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1) Missouri won another basketball game on Saturday, its first game in 11 days. The Tigers were rusty to begin with, but were facing one of the few teams that wasn't capable of burying them while Missouri figured things out in the first 16 minutes. Mizzou shot 44% (not great, but not horrible) in the first half, but had ten turnovers. The Tigers scored only 27 points in the first 20 minutes. The issue is that Texas A&M (as is the Aggies' MO) was even worse offensively. A&M shot just 31.3% from the floor and had seven turnovers of its own in the first half, going the final 2:20 without a point as Mizzou finished on a 10-0 run. At that point, it seemed pretty obvious that A&M had lost its chance to build up a lead and make things tough on the Tigers. Sometimes, it's not just about how you play, but about who you're playing. If Missouri played that half against Tennessee or LSU or Alabama or a few others, the deficit probably would have been too big to make up. Against A&M, it wasn't. Missouri had to know if it could score 60 it would probably win this game. It takes some pressure off. In the second half, Mizzou figured things out offensively, shooting 53.3% from the floor and turning it over just four times. The Aggies got better in one sense, shooting 45%, but far worse in another. A&M took only 20 shots in the second half because it committed ten turnovers. Missouri obviously deserves some credit for that (as A&M does Mizzou's first half struggles), but not all the credit. A&M just isn't any good offensively.
We use the term "playing down to the competition" a lot in sports. It's often meant as an insult, but the fact is, if you get away with it, it doesn't really matter. You're not going to play your best every game. The key is to play your best when you have to and survive when you don't have to. I'd argue Missouri has done that more often than it hasn't. I think the Tennessee game was a loss probably even if Mizzou had played well. Against Mississippi State, Mizzou played down and it bit them (the Bulldogs are, however, 4-2 in the league and maybe better than we gave them credit for). But other than that, Missouri has still managed to win with something less than its A game a handful of times already. That's a valuable skill to have. At the end of the season, the only thing that matters is the record, not the way you got to that record. Good teams win when the play well. Great teams win even when they don't play well.
2) We've beaten the three-point shooting nearly to death, but it's worth talking about some more after that game. Mizzou went 6-22 from three-point range, a less than dazzling--but right about on par for the season--27.3%. But the Tigers were 21-33 from two-point range, which comes out to 63.6%. In the second half, the difference was even bigger. Mizzou was 3-13 from three (23.1%) but 13-17 from two (76.5%). For the season, Missouri is 330th in the country in three-point percentage (27.3). But it is 35th in two-point percentage (55.4).
Some will look at that and say "Just stop shooting threes altogether." I agree they should probably shoot fewer of them. But you can't just stop. It's like a football team throwing deep. Sometimes you have to do it even if it doesn't work just to make the other team think you are willing to do it. I don't think Missouri needs to shoot 21 threes a game (that's the season average), but it has to shoot some. I think if you could bring that average down to 12-15 a game, that's probably a good range for this team.
3) The majority of the angst I've seen has been directed at Mark Smith. And that's fair to an extent. He's not playing very well right now. There are two major areas of concern: Three-point shooting and turnovers.
Smith is still the second-best three point shooter on the team at 36% for the season (Dru Smith is at 36.7%). But he was just 1-7 against A&M and is 4-18 in SEC games. There's a stark difference in Smith against high major competition and against everyone else. Against high majors, he is 8/28 (28.5%), a number helped quite a bit by a 3/6 performance against Oregon. Against mid-major competition, he's 10/22 (45.5%). Missouri is going to play nothing but high major competition the rest of the year until the NCAA Tournament (where the mid majors or low majors it will face are the best of those leagues). If these numbers continue and he's just a 28% three-point shooter, that isn't good enough.
To see how big a trend this is, I went back to each of the last two years.
