Here's what was on my mind right as Missouri ended its three-game losing streak by beating Mississippi State 85-73 in the second round of the SEC Tournament.
Ball control
Dennis Gates has emphasized time and time again that the key for the Tigers is both taking care of the ball on offense and creating havoc so the opponent does not take care of the ball.
The Tigers played well enough to lead by double digits in the first half, but never did because they committed nine turnovers to Mississippi State's three.
The second half was better, the Tigers committed just five turnovers to the Bulldogs' five, but if Missouri is going to make an extended run next week, it has to get back to dominating the ball control portion of the game.
Energy
Especially on defense, the energy of the game felt a lot more like the Mizzou of the middle of SEC play instead of the Mizzou of the final three weeks, minus the 3-point shooting.
Maybe it was just Mississippi State playing on tired legs, maybe it was not having a ton of time to scout and prepare for Missouri specifically. I don't know if it was anything like that or the Tigers were just able to use their five days off to finally recover a bit more from the grind of the season, but that looked and felt a lot more like the good Mizzou basketball we watched earlier in the season.
If they can keep that up, the Tigers are back to being a scary March opponent.
Problem is, they're now the team playing on tired legs against a well-rested Florida team tomorrow.
Adjusting to the whistle
Gates has talked about it a lot the past couple of weeks as the Tigers have given up a ton of free throws down the stretch.
But somehow the Tigers have failed to adjust on both sides of the ball.
Not only are they continuing to give up too many free throw attempts, they didn't get to the line all that much on offense.
It took until the 12-minute mark of the second half for the Tigers to get to 10 attempts. For a team that was averaging close to 30 attempts per game until recently, it's just been a poor change on both sides of the ball down the stretch.
Tony Perkins and Tamar Bates
That pair is how the Tigers were able to win today.
Bates was back to play aggressive like he was during the early part of conference play and I'm starting to think he was shying away because of the emergence of Mark Mitchell down the stretch, but with Mitchell out for the entire second half, Bates went to work.
Perkins was great throughout the game. He was aggressive, fast and driving with the ability to finish every time he got near the rim.
Both of them played fantastic and on a night where Mitchell and Josh Gray both missed time for injuries and Ant Robinson missed time with foul trouble, the Tigers desperately needed it.
Bates ended up with 25 points and four rebounds, Perkins had 20 points, seven rebounds, four assists and two steals.
Just a fantastic game from the pair of seniors.
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