If there was ever a team that needed a bye week, it was probably Mizzou.
The loss of Sean East II from the lineup due to a knee injury sank the Tigers to new lows this past week. The team suffered its two biggest home losses of the season, falling to Texas A&M by 19 and Mississippi State by 24.
In just about every game this season, the one thing you say about Missouri was that the team fought. The black and gold rarely got blown out because, even when trailing big, it refused to roll over. The team’s 20-point rally in a 70-68 win over Minnesota was likely a direct result of that.
But you can’t really say the same about MU’s most recent loss to the Bulldogs. Mizzou only trailed by four at halftime, then got outscored 45-25 in the second half. The Tigers had a season-high 20 turnovers and stopped getting back on defense altogether on some possessions.
If the season were a game, Missouri just gave up an 11-0 run and this week is the timeout a coach calls to keep the momentum from getting out of hand. The team has seven more opportunities to avoid going winless in SEC play. Four of them are on the road. Two of the home games are against top-three teams in the conference, Tennessee and Auburn. And KenPom doesn’t project the Tigers to be the favorite in any of the matchups.
That doesn’t mean their opponents aren’t beatable. It just means Mizzou’s going to have to be better than it has been.
If there was one silver lining to East being out, it’s that it allowed Nick Honor to regain his rhythm. Honor hasn’t been one to help carry the Tigers’ offense this season. He’s fourth on the team in scoring, averaging 10.8 points per game. According to KenPom, he only takes 20.2% of the team’s shots when he’s on the floor.
Those numbers increased when Missouri needed him to step up in East’s absence. Honor averaged 17 points per game in his past two outings, taking 28.4% of the team’s shots. He’s been a 40% shooter from beyond the arc all year long, but that percentage held even as his attempts increased against the Aggies and Bulldogs. He started dropping in floaters rather than picking up his dribble and getting stuck in the paint, a part of his game we haven’t seen much of before. He sat for all of four minutes in those two games combined.
Honor became the player head coach Dennis Gates has been politely urging him to be since he joined the black and gold last season. He wasn’t perfect in his role — he posted a three-to-nine assist-to-turnover ratio — but it was still a significantly better performance than those he’d turned in throughout the last few weeks.
Gates said during “Tiger Talk” on Mizzou Radio on Monday that he held East out the past two games knowing the team could get him some extra rest going into a bye week and that East practiced minimally earlier that day. But Gates also said that, when East returns, they need Honor to be the same player he has been recently, providing a high level of floor spacing both off the dribble and off the catch that pulls away a defense’s attention.
It didn’t sound like Trent Pierce or Caleb Grill had been cleared to return to play yet, though. East and Jesus Carralero Martin, who played in the first half of the team’s game against MSU working his way back from a foot injury, might be the only reinforcements on the way.
That could be enough to inject the fight back into the Tigers. But they’ll need more than just fight to get their first conference win.
On Tuesday, Ross Dellenger of Yahoo! Sports reported that Power 5 (or Power 4) conference leaders are exploring the possibility of expanding the NCAA tournament.
And immediately, all of the talking heads got into an uproar about it.
I’ve been someone who’s on the record as pro-expansion. My main reasons are that, in its current setup, the college basketball regular season doesn’t matter enough and the postseason is too exclusive, especially for non-P5 teams. Because, really, what does winning a conference regular season title get you right now?
Alabama was the No. 1 seed in the SEC tournament last year. It got a bye to the quarterfinals, no different than the second, third and fourth seeds. And in both the quarter- and semifinals, No. 2 seed Texas A&M took on a lower-seeded opponent than the Crimson Tide. So again, what was the advantage that Alabama got for winning the regular season?
Only allowing conference tournament winners to receive automatic bids leaves a lot of good teams on the cutting room floor, too. Back in 2018, UMBC became the first No. 16 seed to take down a No. 1 seed in Virginia. UMBC wasn’t the American East Conference regular season winner, though — that was Vermont, who’d gone 27-8 overall and 15-1 in conference play. St. Peter’s won the MAAC tournament because the No. 1 seed, a 25-8, Rick Pitino-led Iona team, got upset by Rider — St. Peter’s went on to make a run to the Elite Eight. If the Golden Retrievers and Peacocks were capable of taking down some of the top teams in the country, it’s not crazy to think the Catamounts and Gaels might’ve been, too.
There are 362 NCAA Division I teams. The 68 that reach the postseason represent just 18.7% of those across the sport. Compared to the NBA or NFL where half the teams get in and it’s a stark difference.
And so, my ideal scenario is something like a 96-team tournament where conference tournament winners still receive an autobid, but regular season champs do, too. And teams that win both get a bye to the Round of 64 and everyone else gets seeded in with the at-large bids. That would add a lot of stakes all throughout the year and add more madness to March, rather than “diluting” the product.
