This was awful. Everything that felt so good when the shots fell against Florida felt that bad tonight. Missouri was never in this game. It was 8-0 less than three minutes in. Missouri never got closer than 7 points after that. The Tigers had 3 points after eight minutes.
This was Kim Anderson level bad. Easily the worst performance I can remember off the top of my head in Cuonzo Martin's three years (and, yes, I know they lost to Charleston Southern and, yes, I believe this was worse). Not only was everything about the offense terrible, but the defense allowed the Bulldogs to shoot 60.7% in the first half and score 40 points. Nothing after that even mattered. Everyone was just going through the motions for the last 20 minutes.
Individually Kobe Brown scored 14 points and that was nice. Other than that? Yuck.
Javon Pickett had nine points...but also had four fouls and five turnovers in 19 minutes.
Mark Smith scored eight points and took one shot that wasn't a three all night.
Mitchell Smith was 1-7.
Torrence Watson missed all five of his shots.
Fresh off perhaps his best game where he looked like an all-SEC player, Dru Smith scored two points and committed four turnovers in 32 minutes. That can't happen. Not to the guy who's supposed to be the best player on the team. Off nights are fine. That was catastrophic...on the same night everyone else was also terrible.
Big picture, they're 9-7, 1-3 in the league with another road game coming up. Could they win on Saturday at Alabama? Sure. Is there any reason to expect them to? Not particularly. But that's the point: We have no idea what to expect. This team played its best game of the year on Saturday and then 72 hours later followed it with its worst game of the year. That's what I expect we'll see all year. We're all busy predicting the schedule and the truth is who knows because who knows which team shows up? The last three games have been horrific, amazing, something worse than horrific. Who knows what Saturday will be? Or any other day?
And when that's the case, the chance that you're going to get consistent enough to suddenly reel off the kind of streak this team needs to get in the tournament just isn't very realistic.
Missouri can afford to lose six more games this season and feel pretty decent about its chances going into the SEC Tournament (that would mean they'd have to go 9-6). Maybe it will happen. I don't have a very good feeling about it though.
This was Kim Anderson level bad. Easily the worst performance I can remember off the top of my head in Cuonzo Martin's three years (and, yes, I know they lost to Charleston Southern and, yes, I believe this was worse). Not only was everything about the offense terrible, but the defense allowed the Bulldogs to shoot 60.7% in the first half and score 40 points. Nothing after that even mattered. Everyone was just going through the motions for the last 20 minutes.
Individually Kobe Brown scored 14 points and that was nice. Other than that? Yuck.
Javon Pickett had nine points...but also had four fouls and five turnovers in 19 minutes.
Mark Smith scored eight points and took one shot that wasn't a three all night.
Mitchell Smith was 1-7.
Torrence Watson missed all five of his shots.
Fresh off perhaps his best game where he looked like an all-SEC player, Dru Smith scored two points and committed four turnovers in 32 minutes. That can't happen. Not to the guy who's supposed to be the best player on the team. Off nights are fine. That was catastrophic...on the same night everyone else was also terrible.
Big picture, they're 9-7, 1-3 in the league with another road game coming up. Could they win on Saturday at Alabama? Sure. Is there any reason to expect them to? Not particularly. But that's the point: We have no idea what to expect. This team played its best game of the year on Saturday and then 72 hours later followed it with its worst game of the year. That's what I expect we'll see all year. We're all busy predicting the schedule and the truth is who knows because who knows which team shows up? The last three games have been horrific, amazing, something worse than horrific. Who knows what Saturday will be? Or any other day?
And when that's the case, the chance that you're going to get consistent enough to suddenly reel off the kind of streak this team needs to get in the tournament just isn't very realistic.
Missouri can afford to lose six more games this season and feel pretty decent about its chances going into the SEC Tournament (that would mean they'd have to go 9-6). Maybe it will happen. I don't have a very good feeling about it though.
