Mizzou women rout Southern Illinois for third straight win
To get any sort of stability going in such an unstable season as this one is a priority for Missouri women’s basketball.
The Tigers' season was already partially-derailed with a 17-day COVID-19-induced layoff that postponed or canceled four games. It’s why coach Robin Pingeton pushed to schedule four games in six days this week, a strenuous but necessary step to take to hopefully get the team primed for Southeastern Conference play.
In a 79-43 blowout of Southern Illinois on Sunday at Mizzou Arena, it’s now safe to say that Pingeton and her squad have at least temporarily found the steadiness they’re looking for.
Guard Shug Dickson scored a game-high 17 points off the bench and went 7-8 from the field as she paced a Missouri offense that shot 61.2 percent overall and 9-13 from three-point range. Three other Tigers — Hayley Frank, Lauren Hansen and Aijha Blackwell — also reached double figures in scoring, with the latter also grabbing 10 rebounds to secure a double-double.
It’s the Tigers' third straight victory after waxings of New Orleans and Oral Roberts earlier this week, the first time Missouri has won three in-a-row since 2019. It’s been this week, Pingeton said, that her squad is starting to see the “fruits of their labor” from the summer.
“It’s good to see smiles on their faces,” Pingeton said. “You just never know with COVID. Everything that’s happened with games getting canceled and quarantine and whatnot … just their ability to stay the course. This is what they love to do.”
The turnaround to prepare for Sunday’s game was swift. After the Tigers cruised to an 88-49 win over Oral Roberts on Saturday at Mizzou Arena, Pingeton said her staff immediately passed on plenty of information on the Salukis.
By 10 p.m. Saturday, everyone on Missouri’s roster had watched the scouting film on Southern Illinois. The next morning, the team went through a walkthrough and shootaround for the 12:30 p.m. tip, with the lopsided score indicating that the Tigers got the memo quickly enough.
“Little things matter,” Pingeton said. “How you do anything is going to be how you do everything. And that attention to detail is so important. Respect everybody, fear nobody.”
Missouri led wire-to-wire, scoring even before the game officially started. Frank knocked in two free throws following an administrative technical foul on the Salukis before the opening tip.
Southern Illinois was in sight for a bit, even keeping the deficit within two possessions in the second quarter, until the Tigers tore off a 13-2 run to end the first half and go up 39-22. The second half was all Missouri: A 25-3 run that spread through the third and fourth quarters really rubbed salt in the Salukis’ wounds as the visitors couldn’t keep up, finishing 27 percent from the field.
“It’s really good, I wouldn’t be able to do it without my teammates,” Dickson said of her performance. “They encourage me every day to keep pushing coming off the bench. I know I’m like their spark, so I just keep doing what I can do every night.”
Another long layoff looms for Missouri, this time due to the holidays. Southeastern Conference play begins in a week and a half as Alabama visits Mizzou Arena on Dec. 31.
Though Pingeton had positives to say about the Tigers’ three-game winning run, there’s still plenty that needs to be addressed. For instance, Southern Illinois alarmingly beat Missouri on offensive rebounds 17-3, a number that Pingeton admitted would set the Tigers up for “a long night” if it happened in conference play.
But the more time she’s able to spend with her team, the more confidence Pingeton is about its chances.
“It’s a really resilient team,” Pingeton said. “I think it’s a team that has a lot of depth, probably more depth than we’ve had since I’ve been here. We’ve got a lot of offensive firepower. We’re finding our rhythm, our chemistry on the court.”
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