This year won’t be like last year...or any of the years before it, for that matter.
For the first time since 2011, Robin Pingeton and the Missouri Tigers enter a season without a Cunningham on the roster – no Lindsey, no Sophie – and in turn head into the 2019-20 season with a massive hole to fill when they tip off with Western Illinois Tuesday night. Because of that hole, expectations for the Tigers, outside of Columbia at least, are tempered. In SEC’s preseason media poll, Missouri was tabbed to finish No. 9 in the conference, the program’s lowest preseason ranking since 2015.
In losing its all-time leading scorer and star of the last three seasons, Missouri is tasked this year not only with replacing the identity Sophie Cunningham delivered as the program’s bedrock, but also the 17.8 points, 5.9 rebounds and 48% shooting from the field she averaged a year ago when she claimed First-Team All-SEC honors for a third time.
Making up for that lost production won’t be an easy task; there’s not a single player on the Tigers’ roster who can step in and become an immediate a like for like replacement for Missouri’s all-time leading scorer. But for Pingeton and company to find success this season, it might not need a player like Cunningham, instead relying on the production of multiple players to fill her void.
The Tigers’ ability to do just that over the course of the next five months may very well set the ceiling on this season and determine whether the Missouri can make its fift -consecutive NCAA Tournament appearance this season.
“I don’t think this year we have a player like Sophie, where they have to carry so much of the load,” Pingeton said following a preseason exhibition on Oct. 24. “It’s going to be a group effort. We’re trying to go further than we have in the past and we have to be better than we have in the past. I think we’ve got a lot more weapons now, certainly more than we did last year.”
Leading the cause for these Tigers will be a cast of faces that have become familiar to Missouri fans in recent seasons, and if there were a player from that veteran bunch who might be asked to shoulder the offensive load, it would be with Amber Smith.
The senior guard has been a contributor in each of her previous three seasons with the Tigers, proving herself to be a reliable foil alongside Cunningham, but Smith will be asked to do more in 2019 than she ever has before. After averaging 12.4 points and leading Missouri with nearly seven rebounds a game as a junior, the veteran scorer will be called upon as a leader on the floor and in the locker room, and as fellow teammates like Aijha Blackwell and Hayley Frank find their feet at the college level (we’ll get to them soon), she’ll be the player Missouri turns to as it’s No. 1 scoring option.
But while Smith has proven her ability to be an offensive producer who could also lock things down on the defensive end in the past, her lone shortcoming has her inability to remain consistent on the court. She averaged 45% shooting from the field and 37% from beyond the arc last season, but on nights when Cunningham wasn’t her usual self and the Tigers need scoring from someone else, Smith couldn’t always rise to the occasion.
This season, that’s exactly what Pingeton and the Tigers will need her to do.
“What we need from Amber this year is that consistency of that double-double,” Pingeton said in October. “She can score the ball again on three different levels. I think her mid range has gotten better. She's always been able to play with her back to the basket. She shoots the three well enough that you've got to respect it. But the consistency, I mean, that's a kid that should be averaging a double-double night in and night out.”
With Cierra Porter and Emmanuelle Tahane gone from last year’s team, Missouri will rely primarily on redshirt senior forward Hannah Schuchts to be its presence in the paint this season. An undersized forward for SEC standards at 6-foot-2, Schuchts has been a reliable role player since joining the Tigers in 2016, shooting 40% from 3-point range a year ago, but like Smith she’ll be asked to do a whole lot more this year with Missouri thin on size.
Brittany Garner, a 6-foot-4 redshirt freshman, could offer reinforcements behind Schuchts inside. She showed flashes as a defender and as a passer on the offensive end in the preseason, and her emergence as a rebounder will be crucial for a Missouri team that finished in the bottom half of the SEC in rebounding last year.
Among the other veterans who will feature prominently for Missouri are guards Jordan Roundtree and Elle Brown.
Roundtree, the daughter of former Missouri basketball standout Bill Roundtree, started 24 games a year ago, bringing speed and athleticism off the bench to a Missouri team that needed it. The senior from St. Louis started each of the Tigers’ preseason exhibitions and is likely to see heavy minutes over the next few months, particularly in the early part of the season as one of the few proven ball handlers on the roster.
