Goodbye, January.
Missouri basketball will finish the opening month of the Southeast Conference with five victories and two championship losses.
Basketball n ° 24/22 of the Missouri beat No. 16/16 Ole Miss 83-75 Saturday evening in Columbia, sharing third place in the dry ranking.
The 51 points combined with senior guards Tamar Bates and Caleb Grill caught most of the immediate attention after the match. Only two players all season had collected 25 or more points in a match against Ole Miss this season. Mizzou doubled this total in one night thanks to the performances of 26 bates and 25 grill points.
More: “Special performance”: how Tamar Bates and Caleb Grill, Missouri basketball, sank Ole Miss
But there was much more remarkable action when the Tigers eliminated their third opponent of the season. Here are three notes the day after Saturday’s victory:
Has Missouri basketball transformed the rebound into a force?
The Missouri has exceeded its opponents in five of its seven dry games so far, which is a good barometer of performance improvement but a measure that does not tell the whole story.
According to CBB Analytics, tigers have an offensive rebound rate of 32.1 % at a conference, which is in the upper third of all division I teams. Missouri has a percentage of defensive rebound of 72.4 % course of the same period, which is in the 81st centile among the division I teams.
Against Ole Miss, the Missouri recovered 28 of the 33 defensive boards available and limited the three -point three -point rebels, and he seized 11 of the 34 offensive boards available and accumulated eight second chance points.
This is the measure that counts.
On Saturday, success was made on a committee. Five different players succeeded between five and seven rebounds while the tigers won the battle on the 39-28 rebounds.
This tells us that the Tigers, who finished last in the league in terms of total rebound in the first two seasons of Dennis Gates in Colombia, are now a factor on the tables – at least enough to bounce back and not lose games.
“In the end, from the point of view of having a Josh Gray, a Mark Mitchell, a Trent Pierce, it detects on Tamar Bates, who was challenged this summer about his rebound in front of me,” said declared Gates on Saturday. “And, finally, we know what Caleb Grill does on the rebounds. And I think Robinson took part of it, and he had seven or eight defensive rebounds tonight.
Does the exorbitant free throw rate compensate for a low conversion rate?
Mizzou is second in the country for attempts at free throws, with 28.5 attempts per match.
Mizzou is n ° 183 in the country for the percentage of free throws, succeeding 71.5 % of his attempts.
So which one counts the most?
Against Ole Miss, the Missouri pulled 12 free throws in the first seven minutes of the second half. Tony Perkins was 2 out of 4; Trent Pierce was 0-en-2; Josh Gray was 2 out of 4. The tigers crossed this period 6 out of 12, leaving points on the board and never really putting the rebels in bed. It is not ideal.
But the tigers were persistent and the mistakes committed finally helped seal the match. Mizzou pulled 31 free throws in the second half. To put this gargantuan figure in perspective, Winthrop leads the country with 30.5 attempts at free throws … per game.
The Missouri scored only 70.9%, but the 22 points they scored on the line in the second period were 13 points more than Ole Miss scored from the line. It is ideal.
Mu won the match by eight points.
Mizzou will probably not be an elite team of shot on free throws this season. Bates is an incredible 94.6 % of the line, but after that, the three best Tigers players to reach the line – Mark Mitchell, Anthony Robinson II and Tony Perkins – total 71.4 %. Through 20 games, the figures are the figures.
But the speed at which the tigers will arrive at the band will decide many games this season. It certainly helped on Saturday.
Is the ceiling still mounted on the Mizzou season?
The Missouri climbed three places in the net ranking to 24th place thanks to its victory over Ole Miss. The tigers went to 29th place in the classification of the Kenpom analysis site. When national polls will take place on Monday, the Missouri will most likely be among the 25 best teams and could even experience a slight increase after 1-1 week.
The Tigers are in the middle of a series of revealing matches and, with the victory against Ole Miss, they start on a good foot. The next three mizzou games will be Quad 1 business, which is the first level in the university basketball catalog.
More: Missouri basketball score: Mizzou beats Ole Miss for a victory classified at Mizzou Arena
Mizzou will face Mississippi State next Saturday in Starkville, Mississippi, where the Bulldogs form team n ° 20 on the net. Then, it is a trip to Knoxville, Tennessee, to face a number 4 of the Net Tennessee. Then return to Colombia to face Texas A&M, the current n ° 12 in the ranking.
A trip to the NCAA tournament seems almost assured. The tigers are now playing for the heads of the start. The next three games could greatly help determine what it will be in March.
“I think it is one of the best teams in the country. It is not a coach speech, that’s what I think, “said Mississippi coach Chris Beard on Saturday. “We all know this team last year and all the adversity it has known. They just continued to fight and get rid of, so you know that DNA is here. Now (the Missouri is) in good health. (Gates a) has depth. He has good players. You know, there is a reason for which they beat Kansas at home, and there is a reason for which they took a good start in the dry.
This article was initially published on Columbia Daily Tribune: To remember on Missouri basketball: what Ole Miss’s victory tells us about the Tigers
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