Stats that stood out against Princeton
Hodge has off night to end fiery season
SACRAMENTO, CA — Mizzou’s 3-point percentage as a team was almost always heavily influenced by how well graduate senior guard D’Moi Hodge shot the ball this season. When the Cleveland State transfer was hot from outside, the rest of the Tigers usually followed suit. But when he struggled, the rest of the team usually did as well.
Hodge had one of his coldest nights of the year in Saturday’s season-ending loss to Princeton in the second round of the NCAA tournament, 78-63. The British Virgin Islander shot 40% for the season, but went just 0-3 against the Ivy League Tigers. It was just the third time all year he didn’t make at least one 3. As a team, Missouri connected on just 27.3% of its shots from deep.
Senior forward Kobe Brown thought the SEC Tigers could’ve done more to get Hodge in rhythm.
“Truthfully, I put the struggle on me and the rest of my teammates,” Brown said. “They face guarded. D'Moi gets face guarded. He's been face guarded every game this season. We have to do our job to get him open because it's not easy to be face guarded every game. It's frustrating, but the only way you can really, truly get open, especially in terms of players like this, is to free your teammate up.”
Hodge ended the night with two points on 1-6 shooting from the field to go along with six rebounds and one steal. He was limited to 31 minutes, hitting his head on the hardwood in the second half after getting blocked at the rim and exiting the game to be assessed by MU trainer Chris Perrin on the bench. Hodge didn’t think his presence would’ve made a difference in the final score, though.
“Obviously when I fell, my team started playing well,” Hodge said. “It wasn't a factor that I wasn't in the game. I feel like we did some good stuff during that stretch to cut the lead down. Obviously, they made shots. I mean, they're a good team. They made some wide-open threes. I commend my team for holding it down, holding it while I was on the bench.”
Still, despite having an off night and despite only suiting up for Mizzou for one year, Hodge will go down as one of the all-time best 3-and-D players to come through the program. Hodge broke the school's single-season record for steals with 91 and his 100 triples made and 250 attempted both count for the fifth-most by any Tiger in a single year.
Replacing Hodge, who joined senior point guard Nick Honor as the only players on the roster to play and start in all of the team’s 35 games this year, will be one of head coach Dennis Gates’ top priorities in the offseason.
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