Tigers was their offense was even worse. Missouri didn’t score a point in the final 7:19 of that half. That is woeful. SMU, on the other hand, got it together and finished the half on an 18-0 run. And thus the Mustangs lead 29-18 at the break. I had typed something up about how that was an ugly half but as a team that just lost to UMKC you can’t be upset about being in the game, no matter how it looks. Deleted that. I’m really not sure 11 points is a manageable deficit for the Tigers given how the offense looked in that first half.
What went wrong on the offensive end? Pretty much everything. Mizzou looked stagnant. It settled for a few threes from the perimeter, shooting 3-10 from deep. SMU wouldn’t let the Tigers get anything going in transition. Mizzou turned the ball over 10 times (I’m going to go ahead and declare this team leads the country in charges with no research). And when Mizzou did get decent looks, it missed a lot of them around the rim. Add it all up, and the Tigers shot 7-33 from the field.
The deficit would be even worse except for Missouri’s rebounding. The Tigers grabbed nine offensive boards compared to five for SMU and lead the total rebounding battle 25-22. Jordan Wilmore had five of those boards. He may be frustrating on the offensive end, but this Mizzou team actually looks like it needs him on the floor. Kobe Brown looks like the only player Missouri has who can create decent shots for himself and others, but I think Brown is trying to do too much, and also SMU knows that and is keying on him. Missouri needs someone else to step up. I don’t know who that could be.
