Mizzou eases past New Orleans
Jordan Frericks grabbed the ball out of thin air and whipped a pass down the court to Sophie Cunningham, who drove to the hoop for an easy layup.
Amber Smith intercepted a pass and hurled it to Cunningham again on the next drive. This time, she was fouled on the layup, but made her free throws. Cunningham scored twice on two separate fast breaks during Saturday’s dominating effort, too.
It was just that kind of day for Missouri (7-1), as it walloped New Orleans (1-6), 81-45.
Missouri starting lineup — Frericks, Cunningham, Smith, Cierra Porter and Lauren Aldridge— averages 6 feet, and it had a good three inches on the Privateers’ lineup, who averaged 5-foot-7. Missouri out-stole New Orleans 15-4 and had 27 points off of turnovers.
Yet despite the easy victory, Missouri didn’t win every matchup. New Orleans out-rebounded Missouri 45-36. The Privateers had 25 offensive rebounds, compared to the Tigers’ seven.
“Sometimes those teams can be hard to match up with, believe it or not,” Pingeton said. “You think there’s such an advantage to the bigger, taller team, but it doesn’t always work out that way.”
Rebounding was really the only bad part about Saturday’s win, if you can call it bad. Even with all the rebounds, the Privateers only mustered 16-69 field goals — 23 percent. Only seven three-pointers went in, despite attempting 23.
Missouri pushed the tempo, and it was the first game that the Tigers applied full-court pressure. New Orleans was flustered early on, as Missouri jumped to a 24-6 lead after the first quarter.
“Our guards did a good job of pushing, and I think that just gets in your head when you have a bigger, taller team with our hands up applying full-court pressure,” Porter said. “We got a lot of steals out of it, so I think it just sped them up more than they were comfortable with.”
The faster tempo and full-court pressure kept up throughout the game. In the third quarter, New Orleans’ Annalise Brisco dribbled past mid-court, preparing to pass it to teammate Shania Woods. Missouri’s Jordan Chavis wasn’t going to have any of that. The sophomore guard jumped as Brisco passed, slapped the ball from the air and fell to the ground.
Chavis leaped back up, sprinted toward the ball and threw it back inbounds before the whistle blew.
It almost looked like Missouri was at a practice, running plays.
Midway through the fourth quarter, Elle Brown — who scored her first career points off of two free throws Saturday — brought the ball up the court and flung the ball toward the hoop as Hannah Schuchts caught it in stride for the wide-open layup. No one even tried to defend her.
Brown and Schuchts came off the bench for Missouri and showed the Tigers have something to be excited about in the coming years. In fact, every active player on Missouri’s roster got playing time, and freshman Kelsey Winfrey was the only player who didn’t score. She had two assists in six minutes.
Brown, the freshman from Rock Bridge High School in Columbia, drained a three-pointer from way beyond the arc in the fourth quarter. She scored five points, two free throws and had three assists in 11 minutes.
Missouri’s starting lineup assembled those big plays and breakaway passes early in the game. But in a game like Saturday’s, it was Missouri’s bench that brought steadiness until the final buzzer. With a nonconference schedule that’s not the easiest in the world, and with SEC play around the corner, the Tigers will need that bench to play the way it did on Saturday.
“We’ve got a lot of ability and potential on that bench,” Pingeton said. “A lot of potential, that with time is going to develop.”