Game 5: Louisville

What a great challenge it was going up against Louisville, one of the better defenses in college basketball.  I was especially looking forward to the individual match-up of two of the nation's premier point guards -- Phil Pressey and Peyton Siva.  As is so often the case, things don't turn out like you expect them to as Pressey and Siva rarely went head-to-head, and when they did, Siva inexplicably was the better of the two.  I'll start with my overall thoughts before going into the individual breakdowns.

Overall Thoughts
Overall, I was pretty disappointed with the play of the team.  I thought Mizzou played scared, tentative and overwhelmed to be playing an elite team.  I was very confused with the coaching decisions made in this game and can only assume that either (a) Haith doesn't know what he is doing or (b) Haith knows exactly what he is doing and is willing to sacrifice November and December in hopes of reaping some dividends in February and March.  Since the former does not seem to be the more logical choice, then surely the latter is what we saw this evening.

Unfortunately, this game highlighted what I've been alluding to all season and that is that Mizzou has two guys that are used to winning (Pressey and Oriakhi) and a bunch of players who have no idea what winning means.  Bowers, Ross and Bell looked pathetic going up against elite competition and everyone else looked terrified (except for maybe NWC).

The other thing I have noticed with this team that has become the norm is the inexplicable inability to grab what should be easy rebounds and loose balls.  I don't know if every player has bad hands or what, but time and time again there are loose balls that this team just can't seem to corral.  Pressey is the only one who seems to be able to get a ball that is in his vicinity.  Everyone else either doesn't give full effort or just doesn't have the ability.

Phil Pressey
Phil is a great player.  Unfortunately, he is the only great player on this team.  He carried Mizzou at points and was forced into having to do too much because NO ONE ELSE WOULD STEP UP.  You can say all the bad things you want about him, but this team was a train wreck when he wasn't in the lineup.  I completely agreed with him on the play where he zipped it to Ross and the ball went flying out of bounds.  There was no defender on that side of the hoop and what did Ross do...went away from the basket and into the corner.  Pressey had every right to be frustrated, while Ross continues to frustrate me.  Grade: 6/10.

Laurence Bowers
There were numerous hints made that the loss of Bowers may have been a blessing in disguise last year and I'm worried that we may seem some confirmation of that when Mizzou goes up against good teams.  He is not a consistent threat and is just terrible on the boards when it matters.  Frankly, Bowers was horrible in this game.  Grade: 1/10.

Alex Oriakhi
Oriakhi played well, but was awful at the line.  Grade: 6/10.

Negus Webster-Chan
Webster-Chan plays hard, and usually plays safe, but ultimately is not the type of player that is going to strike fear in the heart of an opponent.  Grade: 4/10.

Earnest Ross
Ross has quickly gone from a player that I like to a player that I don't know what to think.  He is not fundamentally sound at all in the way that he plays.  He's not a great passer and has looked terrible on defense so far this season.  He committed a number of no-nos in this game and overall just didn't do a lick against Louisville.  Grade: 3/10.

Keion Bell
Bell looked better tonight than he did last night.  He drove into the lane a couple of times and made some nice passes.  He played much more in control.  However, he still plays as if he could care less whether he wins or loses.  Grade: 4/10.

Tony Criswell
Criswell has a nice shot, but is a poor ballhandler and is one of those guys who I was referencing earlier who seems to have trouble keeping the ball in his hands.  He had a fairly decent stat line with 9 points, 7 boards, 2 assists and a block (but also 3 turnovers).  Grade: 6/10.

Jankovic and Rosburg
Jankovic and Rosburg were overmatched and I have no idea why they got the minutes they did in this game. Grade: 3/10.

Coach Haith
I felt like Haith coached this game as if it was a scrimmage with no care as to whether Mizzou won or lost.  I thought he used too much of his bench early on at crucial points when I didn't think he necessarily needed to and I thought sticking with the zone defense was horrible strategy even though Louisville is not a great outside shooting team.  The zone defense was horrible because this team doesn't know how to play it.  Bowers and Ross were especially bad on defense tonight.  Louisville basically got to pick where they wanted to shoot their open shot, because ALL of their shots were WIDE OPEN.  They bricked a lot of open shots early which kept Missouri in the game, but then they started to fall at the same time that Missouri unraveled and at that point, the game was over.  But that zone defense was horrendous and I have no idea why Haith stuck with it for so long if he really had any desire to win that game.  I hope it was a learning lesson and that the team can improve.

Next up:  Virginia Commonwealth tomorrow (Saturday) at 6:00 PM CST.

Game 4: Stanford

Happy Thanksgiving!

Well, this was the first test for the Tigers and the one I was the most worried about just because I was so wanting to see the battle of the short, quick point guards...Pressey vs. Siva.  I was afraid that the Tigers might be looking past the Cardinal looking forward to a possible second round game against the #2 team in the nation.  Missouri did their job, now Louisville needs to win its game tonight in order to face Mizzou.

Phil Pressey
I thought Phil played a whale of a game.  He is such a weapon on offense and the difference when he is not in the game is night and day.  He hit all of his free throws, came up with 4 steals, knocked down some big 3-pointers in the first half, tallied 8 assists and 5 rebounds including a big one late in the game where he just went up over the taller Stanford players to grab the ball and control it.  He looked like the nation's best point guard to me as Stanford just had no answer for keeping him out of the lane.  The pass late to Oriakhi was huge and vintage Pressey.  Grade: 9/10.

