It’s Monday morning, so it’s time for me to let you all know what’s been on my mind the past week.
Today will be mostly basketball thoughts once again as we approach the end of the regular season.
BASKETBALL THOUGHTS
1. Last week became a must-win week because of how the Tennessee and Texas A&M games played out.
And the Tigers took care of business handily. You don’t often get a week where you absolutely have to go 2-0 when a team has played as well as the Tigers have, but after two disappointing and very close games that dropped the Tigers in a lot of national rankings and brackets, that’s what both games became.
The Tigers are a much better team than Oklahoma, that was very clear as the Sooners just had no answer for Mizzou’s interior offense, an interior offense that we haven’t really seen during conference play.
I think that was the first time I’d seen the Tigers really focus on forcing the ball to the rim as much as possible since the second half of the game against Cal. And it was one of the better games I’ve seen of the Tigers playing a half-court offense.
Then they played a fully different style against Georgia, getting back to the transition offense and 3-point shooting that we’re more used to seeing.
Not only was it an incredibly resilient week (look out for a resiliency story tomorrow morning), but one that showed a couple different ways the Tigers are able to win games. Two of the many that we’ve seen this season.
2. But even with the two wins, this week is now the biggest week of the season.
I don’t like buying into coach speak that the biggest game is always the next one, but man, this matchup with Alabama is about as big as it gets at this point.
The Tigers have clinched their spots in the NCAA Tournament with an eighth SEC win, now it’s all about moving up in the bracket, and a win against a likely No. 1 seed will do wonders.
Alabama is going to be the team, more than any other opponent this year, that wants to compete in an even faster track meet than Mizzou wants to.
