The first opponent for the 2012-2013 Tigers was the Northwest Missouri State Bearcats. This game went about like you might expect, especially when you consider that Coach Haith was experimenting with various line-ups to see what the different 5-man units brought to the table. The Report, as always, will focus on each individual's performance and weigh the good with the bad. Here we go...
Michael Dixon
Get it together Mike. You are the best player on this team and need to set a good example for the young guys. Looked pretty solid watching from the bench with Clarkson, Brown and Bull. That is all.
Alex Oriakhi
This guy is a load. I loved how when he got the ball in close he went up strong for the dunk. If we can get 8 points and 10 rebounds every game from him, that will be a huge bonus. I watched his defense carefully and couldn't tell for sure how effective he was, but that was what he was known for at UConn. He did pull down 5 offensive rebounds though, which is great.
Laurence Bowers
I think of all the players, I was the most disappointed in Bowers. I didn't care for his shot selection and he was getting outrebounded by much shorter NWMSU players. I thought there were so many times when he had the opportunity to go up and get the rebound and he came away with nothing. I had hoped that he would play stronger and fight for those boards. I just didn't see that tonight as he finished the game with only 3 rebounds. He did have 14 points thanks to some nifty passes from Phil. I may be overly critical of Bowers and may have had unrealistic expectations for him, but this team really needs for him to be more active on the boards.
Phil Pressey
11 assists...good. 6 turnovers...bad. A number of his turnovers were of the showboat variety that we know he won't try to pull off in a tight game. His dish to Oriakhi for the dunk was amazing. I love that we have a guy who can catch that pass and throw it down. Mizzou's offense looks completely different when he is not in the game. He is so important to this team. Obviously, tonight that was even more apparent since Dixon was not there to pick up the slack.
Keion Bell
Overall, I thought this was a fairly good outing for Bell. I think I will like it even more when he doesn't have to play point guard. The offense really bogged down during the times when he was running the show. He does not appear to have a very good outside shot, but seems lethal when going to the hoop. I thought he played pretty good defense on the perimeter and was happy to see him pick up some nice steals due to ball pressure. Will he be as effective on defense when the competition is considerably better than NWMSU?
Earnest Ross
Ross obviously had the hot hand tonight and looks to be one of the few outside threats this team will have outside of Dixon and Pressey. He finished with 6 rebounds which was second best on the team. He and Bell are both going to be great additions to this team. He has an interesting form to his shot, but it sure seemed to work for him. I would have loved to see some mid-range game from him (more on that later).
Tony Criswell
I really like Criswell's game. He turned in 8 points and 5 rebounds in limited action (15 minutes). Haith seems to prefer Bowers, but Criswell seems like he can do everything that Bowers does but is stronger on the boards. It will be very interesting to see as the season progresses and the rotation tightens who gets the lion's share of the minutes between these two.
Ryan Rosburg
Rough outing for Ryan. I wasn't particularly impressed with anything that he did. Fouling out in 8 minutes of playing time against a Division II team is fairly ominous. He's a freshmen, but I had hoped for something a bit more than what I saw tonight.
Webster-Chan, Haith, Jankovic, Feldmann
I seriously doubt these guys are going to get any significant minutes this year. Webster-Chan has some potential though to be a very solid player in the coming years.
Overall Thoughts
Three things stood out to me in this game.
- The starters can play some fairly decent defense when they want to. I hope (HOPE!) that the defense will improve drastically over the course of the season as the players get used to playing together. But for the first outing, I was pleased (i.e., the first half defensive performance).
- Rebounding is still a concern. Mizzou only outrebounded a much smaller NWMSU team 39-32. I was critical of Bowers and I wasn't especially impressed with the team rebounding as a whole. I did notice in the first half that everyone (including Phil) was crashing the boards, but this is still an area that needs improvement.
- Not a single Missouri player showed any mid-range game in this game, except for maybe Criswell. Of course, college basketball's best mid-range player was riding the pine tonight (Michael Dixon), so I shouldn't be too terribly worried about this. But if you think about it, Missouri scored all of their points tonight either from 3-pointers or from lay-ups/dunks. English and Denmon both were solid in this area and I am waiting for someone other than Dixon to show that they have this in their repertoire. I expect Bowers, Ross, Bell and Criswell all to be capable in this regard.
