WICHITA, Kan. — Missouri practiced fast.
When the Tigers took to the Intrust Bank Arena floor for their designated 40 minutes of practice time Wednesday, they flew up and down the court. Three-on-two transition situations. Grabbing rebounds and going. Powering to the rim. Pulling up from 3.
While most of the other teams to practice earlier in the day seemed to use their gym time to get used to the shooting environment, No. 6 seed Mizzou (22-11) may well have been sending a message to No. 11 seed Drake (30-3), which it will face at 6:35 p.m. Thursday.
As point guard Anthony Robinson II put it just before MU’s practice began: “We’re an aggressive team and we like to speed things up.â€
Speed and size are two of the bigger differences between the Tigers and Bulldogs, who will battle in the first round of the NCAA Tournament with a spot against either No. 3 seed Texas Tech (25-8) or No. 14 seed North Carolina-Wilmington (27-7) on the line. Sure, there’s the difference in conferences or coaching backgrounds, but it’s interesting to think about this clash of styles on paper.
“It’s gonna be a little bit different for both of us,†forward Jacob Crews said.
But, crucially, the Tigers will have star power forward Mark Mitchell available for the first round of the tournament after he missed time during last week’s Southeastern Conference Tournament with a knee injury. Mitchell looked to be practicing fully and without any noticeable limitations on Wednesday.
“No restrictions,†he said. “I’m feeling good, ready to go.â€
Drake has the longest average possession length of any team in the nation, according to KenPom, which reflects in how it plays. The Bulldogs display a clear patient tempo.
“I like how you worded that,†Bulldogs coach Ben McCollum joked with the Post-Dispatch when presented with that phrase in Wichita. “Some people would say slow.â€
And they wouldn’t be wrong, Coach. But he explained what Drake tries to accomplish by taking up more of the shot clock than any other team in the country:
“It's not that we try to slow it down,†McCollum said. “It's that it is difficult for us to get a shot because of the athleticism on the other side of the ball. Certain games we're able to play a little bit faster and have more possessions. Mizzou, defensively, they run quite a few defenses. You kind of just have to take what they give you. If it's five seconds in, and you need to shoot it. If it's 25 seconds in, then shoot it.
“Our intent isn't necessarily to just slow the game down per se. Obviously, the SEC is a fast league and an athletic league. Mizzou is very athletic. They play very fast. They're very well-coached. They're a tough matchup for everybody in the country, to be quite honest.â€
Drake players warm up during practice for the first round of the NCAA college basketball tournament, Wednesday, March 19, 2025, in Wichita, Kan.
So much of Drake’s offense — which does take 22 seconds per possession, on average — runs through point guard Bennett Stirtz. Averaging 19.1 points and 5.7 assists per game while playing all 40 minutes or awfully close to it, he’s the system.
The Bulldogs will often run repeated pick and rolls down the middle third of the floor, trying to find a window for Stirtz to get to the rim, hit a pocket pass to the roller or kick it out to the perimeter.
What’s remarkable about his game is how calm he seems, even when the shot clock has dipped low enough to be flashing tenths of seconds above his head.
“Obviously I have the ball in my hands a lot of the game, but just trusting my teammates (helps),†Stirtz said. “I've been used to it, just getting trapped most of the season, stuff like that. Knowing that I'm not the only guy out there, I trust my teammates.â€
MU will happily switch those ball screens, as it often has this season, and generally change up the defensive look it shows Drake. Man, zone, a different zone, switching, fighting through screens, drop coverage — all of that could show up on any string of possessions.
“You can’t overthink it,†McCollum said. “A lot of it is to try to stymie you for two, three possessions at a time. Maybe you score a couple of times in man or they go to their 1-1-3 or 2-3 (zone) or whatever they call it. Maybe they'll press with their diamond press or man press or trap you at half court or blitz ball screens on occasion or switch ball screens. They'll tag from certain places and not tag from others.â€
The Tigers’ plans for covering the series of ball screens they’re likely to see even boil down to complicating Drake’s tendency to run an action, recycle, reset and run it again.
“For me, I think (my job) is to put pressure on (Stirtz),†said center Josh Gray, who will be a crucial part of defending those plays. “Once he doesn’t get what he wants off the initial ball screen, he passes it to the big and then the big pitches it back and whatnot. So to keep the pressure on him, right, so that he (has to) pass to someone else other than the big — I feel like that would be very instrumental in our defense.â€
Sound like a lot? That’s what scouting the Missouri defense takes, even if the effectiveness of that group took a dive for the worse late in the regular season.
For all the confusion the Tigers can create, Drake’s tempo will demand endurance from whatever it is Mizzou plays on a given possession. Stopping the Bulldogs isn’t about holding up for 10 seconds. It’s about holding up for 20 or 25 or all 30 of the shot clock — and then securing the rebound.
“We're more so just going to be more so focused on just being solid on the defensive end,†guard Tamar Bates said. “I mean, obviously there will be points in the game and opportunities for us to speed them up and disrupt the pace that they try to play with and obviously dragging their offense out and to shoot it at the end of the shot clock.â€
The Bulldogs, in addition to their tempo, are also small. Their tallest player stands 6-feet-8, meaning MU will often have the two or three tallest players on the floor at any given moment — with some by several inches.
Gray, a 7-footer, said he sees “a lot of great opportunity†to leverage his size. But Drake is pretty good at leverage for its size, too.
“We’ve got to box them out,†Crews said. “They can rebound. They’re tiny, but they can rebound.â€
Being the smaller team isn’t unusual for Drake, either.
“We've been dealing with it all year,†Stirtz said. “We're pretty undersized. We're used to it.â€