2019
Against high majors (I included Xavier and Temple here): 30/93 (32.3%)
Against mid/low majors: 23/50 (46%)
2018
Against high majors (again including Xavier and Temple): 33/73 (45.2%)
Against mid/low majors: 16/36 (44.4%)
So for a year and a half, there's been a 14-17% difference in Smith's shooting against mid/low major teams versus high majors. But his first year at Mizzou, that gap didn't exist. I don't really have an explanation for why that is, but he's shot the ball well against high major competition before.
The second issue is turnovers. Smith has a turnover rate of 24.6%, which is by far the highest of any player who has seen the floor this season. Dru Smith and Xavier Pinson are at 21.4 and 21.3 and every other player on the roster is below 20%. That's too much. In raw numbers, Pinson has 31 turnovers and Dru Smith and Mark Smith have 24 apiece. The difference is Mark Smith handles the ball far less than the other two. The other difference is that Pinson has 35 assists, Dru Smith has 30 and Mark Smith has only 10.
The solution here might be pretty simple. Despite Cuonzo Martin's insistence that Mark Smith is more than a spot-up shooter, maybe he isn't. He should dribble less and catch and shoot more. Again, obviously, the shots have to start going in at a higher clip, but it's easier to see that happening than it is to see him suddenly stop turning the ball over.
I think it's also worth mentioning here that Smith's offensive rating on KenPom is 98.9, which is actually third among Missouri's five starters. He has a better rating than Pinson and Kobe Brown. I don't profess to know everything that goes into figuring that number, but it's worth mentioning.
4) Tuesday night's game against South Carolina is a game Missouri basically has to win. The Gamecocks are just 3-3 on the season and 1-1 in the league. They might be better than we think, but there's just not much to go on. At home, Missouri needs this win. Here are the seven games after the one against South Carolina:
@ Tennessee (probable loss)
@ Auburn (swing game)
vs TCU (should win)
vs Kentucky (swing game)
vs Alabama (swing game)
@ Ole Miss (swing game)
vs Arkansas (should win)
If we go in thinking they beat Arkansas and TCU at home and lose at Tennessee, that gives you 2-1 with four swing games. Auburn is playing much better with Sharife Cooper in the lineup. Kentucky is .500 in league play and not a pushover. Alabama is leading the league at 6-0. Ole Miss isn't good, but it's a road game. KenPom projects Mizzou to go 5-2 in those games, but three of the wins are projected by one possession (as is one of the losses). If you go 2-2 in the games I've put as swing games, that puts you 6-5 in league play heading into a four-game stretch against Georgia, A&M, Ole Miss and South Carolina that you should realistically sweep. That would be 10-5 with games against Florida and (presumably) LSU and Vanderbilt to go. That would give you a great shot at 11 or 12 SEC wins, which is around the target most of us probably had at the start of the season. If you can pick up one of those extra swing games, you start getting into the 12-13 win range that would almost certainly get you a double bye in the league tournament. If we're taking the TCU game out of the mix there, Missouri needs to go at least 3-3 in the next six league games (and beat South Carolina). Anything more is a bonus and puts you in great shape. Anything less probably leaves you needing some help to get a top four spot in the conference tournament.
5) The league is starting to separate a little bit. During football season, I broke the SEC into tiers. I'm going to do that again. Here are the current standings
Tier 1: Alabama, Tennessee, LSU. These teams all have 0 or 1 losses and have put themselves in position to be likely top four teams at the end of the year (there's a long way to go, but still).
Tier 2: Missouri, Florida, Kentucky, Mississippi State. I think these are the next best teams and should finish out the top half of the league standings.
Tier 3: Arkansas, South Carolina, Auburn. I think Arkansas should be in tier two, but they've trailed two straight games by 20 points in the first half while their coach has thrown a fit on the bench, so I won't put them there. I'm not sure I put South Carolina in this tier quite yet, but I will for now. Auburn has won its last two and looks like a different team with Cooper.
Tier 4: Ole Miss, Vandy, A&M, Georgia. I'll be surprised if these aren't the four teams playing on day one of the league tournament. Ole Miss is the league's biggest disappointment. The others just aren't good.
