For the past few weeks, the nagging complaint about the Missouri men’s basketball team is its struggle to finish close games. Frustrating as those blown leads against Florida and Arkansas were — and as nerve-racking as that victory over Tennessee was — I would not lose sight of the fact that the Missouri basketball team was involved in close games.
While riding to the garage, it is bad form to complain about your tow-truck driver’s choice of radio stations.
The Tigers, who went 27-68 the previous three years, are in NCAA Tournament contention in mid-January. In fact, they would be in the field as of now, according ESPN bracketologist Joe Lunardi. Big picture, this has been great work by Cuonzo Martin without the services of NBA lottery pick Michael Porter Jr.
The things Missouri does well are defend (allowing 65.9 points per game, which ranks 45th nationally), rebound (a plus-7.1 margin, 24th), shoot 3-pointers (38.7 percent, 46th) and make free throws (75.4 percent, 43rd). That formula has kept the Tigers in every game except one — a blowout loss at Utah.
What they do poorly is handle the ball (minus-2.3 turnover margin, which ranks 313th nationally). That shaky ball-handling has made them susceptible to pressure defenses and squirrelly in tight late-game situations when every opponent turns up the defensive heat.
Teams without a point guard that excels at breaking down defenses are at a disadvantage when playing for the last shot. Opponents aren’t put in a position to help off their man to stop penetration. Jordan Geist has been more than anyone expected — and he was really good all night against Tennessee — but my one quibble with Martin’s strategy is putting the ball in Geist’s hands for do-or-die final possessions.
At the risk of suggesting the pine tree air freshener in the wrecker’s cab is a bit too pungent, I would prefer Kassius Robertson to handle the final possession. If everything goes off script, as it usually does, at least the best shooter is the one heaving a desperate 3-pointer. But the real goal should be to get the ball to Jordan Barnett — perhaps via a nearly foolproof dribble handoff outside the 3-point arc — as he is the one most capable of rising up and shooting a natural shot over his defender.
As with most of Missouri’s new first-world problems, the return of Porter would be the best solution for finishing close games or ensuring they aren’t close in the first place.
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Sports Illustrated’s recent in-depth profile of Martin by S.L. Price was revealing and well done. I’m sure the article’s opening, with its rundown of all of Missouri’s recent racial strife, turned off some Show-Me State readers who are sick of hearing it. But Price’s article is intended for a national audience less familiar with the gory details of 2015 — poop swastikas and such — and it does offer the alternative viewpoint that it’s “no doubt foolish to designate an entire school, town or state inherently ‘racist,’ just as it is to declare one ‘progressive’ or ‘good.’”
When you are the source of monumental bad news, you wear the stigma for a long time. The perception of MU as racially intolerant created a very real negative impact that the university is still fighting. I get all that as context for a story about a black man choosing to coach basketball here, although three of the last four basketball coaches have been black — and four out of five if you count interim coach Melvin Watkins serving out Quin Snyder’s term in 2006.
What follows is not a criticism of this article — which was certainly more nuanced than this summer’s New York Times news article about the university’s persistent protest-related problems — but rather an expression of frustration that Missouri continues to be considered the worst of the worst in race relations.
Racism exists here, there and everywhere. To suggest MU carries that unfortunate banner for the SEC or the nation defies common sense.
My version of the root of the 2015 protests was that MU had some racist idiots, some dogmatic protestors and some ineffective administrators. Pretty much every university has people in the first category. No other university had the combination of the three playing off each other to create the perfect poop storm.
I’m not here to defend my home state’s weather, its toasted ravioli or its taste in governors — in my opinion, a gentleman doesn’t threaten to blackmail his mistress until at least the second date — but I will go to my grave believing there are at least 25 states as backward, if not more backward, than Missouri.
That sentence probably explains why I’ve never been asked to create a tourism slogan.
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The true measure of an iconic sports moment is whether it can elicit an involuntary noise from an impartial observer. There were two in the last two weeks, with the Alabama Crimson Tide and Minnesota Vikings both winning with improbable walk-off touchdown passes.
Both were worthy of high-fiving a stranger at a sports bar or startling a snoozing dog in your living room.
The Missouri Tigers have played the role of the Georgia Bulldogs and New Orleans Saints a few times, of course, but what about the times they went from a sure loss (or at least overtime) to a victory on one improbable late play? Two stand out in the last 25 years.
1. There was a three-year period in the mid-1990s when Norm Stewart could have put uniforms on three student-managers and two custodians and beaten powerhouse Kansas teams at the Hearnes Center. The epitome of that era came on Feb. 4, 1997, when a Missouri team that would finish 16-17 was somehow tied with undefeated and top-ranked Kansas in the final seconds of the second overtime. KU’s Jacque Vaughn stripped Tyron Lee but couldn’t corral the loose ball. Corey Tate scooped it up. Although the shot itself wasn’t anything miraculous — a jumper from the free-throw line — what put it over the top was the accumulation of the improbability of a squad whose stars were Jason Sutherland, Kelly Thames and Derek Grimm beating a team with Raef LaFrentz, Paul Pierce, Scot Pollard and Vaughn.
2. Late on the night of Sept. 18, 2010, I was trying to whip a column into shape on a tight deadline. San Diego State, which led 24-20, had just intercepted Blaine Gabbert at Missouri’s 37-yard line with 1:47 left in the game. I don’t recall the content of that column, but it probably questioned how the 25th-ranked team in the nation could give up 228 rushing yards to some guy I never heard of named Ronnie Hillman. The MU fans streaming to the exits appeared to agree. But the Aztecs managed to run only 25 seconds off the clock before punting. Then, with 51 seconds left, Gabbert threw a short sideline pass to T.J. Moe, who picked up a key block from fellow receiver Jerrell Jackson and went 68 yards for a touchdown. After an involuntary verbal outburst related to the play, I moved my cursor to the top of the page, highlighted all the copy and hit delete … then made a voluntary verbal outburst.
