Missouri basketball’s Monday practice was about nothing but Missouri basketball.
Not whoever might be next, not whoever may come after that. Just a deep, long look inward.
There are a couple of reasons for that.
One, the lose-and-leave postseason has arrived, and the Tigers have their fair share of troubles to overcome.
The type of troubles like allowing 90 points in four of your past five games; like losing three straight to close the regular season; like watching your seed line in both the SEC and NCAA Tournament tumble in the space of a less than a couple weeks.
Two, it’s the postseason, and Mizzou doesn’t yet know who its next opponent will be.
Missouri (21-10) begins play as the 7-seed in the SEC Tournament on Thursday in Nashville, Tennessee, where the Tigers will face the winner of a first-round matchup between 10-seed Mississippi State or 15-seed LSU.
MU head coach Dennis Gates has started the process of analyzing those two teams. During media availability Monday, Gates said he has pulled the tape on both LSU and Mississippi State and is attempting to find what he calls the “common denominator.” That’s the offensive and defensive characteristics the two teams share that he can take to the team and begin to work on matchup-specific drills.
But team-wide on Monday, three days prior to gameday?
“Today, we did not talk about either team,” Gates said. “We talked about ourselves, which is very important.”
No kidding.
The Tigers have fallen on some hard times.
The high-flying, whirlwind offense that proved too much for the likes of Florida and Alabama midseason hasn’t let its foot off the gas, but has not been able to outpace some glaring issues on defense.
Over the past five games, in which Mizzou owns a 1-4 record, CBB Analytics charts the Tigers as owning the nation’s worst defensive rating by allowing 1.267 points per possessions. That has averaged out to 89.4 points per game, which also is the worst mark in the nation. Mizzou’s recent defense is in the bottom rung of the country for points allowed in the paint, off turnovers and in fastbreak situations.
As the Tigers look in the mirror over the next few days, Gates said end of game situations will come up. So, too, will backcourt turnovers that have hurt.
Top of the to-do list, however, will be to address recent foul issues … or at least get the timing of fouls more set up for success.
That means better in-game adjustments to the whistle. It means avoiding shooting fouls before getting into the bonus, and limiting one-and-ones to players with lesser free throw percentages.
“The self-assessment this week,” Gates said, “is pretty much … being able to keep teams off the line and keep a certain deviation.”
That’s not the first time Gates has brought up foul issues in recent weeks. In the past five games, no team in the nation has given away more than 22.8 fouls per game or sent opponents to the free throw line more often than Mizzou. The Tribune asked Gates what the disconnect has been between Missouri’s defensive execution and what officials are calling against his team.
The coach’s answer focused on what he hopes are lessons learned.
“We’ve gotta adjust in-game based off of which officials (are present). We have a sense of the officials and how they blow the whistle, but this is going to be postseason play,” Gates said. “I want you to think about last year — last year, NCAA Tournament. (SEC) teams got in foul trouble in the NCAA Tournament. We, as a conference, have to clean that up, so you may see it being cleaned up in this postseason, and we have to continue to get better to give ourselves a chance to succeed.”
No time like the present.
There are facets of the bracket working in MU’s favor. The Tigers beat both LSU and Mississippi State by double-digits during the regular season. Advance out of that game, and Missouri faces Florida, which it beat in Gainesville in January. The likeliest semifinal opponent is Alabama, which Mizzou beat in a mid-February thriller at Mizzou Arena.
That at the very least is proof of potential for Missouri.
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