Missouri opened the college basketball season with a 91-64 win over Oral Roberts on Wednesday night at Mizzou Arena. Ten of the eleven Tigers who played scored and four of them hit double figures. Missouri led by ten at half before outscoring the Eagles 49-32 in the final 20 minutes. Below is our post-game report, starting with five things we learned from the game.
*Missouri’s pledge to play faster seems like more than an empty promise. The Tigers were pushing the pace from the start, particularly after made baskets. Drew Buggs, Dru Smith and Xavier Pinson all spent time bringing the ball up the floor and they were rarely walking. Even with a 27-point lead in the final five minutes, the Tigers were running at times. Mizzou scored 91 points, which matched a season-high from a year ago against Florida and Chicago State. In 2018-19, the Tigers never scored that many points in a game.
“I feel like that’s the pace we kind of want to be at,” Pinson said. “I still don’t honestly feel like the pace is there. Our pace is way faster in practice. But we’re getting there.”
“I think we have to be better. I don’t think our wings ran at the level they need to,” Cuonzo Martin said. “We want to get up and down the floor. Play with good pacing and good spacing.”
*When Mark Smith gets hot, he’s a deadly shooter. Smith has always been streaky since he arrived in Columbia. When a couple go in, he’s liable to make five or six. He hit three consecutive three-pointers in the opening minutes of the second half, stretching the Tigers’ lead from 12 to 19 and essentially putting it out of reach for Oral Roberts even though nearly 17 minutes remained.
“It’s good to see him back because of the time he put in to it,” Martin said. “He’s a good guy and you like to see him be successful."
As a team, the Tigers shot 40% from behind the arc, making 10 of their 25 attempts (compared to 7-for-35 from their opponent). Outside shooting was the Achilles’ heel of the Tigers last year. One night against Oral Roberts doesn’t mean everything is cured, but it was at least an encouraging sign.
*We saw the beginnings of a defined rotation. Pinson, the two Smiths, Jeremiah Tilmon and Kobe Brown started for Mizzou. Mitchell Smith and Javon Pickett were the first two players off the bench with Buggs close behind. Expect that group to be Mizzou’s core eight as far as minutes played with Parker Braun figuring in at times as well. Torrence Watson actually played more minutes than Buggs (15 to 13) in this game, but Watson’s minutes seemed to come later in the game and might not be replicated against tougher competition. Freshman Jordan Wilmore logged six minutes, but all came in the second half with the result well in hand. Junior college product Ed Chang, the 12th scholarship player, was unavailable due to illness.
*Jeremiah Tilmon didn’t score a bunch, but Missouri would sign up for 25 more of the game he played. Tilmon had six points early and finished with eight on 4-of-5 shooting. But he grabbed a career-high tying 12 rebounds including four on the offensive end and was whistled for just one foul, a harmless one a minute into the second half. Tilmon did what he should have done against a team that didn’t have anyone taller than 6-foot-8 and couldn’t match his athleticism inside.
“That’s what they should expect from me every night and that’s what I should push myself to do every game as far as the rebounds,” Tilmon said. “I shouldn’t get less than ten rebounds.”
“We’d take that every night,” Pinson said.
*Missouri is going to Connecticut next week. Cuonzo Martin said the Tigers would take Thanksgiving Day off and practice on Friday. He said as of now, the team is scheduled to play in a multi-team event on December 2nd and 3rd at Mohegan Sun in Connecticut. They do not yet know who they’re going to play. The next game currently on the schedule is at Wichita State on December 6th, but the Shockers pulled out of an event in South Dakota and have temporarily paused basketball activities due to COVID-19 test results, so that game isn’t set in stone either. The next home game is scheduled against Liberty on December 9th.
ROOM FOR IMPROVEMENT: Out of this game, it’s the turnovers. The Tigers have had issues holding on to the ball in the last few seasons and gave it away 17 times against Oral Roberts. Some of that can be attributed to a season opener and a team that hasn’t been able to practice with its full complement of players very often. But it was something Martin pointed out in his opening statement to the media that he wants to fix.
STAR OF THE GAME: This one could go to a number of people, but it was Mark Smith that put the game out of reach. Not only did he score 11 quick points in the opening four minutes of the second half, but he punctuated the win with an emphatic dunk on the receiving end of an alley top from Dru Smith.
“They kind of came out of nowhere over the quarantine time,” Dru Smith said of Mark’s hops. “Don’t get him a big head, but that was a nice play. He’s been getting up a little more.”
WHAT IT MEANS: The goal is the NCAA Tournament for this Missouri team. Yes, it was picked 10th in the SEC, but the Tigers hope for much more internally with the conference’s most experienced roster. For that to happen, you can’t lose to a team like Oral Roberts. This isn’t a win that’s going to resonate with a selection committee in March, but a loss absolutely would. Missouri took care of business. The only way you would learn a lot about this team from this game is if the Tigers lost. They didn’t.
QUOTABLE: "We didn't play up to our expectations honestly. But we still looked good, I saw a lot of good things. I feel like we got a lot of time to get better. Just like I told my guys, I don't know, it was such a weird feeling because we was finally back home playing. We was really just excited to play in front of our fans that we did have there." --Xavier Pinson
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