This is the recipe for Mizzou this year. This was a terrible basketball game to watch for a neutral observer, with more than a foul a minute and 42 combined free throw attempts, but if Mizzou is going to get to 16-18 wins this year, this is how they have to do it. Ugly the game up, play good defense, live at the line, TAKE CARE OF THE BASKETBALL, and lean on your depth to absorb foul trouble of your own. Jump shooting is going to be an issue, and scoring will be a challenge all year, but if they can do those things, they'll at least be in every game and win more than they lose. That's the recipe.
Can't say enough about Jordan Geist. When the officials set the tone by calling everything early, Geist rose to the challenge and carried the team in a way we haven't seen from him yet. 21 points on only 10 field goal attempts will play. He almost single-handedly got their entire team in foul trouble with 15 free throw attempts and another 3-4 offensive fouls drawn while flopping around on push-offs and screens. He's a Tiger, so I'll call him crafty, but OSU undoubtedly hates him tonight.
Another huge part of Geist's game tonight: ZERO turnovers. Xavier Pinson had one. Nine turnovers for the team on 66 possessions will play every night. I think a huge part of that was playing Pinson and Geist next to each other in the back court. They both split the primary ballhandling duties fairly evenly and seemed to take a lot of pressure off each other. If Missouri's "shooters" can't hit shots anyway, I like the idea of essentially abandoning the three point line entirely and focusing on getting in the paint and to the line, two things Pinson and Geist did very well tonight. Oregon State isn't the best defensive team that Mizzou will face all year, but that was an impressive performance from a Missouri team that has been very willingly coughing it up all year long. More of that please.
Really nice bounce back game from Puryear. He came out strong and provided a nice scoring punch in the first half while the rest of the team caught its bearings. Cooled down a bit in the second half, but 17 points on 10 shots and 6-6 from the line is a great night. Second straight game with over 10% OR%, so that's something to keep an eye on in the future.
Speaking of offensive rebounds, one area that we've seen Mizzou struggle with in two games in the Virgin Islands is on the defensive boards. We saw more of the same with OSU rebounding 39% of their misses. To their credit, Missouri did a nice job in grabbing 32% of their own misses, and they've done a nice job on the defensive boards in their games on the mainland, but they'll struggle in SEC play if they keep giving teams second and third chances.
Jeremiah Tilmon and Mark Smith today: 12 points, four turnovers, and 10 fouls. That's not a part of the recipe. Thankfully, the rest of the team did a great job in picking those two guys up. Coincidentally, Mizzou's offense looked a lot better when they weren't trying to force-feed Tilmon the ball every time down the court.
