Missouri continued its disturbing trend of slow starts on Friday night against Wichita State. The Tigers didn't score for nearly two-and-a-half minutes and had just four points in the first eight minutes. Friday marked the fifth consecutive game in which Missouri failed to score 25 points by halftime.
But on this night, Mizzou never came out of its offensive funk in a 61-55 loss to the Shockers. The Tigers never lead and trailed for more than 38 of the game's 40 minutes.
"We need to put two halves together and not dig ourselves (a hole) in the first half and the second half, now it's time to play," Amari Davis said. "We just got to play hard and execute for 40 minutes."
The Tigers ended the night shooting 34.8% from the field (23-for-66) and a season low 11.1% from three-point range (2-for-18). They also made just seven of their 13 free throws.
"I thought in most cases they were open threes tonight, probably just didn't fall," head coach Cuonzo Martin said. "The last four games, we have to be better, because we're missing too many at the rim on layups. We have to be better at that. For some reason, we're not making layups."
Mizzou has now failed to score 60 points in three of its last four games. Only a 13-point flurry in the final 4:17 even allowed them to get to 55. The Tigers scored just 19 points outside the paint all night long. And even more problematic was the number of layups and putbacks the Tigers missed.
"We got a lot of shots at the rim," Martin said. "You put so much pressure on yourself when you don't make those shots. Especially when you turn them over 18 times and not capitalize on those opportunities."
The solution? Just keep putting up the shots.
"We just have to keep shooting, trust other guys to make shots and make plays for others," Amari Davis said. "Cut down on the turnovers. Those turnovers that we had could turn into more shots on offense, some that we could have made."
FIVE THINGS WE THINK
1. Believe it or not, the offense looked better. Missouri got a lot of good shots. There weren't many possessions on which they were taking guarded jumpers. They got in the lane a lot. They had open looks. They just missed everything. Mizzou was 2/18 from three-point range and just 21/48 from inside the arc. The offense as a whole wasn't the issue. Missouri just couldn't make anything.
"I think we take pride on getting into the paint," Martin said. "The next part is we have to capitalize on those drives. Even when we drive and penetrate and pitch it out for three, you want those threes to fall because now you put so much pressure on your defense to try to get stops."
2. The Tigers are going to have to survive getting beat on the boards. Jordan Wilmore played 13 minutes and committed four fouls. Yaya Keita was on the floor for all of 75 seconds. Mizzou is a better team when its playing small. But when that's the case, you're going to give something up. On this night, that was the boards. The Tigers got beat 41-35 on the glass despite eight rebounds from Kobe Brown, seven from Javon Pickett and six from Ronnie DeGray III. If you're going that small, you're probably going to miss out on some of the rebounds.
3. Missouri has to start converting turnovers into points. The Shockers weren't particularly good on offense themselves. They turned the ball over eight times (six more than Mizzou) and took 17 fewer shots than Missouri did. But Mizzou was only able to score eight transition points and didn't turn enough of Wichita's mistakes into an advantage for themselves.
"Every time," Coleman said. "Especially live ball turnovers. Our goal is to play fast, make or miss. If we get a turnover, that's the best way for us to play and we definitely have to do better converting those into points."
There were at least two stretches where the teams committed three turnovers in a 15-second span between them. Both teams were sloppy. Wichita was probably more so, but the Tigers didn't make them pay.
"It did," Martin said when asked if the game got sloppy. "Credit to our guys for making plays (to get the ball back), but you have to do a great job of executing."
4. These are the games that will separate a middling season from a bad one. Wichita State is okay. Not great, but not bad. But these are the games that Missouri is going to have to win if it wants to be around .500 for the season. The Tigers have a schedule with a lot of tough games against teams that are simply more talented. Tonight wasn't one of those. Tonight was a game against a similar team at home. If Missouri can't win most of those, the record is going to be very unsightly at the end of the season.
5. Where's the freshman class? The minute and 15 seconds from Keita were the only contribution from the five-man freshman class. Anton Brookshire, Sean Durugordon and Kaleb Brown didn't get on the floor. Trevon Brazile still hasn't been fully cleared to return to action. This was Martin's best recruiting class in the last four and it totaled one point and one foul in a loss to Wichita State. Nobody's asking for a class of instant impact stars, but if you're completely revamping a roster with nine new players, you'd like to get more than 15 seconds per freshman in the sixth game of the season against a mid-major opponent.
Star of the Game: Davis was Missouri's best player. He didn't start fast, but he did end the night 7-for-13 from the floor, making him the only Tiger to make at least half his shots. He had a team-high 17 points and only turned the ball over once. He also made one of Mizzou's two three-pointers.
"I think Amari's a guy that can really make plays at the rim," Martin said. "We have to find ways to get him the ball and even possibly put him at some point because just end to end, getting to the rim, he has the ability to do that. I think we have to find ways to get him the ball."
Room for Improvement: It's everywhere. Missouri just needs to find ways to win games. And scoring 60 points wouldn't be the worst thing in the world either. As the same script continues to unfold, the Tigers have to find themselves pressing.
"The stage we play on is pressure automatically," Boogie Coleman said. "I tell everybody keep shooting because nobody's shooting it well, but all we can do is just keep shooting and working on it and it's going to fall when it falls."
What it means: It means a chance at a win slipped away and there might not be a ton of those coming up anytime soon. Between games that should be gimmies against Paul Quinn and Eastern Illinois, the Tigers travel to Liberty. But after that is a three-game stretch against Kansas, Utah and Illinois before SEC play starts. Mizzou could find itself easily staring at a seven-game losing streak when Texas A&M comes to town on January 15th if they don't find some offense soon.
Next up: Missouri will host NAIA foe Paul Quinn College on Monday night. Tipoff is scheduled for 7 p.m.
Quotable: “They switch five different ways, they’re one of the few teams. They don’t allow you to run offense, or set your traditional sets. So you gotta be able to make one-on-one plays, you gotta be able to get the ball inside to your bigs when they have smaller guys defending them.” -- Cuonzo Martin
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