However, that doesn’t sound like what the P5 commissioners have in mind. Expansion is inevitable because the commissioners already didn’t think they were getting enough bids and now they’re adding more teams to their leagues. It’s going to put the tournament’s Selection Committee in some really tough situations.
But it sounds like their solution is to just blindly add more at-large bids. Which doesn’t solve any of the issues that the current structure has.
“I want to see the best teams competing for a national championship, no different than (the Big Ten and SEC) want to see in football,” Big 12 Commissioner Brett Yormark said. “I’m not sure that is currently happening.”
He’s right to a degree. North Texas is an example that comes to mind. The Mean Green were 26-7 at the end of the Conference USA tournament and didn’t make it to the Big Dance probably because it lost to UAB in the semifinals. Instead, UNT got invited to the NIT, won five consecutive games and claimed the title, defeating UAB in the championship round. The team finished rated No. 31 in KenPom’s adjusted efficiency margin and its head coach, Grant McCasland, is now crushing it in his first year at Texas Tech. That’s probably a team that belonged in the real tournament!
But that’s also not at all who Yormark has in mind as one of the “best teams” not getting an opportunity to compete. He’s probably referring to a school like Oklahoma State last year, which went 20-16 overall and 8-10 in Big 12 play and … lost to North Texas in the NIT quarterfinals.
And a world in which OSU makes it in an expanded field and UNT doesn’t is absolutely cause for concern. It pays credence to every argument that expanding “allows everybody in” and “is all about the money” and every other possible gripe you could have about letting more teams in.
The NIT announced this season that it’s moving away from handing out autobids to regular season champions. “Instead, the NIT will guarantee two teams (based on the NET rankings) from each of six conferences (Atlantic Coast, Big East, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12 and Southeastern). The top two teams in the NET rankings not qualifying for the NCAA men’s basketball tournament from each conference, regardless of won-loss record, will be selected. Additionally, the 12 teams automatically selected will be guaranteed the opportunity to host a game in the first round of the NIT. Once the 12 automatic qualifying schools have been selected, the NIT Committee will select the 20 best teams available to complete the tournament’s 32-team field.”
It’s a truly terrible decision. There are going to be teams like Vermont, Iona or North Texas that end up playing in the CIT or the CBI because of it. It hurts college basketball. You might be afraid of bad high-major teams sneaking their way into the NCAA tournament if it expands. But it’s now happening in the NIT because it’s NOT expanding.
And so, again, I think the NCAA tournament has to grow from 68. But given how the decision-makers have handled everything else — from conference realignment to the CFP — I’m dubious it’s going to turn out well for the fans.
The loss of Sean East II from the lineup due to a knee injury sank the Tigers to new lows this past week. The team suffered its two biggest home losses of the season, falling to Texas A&M by 19 and Mississippi State by 24.
In just about every game this season, the one thing you say about Missouri was that the team fought. The black and gold rarely got blown out because, even when trailing big, it refused to roll over. The team’s 20-point rally in a 70-68 win over Minnesota was likely a direct result of that.
But you can’t really say the same about MU’s most recent loss to the Bulldogs. Mizzou only trailed by four at halftime, then got outscored 45-25 in the second half. The Tigers had a season-high 20 turnovers and stopped getting back on defense altogether on some possessions.
If the season were a game, Missouri just gave up an 11-0 run and this week is the timeout a coach calls to keep the momentum from getting out of hand. The team has seven more opportunities to avoid going winless in SEC play. Four of them are on the road. Two of the home games are against top-three teams in the conference, Tennessee and Auburn. And KenPom doesn’t project the Tigers to be the favorite in any of the matchups.
That doesn’t mean their opponents aren’t beatable. It just means Mizzou’s going to have to be better than it has been.
If there was one silver lining to East being out, it’s that it allowed Nick Honor to regain his rhythm. Honor hasn’t been one to help carry the Tigers’ offense this season. He’s fourth on the team in scoring, averaging 10.8 points per game. According to KenPom, he only takes 20.2% of the team’s shots when he’s on the floor.
Those numbers increased when Missouri needed him to step up in East’s absence. Honor averaged 17 points per game in his past two outings, taking 28.4% of the team’s shots. He’s been a 40% shooter from beyond the arc all year long, but that percentage held even as his attempts increased against the Aggies and Bulldogs. He started dropping in floaters rather than picking up his dribble and getting stuck in the paint, a part of his game we haven’t seen much of before. He sat for all of four minutes in those two games combined.
Honor became the player head coach Dennis Gates has been politely urging him to be since he joined the black and gold last season. He wasn’t perfect in his role — he posted a three-to-nine assist-to-turnover ratio — but it was still a significantly better performance than those he’d turned in throughout the last few weeks.
Gates said during “Tiger Talk” on Mizzou Radio on Monday that he held East out the past two games knowing the team could get him some extra rest going into a bye week and that East practiced minimally earlier that day. But Gates also said that, when East returns, they need Honor to be the same player he has been recently, providing a high level of floor spacing both off the dribble and off the catch that pulls away a defense’s attention.
