Coaches tell us that the perfect game doesn’t exist. And actually they are right. You can always find something that could have been done better. But after his 93-71 victory over Illinois on Thursday night, Dennis Gates It must look pretty difficult. Or you would think so.
“No, we didn’t play well. I’m serious,” Gates said. “For 40 minutes we didn’t play well…there are little things that we didn’t perform that might not be visible to the naked eye.”
Okay, coach. You’re trying to ground your mate. No day is better than the best, and no day is worse than the worst. We don’t believe critics and fans. So I understand what Gates is trying to say.But to my untrained eye, the Tigers were pretty good. brad underwood thought so too.
“He left Missouri with a lot of credit,” said Underwood. “As a coach, getting them ready was the worst. They beat us, beat us, took our ball. Kobe (brown) Arguably the best player on the floor of this game. Also. “
The Tigers won this in the first half. They led 51-27 after 20 minutes. He had a shot completion rate of 58.8%, including 16 of his last 23 shots. They held Illinois to 31.2% for him and without a basket he stretched for over eight minutes. Missouri made 6-of-13 and Illinois made 1-of-15 3. The Tigers scored 19 points in 9 Illinois turnovers (yes, he’s more than 2 points in every Illinois turnover).
The basketball half was as close to perfect as it could get. In the under-16 timeouts in the second half, Missouri took a 30 lead.
Then it got a little better than that. Tre Gomillion 2 dunks. Nick Honor and proudly Terrence ShannonMizo led by .35.
Somewhere in the first 28 minutes, Mizzou redefined what it was all about.
The NCAA Tournament is no longer a dream, it’s a goal. And that’s a realistic goal. The Tigers have 11 wins and 1 loss. Their only loss was to 4th place Kansas. However, they countered it with a 22-point victory over a team that entered the game ranked 16th and had already beaten Texas when the Longhorns were ranked 2nd.
Is Illinois suffering now? Of course. Underwood hasn’t been happy with his team in recent weeks and could drop out of the top 25 next week. But it doesn’t matter. This night was not about Illinois. This was about Missouri and the basketball renaissance that is now well ahead of schedule.
The Tigers never beat Illinois by more than 18 points in this matchup. They led nearly double that at one point, setting a new Braggin’Right standard for margins of victory. reached a career high. Domoy Hodge He looked like a player who should have entered the SEC straight out of high school instead of having to take the detour to prove himself first at Florida State and Cleveland State. Honor has gone toe-to-toe face to face with any member of the Illini interested in challenging him.
Missouri is almost certainly not one of America’s top 15 teams. Not overnight. But Thursday showed that it could be the right night. This effort may not have beaten Kansas, but it would have been much more competitive.
Over the first nine games of the season, Mizzou fans were cautiously optimistic. Sure, they’re doing better than last year, but that’s a low standard. But now? After Thursday night? Now we are wondering how good they are.
3 to 0 in neutral court games. They are winning ranked teams. They are his fourth highest scoring team in the country. They rank 4th in field goal percentage taken, 3rd in transition scores, and 15th in assists-to-turnover ratio.
And don’t look right now, but they might actually be able to put up a defense.
Missouri has 11 wins and 20 guaranteed games. If the Tigers win half, they’ll almost certainly qualify for the NCAA Tournament. And it may not take that much.
Is it too early to start the countdown to qualifying for tournaments? We’re about a third of the way through the season. But it’s not too early for a team that hasn’t won a dance match in 4,661 days, as he’s only appeared in two tournaments in the past nine seasons.make a clipping of Kim Anderson Major League style, rip off a piece every time you win. Well, on second thought, you might not actually do that.
People are starting to notice. Missouri proved right in bubble territory as he jumped to 43rd place at Ken Pom and moved up 16 places in the standings after beating UCF on Saturday. The NET rankings won’t be updated until the morning, but the Tigers’ first Quad 1 win of the season is sure to move them up from 65 as well. Nationally, those who follow basketball took notice.
Again, Gates doesn’t care.
“I don’t read Twitter that way. As CEO, I’m running the program the best way I can,” he said. “I don’t do things for opinions.
“We are proud of our growth.”
Gates stressed that the team needs to improve. He scolded Hodge sitting on one side of him for missing too many free throws. No matter how much fun he made for his fans, his team made it clear that it wasn’t where he wanted it to be.
“We haven’t played well yet,” he said. “I expect more.”
It would be nicer. But even this alone would be pretty good. Certainly enough to keep us all interested until early March. And that’s something we haven’t been able to say enough about lately.
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