During preseason media day, Missouri women’s basketball coach Robin Pingeton said she was excited to get to see her team play against someone other than each other or the scout team.
Pingeton got the chance Tuesday night as the Tigers hosted the Truman State Bulldogs in a glorified scrimmage, winning 112-62 at Mizzou Arena.
“I thought that was really good experience,” Pingeton said. “... Plenty of things that we need to continue to work on and get better.”
Missouri was clearly set to dominate the Bulldogs from the jump as Grace Slaughter hit the first three shots of the game, a jumper, a layup and a 3 from the right wing, to push the Tigers to a 7-0 lead with 8:42 left in the first quarter.
“I think just going out there with the emphasis of the first game, … as a team we wanted to show what we’ve been working on this summer and this fall,” Slaughter said. “... just wanted to go out there, have some fun and play together.”
Slaughter went on to lead the game with 17 points in a team-high 24 minutes, 28 seconds played. Five other Tigers reached double-figures in scoring as well, but no one else recorded 20 minutes on the court as Missouri played 13 of its 15 players.
The only two who didn’t were freshman Ma’Riya Vincent, who is recovering from a torn ACL she suffered in high school, and Tionna Herron, who Pingeton said had to miss the exhibition for a family matter.
“I anticipate we’ll have a pretty deep rotation, no idea how deep,” Pingeton said. “I don’t know that I got any more clarity tonight. I think our players continue to make it really hard on us, in a positive way.”
Ashton Judd pushed the Tigers to a 9-3 lead with her first two points of the game on two free throws with 7:40 left in the first.
Judd went on to have a perfect night shooting, connecting on 6-of-6 from the field, 2-of-2 from beyond the arc and the two made free throws on two attempts, to total 16 points.
“I thought Judd did a great job of really taking good shots,” Pingeton said. “We talk about taking great shots for the team and not taking shots too early in the shot clock. I thought her shot selection was really good today.”
Judd added a team-high eight rebounds, two steals and two assists to her performance.
Nyah Wilson then got involved with consecutive layups, the first four of her 11-points in her non-official Tiger debut.
“Just knowing my capabilities, knowing I can get downhill and push the pace, and knowing that my shooters are out there and I can get them open with what I’m capable of,” Wilson said of her comfortability pushing the Tigers’ pace.
The Tigers extended as far as an 18-point lead in the first quarter following a Slaughter layup to make it 26-8 with 3:46 left and at the end of the quarter when Angelique Ngalakulondi grabbed an offensive rebound, one of her five boards, and put it back for a layup with less than 10 seconds on the clock for two of her 13 points.
The Tigers eased through the second quarter with Truman State never cutting the lead to less than 19.
Tilda Sjokvist finished the half with a behind-the-back dribble through the lane for a layup with 0:08 left on the clock to send the Tigers into halftime up 60-34.
Judd and Ngalakulondi did a lot of their work in the third quarter, highlighted by a sequence where Ngalakulondi blocked a deep shot at the top of the key and Judd rebounded the attempt. Judd then tossed it ahead to Ngalakulondi in the fast break for a layup to extend the Tiger lead to 75-40 with 4:57 left in the third.
Then the fourth quarter was largely Hilke Feldrappe and Lucija Milkovic, who were the final Tigers in double figures with 10 points each. Feldrappe added a co-team high four assists and two steals.
Milkovic scored all 10 of her points in a 12-point stretch for the Tigers, with Feldrappe scoring the other two in the sequence.
“I think they both have a really high ceiling,” Pingeton said of Feldrappe and Milkovic. “For Luci, we’re just constantly challenging her motor. From a skill standpoint, she’s got some great international experience and her style is a little different. … Hilke, that young lady has an incredibly high ceiling. She’s very fluid in the way she moves and has the ability to create off the bounce. The way she moves at 6-3, in most systems she’d be playing in the post and we play her as a guard.”
Missouri finished the game on a 16-0 run and made its final five shots.
The Tigers shot 46-of-76 (60.5 percent) overall, 8-of-15 (53.3 percent) from 3 and 12-of-16 (75 percent) at the free throw line. Missouri outrebounded Truman State 39-27 and dominated the paint with a 68-18 point advantage down low.
“Not satisfied,” Pingeton said of the defense and rebounding. “There were stretches that were really good. Rebounding, there were times where we fell back on trying to out jump instead of boxing out and finding a body.”
Missouri will face the first test of the season that counts when it hits the road open the season and face Vermont at 5 p.m. on Monday.
Head on over to the Tiger Walk to discuss the game and so much more.