Missouri unravels in second half, dealt first loss by Memphis, 70-55
In the closing moments of Missouri’s 70-55 home loss to Memphis, the hosts swung the ball to Campbell transfer forward Jesus Carralero Martin at the top of the key. The Spanish big man dribbled to his left, accepting a screen from graduate senior guard Sean East II to force a switch from the visitors' defenders, then turned to back his man down.
Memphis senior forward David Jones gambled reaching for the ball, but whiffed. Carralero Martin picked up his dribble, spun in the opposite direction and suddenly had no one between him and the basket standing on the second hash mark on the left side of the lane. He tried for a layup, scooping the ball up to the rim with his right hand.
The ball caromed off the backboard and rolled off the side of the hoop, Jones pulling down the defensive rebound. The layup wouldn’t have made much of a difference — the home team was already down 16 and the announced sold-out crowd of 15,061 had already started to file out of Mizzou Arena. But it was the epitome of what plagued the black and gold the entire second half Friday evening: even the easy looks weren’t falling in.
“I thought we played an unreal 17 minutes,” head coach Dennis Gates said. “And then that middle portion of 40 minutes — 'the middle eight,' some people call it — but that core nucleus of the game, I thought Memphis was able to win it. Ending the momentum of that first half going into the first four minutes, they did a tremendous job defensively, they did a tremendous job offensively and they were able to make some shots early.”
Carralero Martin wasn’t the only Tiger who struggled in the game. Missouri had four players who attempted a field goal but did not make one. Seven players shot below 50% from the floor. The team as a whole shot 5-26 in the second half, including 2-11 from beyond the arc.
Mizzou entered the second half up 33-26, but Memphis cut into it by scoring the first five points of the period. Graduate senior point guard Nick Honor countered with a 3-pointer but the visitors followed with a 7-0 run to take their first lead of the half. Iowa State transfer guard Caleb Grill knotted the score up again at 38-38 on the next possession with a layup at the 16:54 mark. But the home team wouldn’t see another field goal fall through the net again for nearly eight minutes, missing its next 11 shots and allowing Memphis to establish a double-digit lead.
It got exasperating for the players, failing to execute on the few chances they created.
“The other thing that I saw that I was not excited about was just the discouragement when we missed easy plays, whether defensively or offensively,” Gates said. “And I don't think our leadership was able to — and it starts with me, the leadership of our team starts with me — and I have to do a better job of getting our guys together in those moments.”
There was a stretch when Missouri had the chance to turn the tide. With 12:30 on the clock and the team trailing 48-38, freshman point guard Anthony Robinson II was fouled on a 3-point shot from the left wing. He hit all three of his free throws and a crowd that had largely been silenced began to erupt, hoping to build on the small bit of momentum the rookie had given the team. Mizzou forced a missed jumper, graduate senior forward Noah Carter pulled down the rebound, then sent the ball ahead to freshman forward Trent Pierce, who fired a trey from the right corner.
The shot rimmed out.
The hosts came up with a missed layup on the next possession and East drew a foul at the other end, triggering the under-12-minute media timeout.
He missed both foul shots after the break.
Missouri forced another four consecutive stops. The team didn’t take advantage once.
“We just gotta remain confident all the time,” Honor said. “Usually it's not about how you're doing when you're doing well. It's about how you react when you're doing bad. So we need to improve a little bit in that section.”
There will be more nights Mizzou has a rough half shooting the ball — perhaps not as poorly as it went on Friday, but rough nonetheless. It won’t change how Gates expects the offense to run. After the loss, before retreating to the locker room, the team stood in a circle on Norm Stewart Court, with Gates speaking in the center. There is only one way for the Tigers to get through a shooting slump.
“Keep shooting. That is my message,” Gates said. “Play with confidence. You have to be able to play the game a certain way, you have to be able to play taking risks. I've seen these shots, these same shots, go in consistently … So I want us to be more consistent.”
East shines through first half
Though the second period was a struggle, the black and gold played especially well in the early going of Friday’s contest. Missouri’s defense stifled Memphis in the first half, holding the visitors to 35.5% from the field and 22.2% from deep. The offense wasn’t a complete disaster either, as the hosts shot 13-30 — more than double the makes they'd have in the second.
East led the way for Mizzou. He carved up the interior of Memphis’ defense, getting to the rim for a pair of layups and feeding Aidan Shaw for a dunk. When his defenders began to back off of him and contain his drives, he started hitting jumpers, nailing a mid-ranger and two 3s, the second of which gave the home team its largest lead of the night at 29-15 with 6:45 to go in the first.
The former NJCAA Player of the Year ended the half with a team-high 14 points, two assists and two steals.
“Sean East played an outstanding game in that first half,” Gates said. “And I thought we were able to get him certain looks, whether it was one more pass or the extra look in spacing.”
Memphis assistant coach Rick Stansbury, who filled in for Penny Hardaway while the head coach serves a three-game suspension, said he adjusted in the second half, using smaller lineups that were better suited to deal with East’s quickness. It stopped the 6-foot-2 guard in his tracks — East took just one shot the rest of the game. He was fouled on the attempt and sent to the free throw line, but missed both foul shots.
“I thought our spacing struggled,” Gates said. “I thought we, you know, mentally fatigued a little bit through our mistakes and we gotta just be able to be more encouraged during those moments.”
Stansbury has high praise for Mizzou
Gates considered Friday’s loss a game that both teams can learn from, with each side rostering several newcomers. Stansbury, a former head coach at Western Kentucky and Mississippi State, thinks both teams will continue to get better.
“What a crowd here tonight. That kind of environment right there, it's not gonna be many teams that come in here and win when you pack the gym like that,” Stansbury said. “Missouri is a really good basketball team — a really good basketball team. And they're going to beat a bunch of people in this place. And they're going to be one of those teams later on, come February and March, nobody in the country is gonna want to play them at all.”
Up next
Missouri (1-1) will look to rebound next week, beginning with a home game against SIU Edwardsville (1-1) on Monday before heading out for the team’s first road trip at Minnesota (2-0) on Thursday, both matchups taking place at 7 p.m. CT.
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