It didn’t sound like Trent Pierce or Caleb Grill had been cleared to return to play yet, though. East and Jesus Carralero Martin, who played in the first half of the team’s game against MSU working his way back from a foot injury, might be the only reinforcements on the way.
That could be enough to inject the fight back into the Tigers. But they’ll need more than just fight to get their first conference win.
On Tuesday, Ross Dellenger of Yahoo! Sports reported that Power 5 (or Power 4) conference leaders are exploring the possibility of expanding the NCAA tournament.
And immediately, all of the talking heads got into an uproar about it.
I’ve been someone who’s on the record as pro-expansion. My main reasons are that, in its current setup, the college basketball regular season doesn’t matter enough and the postseason is too exclusive, especially for non-P5 teams. Because, really, what does winning a conference regular season title get you right now?
Alabama was the No. 1 seed in the SEC tournament last year. It got a bye to the quarterfinals, no different than the second, third and fourth seeds. And in both the quarter- and semifinals, No. 2 seed Texas A&M took on a lower-seeded opponent than the Crimson Tide. So again, what was the advantage that Alabama got for winning the regular season?
Only allowing conference tournament winners to receive automatic bids leaves a lot of good teams on the cutting room floor, too. Back in 2018, UMBC became the first No. 16 seed to take down a No. 1 seed in Virginia. UMBC wasn’t the American East Conference regular season winner, though — that was Vermont, who’d gone 27-8 overall and 15-1 in conference play. St. Peter’s won the MAAC tournament because the No. 1 seed, a 25-8, Rick Pitino-led Iona team, got upset by Rider — St. Peter’s went on to make a run to the Elite Eight. If the Golden Retrievers and Peacocks were capable of taking down some of the top teams in the country, it’s not crazy to think the Catamounts and Gaels might’ve been, too.
There are 362 NCAA Division I teams. The 68 that reach the postseason represent just 18.7% of those across the sport. Compared to the NBA or NFL where half the teams get in and it’s a stark difference.
And so, my ideal scenario is something like a 96-team tournament where conference tournament winners still receive an autobid, but regular season champs do, too. And teams that win both get a bye to the Round of 64 and everyone else gets seeded in with the at-large bids. That would add a lot of stakes all throughout the year and add more madness to March, rather than “diluting” the product.
However, that doesn’t sound like what the P5 commissioners have in mind. Expansion is inevitable because the commissioners already didn’t think they were getting enough bids and now they’re adding more teams to their leagues. It’s going to put the tournament’s Selection Committee in some really tough situations.
But it sounds like their solution is to just blindly add more at-large bids. Which doesn’t solve any of the issues that the current structure has.
“I want to see the best teams competing for a national championship, no different than (the Big Ten and SEC) want to see in football,” Big 12 Commissioner Brett Yormark said. “I’m not sure that is currently happening.”
He’s right to a degree. North Texas is an example that comes to mind. The Mean Green were 26-7 at the end of the Conference USA tournament and didn’t make it to the Big Dance probably because it lost to UAB in the semifinals. Instead, UNT got invited to the NIT, won five consecutive games and claimed the title, defeating UAB in the championship round. The team finished rated No. 31 in KenPom’s adjusted efficiency margin and its head coach, Grant McCasland, is now crushing it in his first year at Texas Tech. That’s probably a team that belonged in the real tournament!
But that’s also not at all who Yormark has in mind as one of the “best teams” not getting an opportunity to compete. He’s probably referring to a school like Oklahoma State last year, which went 20-16 overall and 8-10 in Big 12 play and … lost to North Texas in the NIT quarterfinals.
And a world in which OSU makes it in an expanded field and UNT doesn’t is absolutely cause for concern. It pays credence to every argument that expanding “allows everybody in” and “is all about the money” and every other possible gripe you could have about letting more teams in.
The NIT announced this season that it’s moving away from handing out autobids to regular season champions. “Instead, the NIT will guarantee two teams (based on the NET rankings) from each of six conferences (Atlantic Coast, Big East, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12 and Southeastern). The top two teams in the NET rankings not qualifying for the NCAA men’s basketball tournament from each conference, regardless of won-loss record, will be selected. Additionally, the 12 teams automatically selected will be guaranteed the opportunity to host a game in the first round of the NIT. Once the 12 automatic qualifying schools have been selected, the NIT Committee will select the 20 best teams available to complete the tournament’s 32-team field.”
It’s a truly terrible decision. There are going to be teams like Vermont, Iona or North Texas that end up playing in the CIT or the CBI because of it. It hurts college basketball. You might be afraid of bad high-major teams sneaking their way into the NCAA tournament if it expands. But it’s now happening in the NIT because it’s NOT expanding.
And so, again, I think the NCAA tournament has to grow from 68. But given how the decision-makers have handled everything else — from conference realignment to the CFP — I’m dubious it’s going to turn out well for the fans.
