Missouri’s Josh Gray (33) dunks during the second half of a game against Howard on Friday, Nov. 8, 2024, in Columbia, Mo.
COLUMBIA, Mo. — Early-season college basketball games can be difficult to make sense of. Some, like Missouri’s season opener against Memphis, are true barometers of where a program stands. Others feel more fruitless.
But they’re all part of the 31-game regular-season slate and therefore meaningful in some capacity — if for nothing else than building an understanding of what a given team’s strengths and weaknesses are.
That process has played out for the Mizzou men through their first three games of the season: a loss to Memphis and wins over Howard and Eastern Washington. The Tigers host Mississippi Valley State on Thursday, then go a full week without a game.
The MU coaching staff built that into the schedule intentionally. Right now, the team is in game mode. But for at least a few precious days, it’ll go back to a heavy emphasis on the practice court — with priorities set by what these early games are showing.
“That will be a week where we can install different things and now continue to stretch and work on execution,†Missouri coach Dennis Gates said. “When games come as quick as they come, they have more time to prepare for us than we have to prepare for them. When you have that on your schedule, you have to be able to go with the things that you’ve worked on versus throwing new things at your guys. You don’t want them to be paralyzed by the scouting report. You just got to focus and fix things when the calendar allows you to fix.â€
So with the caveat that the three games Mizzou has played are quite a small sample size, it’s time for a look at what’s working and what isn’t for the Tigers so far.
The positives
Always good to start with the good, right?
One of the ways MU has looked especially effective so far this season has been in transition — both offensively and defensively. The Tigers are scoring 1.28 points per possession when they’re running in transition, according to Synergy’s play-tracking data, which is better than 82% of college basketball teams. Defensively, they’re also in the 82nd percentile, having held opponents to 0.79 points per transition possession.
There’s a clear mathematical advantage there, especially given that Missouri has received about four more transition opportunities than its opponents per game so far.
And it’s a definite emphasis for MU, which makes roughly 1 in every 5 possessions a transition play — though that rate dipped in Monday’s game against Eastern Washington, oddly enough.
The Tigers leaning into transition play falls broadly in line with their style during Gates’ first season at the helm — 2022-23, when Missouri made the NCAA Tournament. That season, MU finished with 22% of its possessions classified as transition looks. Last year, that dipped to 17.2%, but it’s back up to 21.4% so far.
The negatives
There’s another side to every coin.
Part of why transition scoring is seemingly so important for Mizzou is that it isn’t generating the same kind of points out of half-court situations: 0.94 points per possession.
It’s important to note that teams scoring less efficiently in the half court compared to transition is to be expected — it’s a matter of going up against defenses that are neatly set up versus scrambling or rushing back down the floor. But MU is in just the 56th percentile for half-court scoring, which means it is right around average.
Part of the struggle has been shooting — something especially unbalanced in a three-game sample. The Tigers are knocking down only 32% of their catch-and -hoot jumpers, which are often some of the cleanest shots. That in turn might be because 66% of those attempts have been guarded versus open.
Catch-and-shoot jumpers are only one type of look, but it is abnormal for a team to take that many guarded ones. Gates seemed to take issue with some of Missouri’s shot selection after a frigid shooting night against Howard, for example.
“The 3-pointer was so tempting for most of them,†he said. “They couldn’t resist it.â€
Interestingly, when half-court possessions slog late into the shot clock, Mizzou’s ability to score drops off steeply. The Tigers have attempted 11 shots in the final four seconds of the shot clock and made just two of them.
And while it’s certainly not a trend that’s likely to hold, MU has yet to score on a sideline out of bounds set — given the acronym SLOB, for fun — going scoreless on seven of those plays. Only 23 teams have yet to score on a SLOB look. Mizzou has given up 14 points on 10 such possessions to its opponents.
Lineups
Gates has used 69 different lineup combinations through three games, according to CBB Analytics’ data, which means it’s hard to find much that’s meaningful when sifting through those combinations.
A lineup comprised of point guard Tony Perkins, guard Caleb Grill, guard Tamar Bates, forward Mark Mitchell and center Josh Gray is the only one to have appeared at least once in all three games.
The lineup that has looked the best in terms of plus/minus — how many more points it scored than the other team did — is made up of Perkins, fellow point guard Anthony Robinson, Grill, forward Aidan Shaw and Mitchell.
