1) I’m gonna sum this game up in two numbers:
21—Missouri turnovers
16—Missouri field goals
There’s not that much to break down in this one. If both teams play equally, Tennessee is better. The Vols played very well. The Tigers played very poorly. The result is a game that was over six minutes in. It’s really a shame because Missouri was on a national stage in perhaps the most interesting home game it has hosted in nine years (that’s arguable, but you can make that argument) and it simply no-showed. Across the board. No one played well. On either end.
2) Missouri is better than it looked tonight. But it’s not as good as we let ourselves believe. I include myself in that. I let them fool me a little bit. I bought into the idea they had the talent to compete to win the SEC. I don’t believe that. They’re good enough to be in the top half. They might still be good enough to be a top four team. But they aren’t good enough to win this league. We saw a team that was good enough to win the league. On its best night, I don’t think Missouri can look as good as Tennessee did tonight.
3) The biggest issue (obviously) is the shooting. Here are the numbers the last two games:
Overall: 32/107
Three-point: 6/37
Layups and dunks: 18/43
The surprise when you look at those numbers isn't that Missouri got beat by 20 tonight. The surprise is that they didn't get beat by 20 last time out too. If you tell me a team is shooting below 30% from the floor, below 16% from three and well below 50% on layups and dunks over a two-game stretch, I'm just going to assume that team went 0-2 and probably got blown out both times. We talk about the three-point shooting a lot, but in the last two games, Mizzou just hasn't shot it well from anywhere. Tennessee and Bradley are two of the five or so best defensive teams Missouri is probably going to see all year (and maybe even better than that), but they didn't contest every shot. They weren't so good defensively that you should shoot 40% from two feet and in. More than anything, Missouri just needs some guys who make the ball go through the net.
4) There were not positives. I will not pretend there were. Here are some things that stuck out to me as particularly not good on a night full of negatives:
*Mark Smith needs to have a big game against a good team at some point. He did have 15 against Oregon. But he still has trouble being anything other than a spot up shooter against athletic high major teams and he wasn’t even that tonight.
*Kobe Brown should not be allowed to take threes. Mitchell Smith shouldn’t much either, but at least Smith does a lot less of it. Brown came into tonight 4/16. He showed some ability to drive early. He has gotten on the glass and scored at times this year. He is not a jump shooter. Maybe eventually. Not now. He is hardly alone in that feature on this team. I’m not sure who I would say SHOULD take jump shots. But I’m pretty confident it shouldn’t be those guys.
*Jeremiah Tilmon is a very frustrating player. Because we've seen him be good and when he's good, he can be so good. And he can make this team so much better. But there are so many times where he isn't very good or where he just doesn't seem engaged. You've seen the upside and you want more of it, but it just doesn't seem to be something he can tap into consistently. I said before the game Tilmon would have to have a double double for Mizzou to win. He had nine points and four rebounds.
*A game like this does not come down to a play or a possession. So I don’t want to overstate the importance. But there was about 17 seconds late in the first half where it seemed like Mizzou had some shot to make things interesting. The Tigers had gotten back within 12 and forced a turnover…and then Xavier Pinson pulled up from 26 feet without even thinking about passing. He missed, Tennessee scored, the lead was 14 and the game was pretty much over. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think Missouri was making a comeback before the shot. But that shot just can’t happen.
5) You can nitpick the coaching. You can argue about the offense he runs, you can complain about the timeout usage, you can dislike the style of basketball. Tonight wasn’t about any of that to me. Rick Barnes brought two five-stars off the bench. Missouri brought a grad transfer from Hawaii and a former walk-on. This is a solid team. But what has worried me is they don’t have a GUY. They have some pieces. They’re cohesive. They play hard. But talent is going to win more often than not. Recruiting is 80% of the job in college basketball. At an absolute minimum. And it’s 100% fair to call Cuonzo’s recruiting suspect so far.
