Although final scores don’t always tell the whole story, Mizzou was able to contain one of the nation’s most effective offenses for almost half of the game.
There are two ways we could look at this. Yes, Missouri lost its 13th straight game to end its season, dropping to 8-17 overall and 0-13 in SEC play. However, it was a close game, 72-67, versus Tennessee, a team ranked in the top 5. a group Dennis Gates has frequently referred to as a Final Four team.
A victory wasn’t probably anticipated against the No. 5 Volunteers, a strong, veteran-laden squad. Actually, Missouri has only defeated a top-five team twice at Mizzou Arena—in 2009 against Blake Griffin’s No. 4 Oklahoma Sooners and in 2013 against the fifth-ranked Florida Gators.
Hence, it’s important to focus on the positive aspects of each game rather than just the negatives, especially for a squad that has faced hardships this season due to injuries and tight losses. Despite what on the surface appears to be a lost season, the Tigers have persevered, therefore it’s critical to search for signs of improvement.
Although it wasn’t a flawless performance, the defense did show improvement in a close five-point loss. With a 119.3 offensive rating heading into the game, KenPom.com ranked the Volunteers as the 16th best offense in the country and predicted that they would defeat Mizzou 80-66. Tennessee has scored 103 points at Kentucky, 88 points at LSU, 92 points at Arkansas, and most recently, 88 points against Vanderbilt this month.
However, it took some time for Tennessee to get hot, as opposed to Rick Barnes’ team coming into Columbia and putting on an offensive clinic (the Vols are also among the top 40 teams in the country in terms of scoring). Actually, Missouri dominated the game’s momentum, and as Rick Barnes stated after the game, the Vols needed to exert more effort at the half.
Barnes stated, “We knew they would come in and fight.” “After experiencing the conference season that they have, it is difficult to accomplish that.” We knew that Dennis Gates and his players fought, so it’s truly a tribute to them. I believed they played better in the first half. They seemed to play much more urgently than we did, in my opinion.
The first 11 shots of the game were missed by the Volunteers and Tigers alike. The squad realized it would need to focus more on the other end of the court and be more aggressive while MU’s offense stagnated, so they helped invigorate Mizzou Arena.
“We discussed it. We stated that the defense needed to step up and multiply if our attack wasn’t there. Noah Carter declared, “We weren’t going to let them make shots if we weren’t making shots.” And it was kind of our thinking as well; we didn’t think it would last that long. I believe the score was 2-1 during the first media [timeout] and for a short while after that, but the main focus was on strengthening our defense since we couldn’t allow them to score if we weren’t scoring.
In the first half, Missouri’s defense limited Tennessee to only 30% from the field and 0% from behind the arc. Dalton Knecht, a 20-point-per-game player who finished with just two points in the first half, was briefly hindered by the Vols’ inability to get the ball to him, which may have contributed to his possibility as the Naismith Men’s College Basketball Player of the Year award.
“We performed a better job of contesting passes that led to the accuracy of where the accuracy of the catches were in the first half,” Gates remarked.
The aggressiveness of Missouri’s big guys in the paint was a major factor in the effectiveness of their defensive effort. Mabor Majak, a pivotal player in the previous season’s thrilling victory in Knoxville, received a standing ovation from the Antlers upon his arrival in the second half. Majak didn’t even have to take a shot to have a significant effect.
For a significant portion of the game, the 7-foot-2 center’s length caused problems for the Volunteers’ post players. He pulled down four defensive rebounds and forced Tobe Awaka to make a trip call.
“He’s incredibly selfless,” Gates stated. “He has been given his body and everything in it. It has nothing to do with offense. He fights while providing us with the emotional support that most leaders do not. He has the ability to achieve it in three ways: by action, by silence, or by making the smallest details stand out. He has a strong bond with each of his colleagues.
Wearing a black and gold outfit, Majak played a career-high 22 minutes on the floor.
“He’s been through a lot in his life, but it’s amazing what he can do—he finished with five rebounds,” Gates remarked. The first half contained the most of it. However, I felt he performed a fantastic job for us.
Majak and Carter each pulled down four defensive boards against the Vols, adding to Tamar Bates’ five defensive rebounds. Tennessee has an offensive rebounding percentage of 32.7%, which is among the top 100 in the country; nonetheless, the Tigers won 20 defensive rebounds to Tennessee’s 14 offensive rebounds.
Regretfully, it didn’t endure for forty minutes for the Tigers, just like the rest of the season. Knecht heated up from behind the arc and demonstrated why he is a first-round choice; this helped fuel the Volunteers’ comeback run that resulted in their 20th victory. Positively, the Vols managed to go the entire final four minutes without scoring a field goal.
On Saturday, Missouri’s defense briefly flourished against the Vols while its offense sprang to life versus Mississippi. To win in the powerful SEC, it will have to combine the two.
The Tigers will play again on Saturday when they visit Bud Walton to take on Arkansas, who just lost 78-81 to Texas A&M. At 11 a.m. CT, the rivalry game will air on the SEC Network. In their most recent encounter, the Razorbacks prevailed 91-84 over the other team.