Stats that stood out against Utah State
Tigers keep Aggies cold from outside
SACRAMENTO, CA — It didn’t feel natural to let Utah State get to the rim. But that’s exactly what head coach Dennis Gates and his staff wanted Mizzou’s players to do.
The Aggies were one of the hottest-shooting teams in the NCAA tournament, connecting on 38.5% of their 3s, which ranked 11th in the nation. To slow them down in Thursday's first-round matchup in the NCAA tournament, Gates wanted his players to deny as many open looks along the perimeter as they could.
He had his team faceguard USU junior point guard Steven Ashworth, who averaged 7.2 attempts from beyond the arc per game and knocked them down at a 44.3% clip. He also wanted his players to avoid sagging off on defense, leaving the Tigers with limited help coming from the weakside if anyone got beat off the dribble or isolated on the block.
The Aggies missed all of their first 11 triples in the first half, with Ashworth going 0-4 from deep. The team did, however, go 13-17 on 2-pointers, with all but five of Utah State’s 31 points in the first half coming in the paint.
“You gotta understand, at that point, that's not how they want to score, that's not how they want the entire game to go,” Gates said. “Our guys, commend them, it's hard to give up layups or different things, but they stayed disciplined and they did not over-rotate, which is one of the game plans we saw being used throughout their conference. I was able to watch each and every game. Sometimes you don't want to flood your guys with every game of a season that a team has played, but you have to get what those main points are out to them. We couldn't have emphasized it enough. They watched film themselves and they were able to see it.”
Missouri stuck to the plan, even as the Aggies started connecting on a few more treys. USU missed its first two attempts from outside to start the second half but made its next two, tying the game up at 39-39.
But the team went just 2-9 from distance for the remainder of the game. The Tigers did a better job of slowing the Aggies down inside, too, holding them to 11-17 on 2-pointers. USU ended the game shooting just 16.7% from the 3-point line. Ashworth was 2-10. The stiff defense helped Mizzou pull away down the stretch, taking the 76-65 win.
“Our approach was to pressure full court,” said senior guard D’Moi Hodge, who had a game-high four steals. “We know what they wanted. They wanted jump shots. We tried to force them to the basket to make them take 2s, make the big man score. We put it out to the shooters … make them take tough 3s, force them into bad shots. That helped us in the long run.”
The No. 7 seed Tigers will look to continue to lock in on defense in the second round of the NCAA tournament when it faces No. 15 seed Princeton on Saturday.
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