I think this is still a tournament team. You can make the tournament with talent like he has assembled. You can win a game or two there. It is very difficult—borderline impossible—to win important things (I’m talking conference titles or being a legitimate Final Four threat) without four and five-star talent. Without pros. I don’t see a guy on the roster who is an NBA player. So they can be a good team. But to win important things or to make deep runs, you’re going to have to beat teams that do have those guys. Like the one we saw tonight. It’s not impossible. But it’s really tough.
What worries most is that you don’t see that being different next year. I’m not trying to wish away this year first. But what’s on the horizon next year actually makes this year even more important. They have to make hay now. If they don’t, we’re probably having a real hard discussion a little more than a year from now. And I think that's why you see some of the reactions you do. It's not about tonight. It's about a sense of urgency that this season needs to be maximized in order to feel good about things long term. The question we don't know is what does maximizing this season mean? Before tonight, most of us probably thought that meant being in contention for a league title and a 2 or a 3 seed. After tonight, most probably feel more like in contention for a top four spot and a 6 or a 7 seed. I don't know which of those is more true or if it's somewhere in the middle.
6) I said on the board and on the pregame show that you shouldn’t panic if Missouri was 0-2 this week. I actually expected it. Two of the three hardest games in league play are coming this week. Losing them isn’t a reason to panic. But losing the way they lost tonight is a reason to worry at least. There wasn’t a single possession during which you thought Missouri could win the game. Not one. That’s troublesome. They need to be more competitive on Saturday in Fayetteville.
The feeling isn’t good tonight. I understand what we do after every game is react to the extreme either positively or negatively. We want to make it big picture and see what it means for the next week and the next month and the next year and the future of the program. We don’t have to do it. Tonight doesn’t have to mean too much beyond tonight. There are things to be concerned about. I saw things tonight that tell me this team probably isn’t quite as good as I believed it was before tonight. But it’s also not as bad as you feel like it is right now. Not even close. Missouri had an awful night at an awful time to have an awful night. But the Tigers will still win their share of games. They aren’t on Tennessee’s level right now. But they aren’t this far away and they’re still going to win quite a few games the rest of the way.
21—Missouri turnovers
16—Missouri field goals
There’s not that much to break down in this one. If both teams play equally, Tennessee is better. The Vols played very well. The Tigers played very poorly. The result is a game that was over six minutes in. It’s really a shame because Missouri was on a national stage in perhaps the most interesting home game it has hosted in nine years (that’s arguable, but you can make that argument) and it simply no-showed. Across the board. No one played well. On either end.
2) Missouri is better than it looked tonight. But it’s not as good as we let ourselves believe. I include myself in that. I let them fool me a little bit. I bought into the idea they had the talent to compete to win the SEC. I don’t believe that. They’re good enough to be in the top half. They might still be good enough to be a top four team. But they aren’t good enough to win this league. We saw a team that was good enough to win the league. On its best night, I don’t think Missouri can look as good as Tennessee did tonight.
3) The biggest issue (obviously) is the shooting. Here are the numbers the last two games:
Overall: 32/107
Three-point: 6/37
Layups and dunks: 18/43
The surprise when you look at those numbers isn't that Missouri got beat by 20 tonight. The surprise is that they didn't get beat by 20 last time out too. If you tell me a team is shooting below 30% from the floor, below 16% from three and well below 50% on layups and dunks over a two-game stretch, I'm just going to assume that team went 0-2 and probably got blown out both times. We talk about the three-point shooting a lot, but in the last two games, Mizzou just hasn't shot it well from anywhere. Tennessee and Bradley are two of the five or so best defensive teams Missouri is probably going to see all year (and maybe even better than that), but they didn't contest every shot. They weren't so good defensively that you should shoot 40% from two feet and in. More than anything, Missouri just needs some guys who make the ball go through the net.
4) There were not positives. I will not pretend there were. Here are some things that stuck out to me as particularly not good on a night full of negatives:
*Mark Smith needs to have a big game against a good team at some point. He did have 15 against Oregon. But he still has trouble being anything other than a spot up shooter against athletic high major teams and he wasn’t even that tonight.