Brown, a junior from Rock Bridge, averaged less than three minutes per game last season but broke out in a big way in the Tigers’ final preseason game, exploding for 24 points on 11-13 shooting with four rebounds, five assists and six steals in a win over Fontbonne. The junior guard has seen little time on the floor during her first two seasons with the Tigers, but her quickness and defensive savvy may earn her opportunities to prove herself to Pingeton during non-conference play.
Outside shooting will be another key. Only Arkansas made more three-pointers across the conference than the Tigers did a year ago. Schuchts led the way by shooting 40 percent, but without Cunningham and guard Lauren Aldridge in the rotation, it will be Jordan Chavis and Haley Troup who Missouri looks at to step into bigger roles and knock down shots from deep. Both guards have proven themselves from behind the 3-point line in the past – Troup shot 36 percent in 12 minutes per game last year and Chavis shot 37.9 percent in 2017-18– but Chavis enters 2019-20 in search of a rebound season.
As a junior, Chavis saw her her three-point percentage dropped to 29 percent. As a result, her role in Pingeton’s rotation dropped too; Chavis' 13.3 minutes per game last year were the fewest she has played in any season with the Tigers. For Missouri to among the top three-point shooting programs in the SEC, it will need Chavis to regain her form from deep and for Troup and Schuchts to maintain theirs, as well.
For all the Tigers will rely on their veteran core this year, perhaps the most important figures in determining just what this team can do will be two of its newest members.
In five-star freshmen Blackwell and Frank, Pingeton has two of the most high-profile recruits she’s secured in her 10 years leading Missouri. During their high school careers, the pair of in-state basketball stars clashed often and developed something of a rivalry as Frank and Strafford bounced Blackwell’s Whitfield from the state playoffs twice en route to four straight state championships. Now, they’ve teamed up together in Columbia and appear poised to make an immediate impact for the Tigers.
“I think our story is going to be special,” Blackwell said in October. “We had a little rivalry beef in high school. I just think us just wanting the same thing out of college is going to be a special story to tell. And as we get to playing games and learning even more things about each other on the court and off, I feel like our relationship will be even stronger.”
With Blackwell in the fold, the Tigers may have their next Cunningham-esque star. The 6-foot tall guard can do just about everything on the floor; she averaged 20.5 points, 4.5 assists and 5.5 rebounds in Missouri’s two preseason exhibitions and flashed her court vision, passing ability and defensive prowess in those contests, as well. Frank, a 6-foot-1 forward, brings with her a versatile offensive skill set and put her abilities to score around the basket, in the post and from behind the 3-point line on display in the preseason.
Most important, the two freshmen appeared comfortable and confident during Missouri’s preseason action. Having played on big stages throughout their high school careers, neither were daunted in their early college action and both showed poise on both ends of the floor. There may still be growing pains to come in the early weeks of the season, but Blackwell and Frank have the talent and the composure to contribute immediately for the Tigers in a big way and that’s exactly what Missouri is expecting from them.
“I’m going to put a lot on Aijha and Hayley this year,” Pingeton said. “They don’t get to be a freshman. They big-time, elite level kids. Elite level players and we’re going to need leadership from them. (Aijha) gets tired hearing about Sophie, but we make a lot of parallels because I really do feel like their paths are going to be similar. She has the ability to impact our team in such a big way.”
The two freshmen enter Tuesday with heavy expectations hanging over their heads, but if the preseason performances Blackwell and Frank put forward are any indication, they might be prepared to live up to them. Just how much these two develop and assert themselves within Missouri’s rotation over the course of the season play a heavy hand in determining how far this team will go.
Missouri is going to look different this year without Sophie Cunningham, that’s for sure. But if veterans like Smith and Schuchts can step up in their new roles and the Tigers’ talented freshmen can make significant contributions immediately, they just might be alright without her.
We’ll get our first glimpse when Missouri tips off with Western Illinois at 7:00 p.m. Tuesday night at Mizzou Arena.