*Kobe Brown should not be allowed to take threes. Mitchell Smith shouldn’t much either, but at least Smith does a lot less of it. Brown came into tonight 4/16. He showed some ability to drive early. He has gotten on the glass and scored at times this year. He is not a jump shooter. Maybe eventually. Not now. He is hardly alone in that feature on this team. I’m not sure who I would say SHOULD take jump shots. But I’m pretty confident it shouldn’t be those guys.
*Jeremiah Tilmon is a very frustrating player. Because we've seen him be good and when he's good, he can be so good. And he can make this team so much better. But there are so many times where he isn't very good or where he just doesn't seem engaged. You've seen the upside and you want more of it, but it just doesn't seem to be something he can tap into consistently. I said before the game Tilmon would have to have a double double for Mizzou to win. He had nine points and four rebounds.
*A game like this does not come down to a play or a possession. So I don’t want to overstate the importance. But there was about 17 seconds late in the first half where it seemed like Mizzou had some shot to make things interesting. The Tigers had gotten back within 12 and forced a turnover…and then Xavier Pinson pulled up from 26 feet without even thinking about passing. He missed, Tennessee scored, the lead was 14 and the game was pretty much over. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think Missouri was making a comeback before the shot. But that shot just can’t happen.
5) You can nitpick the coaching. You can argue about the offense he runs, you can complain about the timeout usage, you can dislike the style of basketball. Tonight wasn’t about any of that to me. Rick Barnes brought two five-stars off the bench. Missouri brought a grad transfer from Hawaii and a former walk-on. This is a solid team. But what has worried me is they don’t have a GUY. They have some pieces. They’re cohesive. They play hard. But talent is going to win more often than not. Recruiting is 80% of the job in college basketball. At an absolute minimum. And it’s 100% fair to call Cuonzo’s recruiting suspect so far.
I think this is still a tournament team. You can make the tournament with talent like he has assembled. You can win a game or two there. It is very difficult—borderline impossible—to win important things (I’m talking conference titles or being a legitimate Final Four threat) without four and five-star talent. Without pros. I don’t see a guy on the roster who is an NBA player. So they can be a good team. But to win important things or to make deep runs, you’re going to have to beat teams that do have those guys. Like the one we saw tonight. It’s not impossible. But it’s really tough.
What worries most is that you don’t see that being different next year. I’m not trying to wish away this year first. But what’s on the horizon next year actually makes this year even more important. They have to make hay now. If they don’t, we’re probably having a real hard discussion a little more than a year from now. And I think that's why you see some of the reactions you do. It's not about tonight. It's about a sense of urgency that this season needs to be maximized in order to feel good about things long term. The question we don't know is what does maximizing this season mean? Before tonight, most of us probably thought that meant being in contention for a league title and a 2 or a 3 seed. After tonight, most probably feel more like in contention for a top four spot and a 6 or a 7 seed. I don't know which of those is more true or if it's somewhere in the middle.
6) I said on the board and on the pregame show that you shouldn’t panic if Missouri was 0-2 this week. I actually expected it. Two of the three hardest games in league play are coming this week. Losing them isn’t a reason to panic. But losing the way they lost tonight is a reason to worry at least. There wasn’t a single possession during which you thought Missouri could win the game. Not one. That’s troublesome. They need to be more competitive on Saturday in Fayetteville.
The feeling isn’t good tonight. I understand what we do after every game is react to the extreme either positively or negatively. We want to make it big picture and see what it means for the next week and the next month and the next year and the future of the program. We don’t have to do it. Tonight doesn’t have to mean too much beyond tonight. There are things to be concerned about. I saw things tonight that tell me this team probably isn’t quite as good as I believed it was before tonight. But it’s also not as bad as you feel like it is right now. Not even close. Missouri had an awful night at an awful time to have an awful night. But the Tigers will still win their share of games. They aren’t on Tennessee’s level right now. But they aren’t this far away and they’re still going to win quite a few games the rest of the way.
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