Laurence Bowers
Bowers finished the game with 19 and 10 and really came through at times in the second half with knocking down shots when the rest of the team went cold.  I still get frustrated at times with him though because he still has trouble corralling rebounds when he is the only one there and for whatever reason is unable to control the ball.  This seemed to happen a number of times in this game, but it's hard to argue with a double-double.  Grade: 8/10.

Alex Oriakhi
Oriakhi finally had some big bodies to go up against and Stanford did a pretty good job of containing him though Oriakhi still went to the free throw line 8 times.  I had no idea that he was going to be such a solid free throw shooter.  Oriakhi obviously had a bone-headed play when he got caught with the frustration foul in the second half after getting his shot blocked.  Otherwise, he had a decent game.  Grade: 6/10.

Negus Webster-Chan
Webster-Chan hasn't been able to get the ball in the hoop of late but still provides all the other things that the team needs, mainly in the area of ballhandling.  It was obvious in the second half that Haith trusts NWC more than Bell since bell spent almost the entire half on the bench.  NWC's one made basket was the second-chance 3-pointer in which Ross kept the ball alive.  Grade: 5/10.

Earnest Ross
Ross was 1-7 in the first half and 2-12 in the second half.  He just could not make anything, including lay-ups.  He did end up with a double-double though as he finished with 10 points and 11 rebounds.  He needs to learn that when he gets those offensive rebounds to kick the ball out and reset the offense when there are defenders surrounding him.  Grade: 4/10.

Keion Bell
Bell was a mess.  He had as many turnovers as the rest of the team combined.  He made a great move on the first possession of the game to drive the lane and pass to a cutting Bowers for an easy lay-up.  But after that, he turned the ball over almost every time he touched the ball.  If you watch Bell (and Ross does this too), when a pass is made to him, his first instinct is to see if he can shoot or score, NOT to see if someone else is open for a better shot.  As a result, he appears to be a very selfish player and does not work well in a team context.  Haith had enough of Bell when he turned the ball over both times he touched it in the second half, and Bell did not come back into the ball game until the waning seconds for defense.  Haith just doesn't trust him.  And he shouldn't.  Grade: 2/10.

Overall Thoughts
I thought this was a very good win.  Stanford was a decent opponent and were fundamentally sound.  I was disappointed at times with the perimeter defense as Pressey and Bell got blown by a number of times by Randle who would then pull up for an easy shot at the free throw line.  Stanford got A TON of open looks from outside and it was fortunate for Mizzou that they only made 23% of their 3s.  Pressey was great and I thought Haith probably used the bench a little more than he needed to, but he was obviously wanting to give the guys some rest whenever he could since they will be playing 3 games in 3 days.  Nice to see Oriakhi and Pressey knock down their free throws late.  Very nice win.  (And decent showing by the Tiger faithful.)

Next up:  Winner of Louisville/Northern Iowa tomorrow at 8:30 PM CST.

Game 3: Nicholls State

Nicholls State came into this game having played only one other game, losing to Vanderbilt by 15 last weekend.  My hope/expectation was to see a convincing Missouri win (by 30 points) highlighted by another dominating performance on the glass.  Alas, it was not to be.  Mizzou started the game looking great on defense and awful on offense.  There were just so many wasted possessions early in the game which I hope to see cleaned up once the competition gets better (next game!).  Then in the second half they had numerous defensive breakdowns while looking a little better on offense.  As will be my practice from now on, I'll go from best to worst.

Alex Oriakhi
Oriakhi was a great defensive presence in this game.  When he was in the game, Nicholls State really had trouble scoring.  As soon as he went out, Nicholls State would make a run.  He is as important to Mizzou's defense as Phil is to the offense.  However, he still misses too many point blank shots.  Twice he had the ball right at the rim and just hoisted it right over the rim missing the goal entirely.  Very perplexing.  Nice to see him knock down his free throws though.  Grade: 7/10.

Earnest Ross
Ross had a nice first half and was really the only guy knocking down shots as the rest of the team was throwing the ball away.  But he looked pretty sloppy in the second half as well.  Grade: 6/10.

Phil Pressey
Phil seemed like a non-factor in this game other than the fact that when he was not in the game the offense really bogged down.  Grade: 5/10.

Laurence Bowers
Bowers just can't get anything going in the first half of games.  He looked pretty bad on both ends of the floor during the first period.  He scored some buckets in the second half, but continue to look poor on defense as the Nicholls State bruiser seemed to out-muscle and out-quick Bowers on numerous occasions.  Grade: 4/10.

Keion Bell
Bell just doesn't seem to have what it takes.  He ended three early possessions with a brick from 3 and two turnovers.  He seems so slow and so far has proven to be a very inefficient player on offense.  I also caught him napping on a couple of plays where he was sitting in the corner and neither went for the offensive rebound nor got back to defend when a shot went up (see photo sequence below).  His fundamentals just aren't there.  I've seen enough of Bell to formulate an early opinion that he is not going to be one of the key players on this team.  I did like his defense in the second half when he grabbed some steals and got in the passing lanes.  Grade: 4/10.

Tony Criswell
Criswell needs to use his body and start making shots inside rather than settling for outside jump shots which have not been going down for him thus far in the season.  He's not looking as impressive now as he was early on.  Grade: 4/10.

Negus Webster-Chan
Webster-Chan neither helped nor hurt the team in this game.  I think his minutes are going to go down significantly in the Bahamas tournament as Mizzou will want Pressey playing as much as possible.  Grade: 3/10.

Stefan Jankovic
Jankovic came back down to earth and unfortunately looked completely out of control in his few minutes in the game.  When you have one of the nation's best point guards, you let him run the break.  Grade: 2/10.

Ryan Rosburg
Nicholls State scored on almost every possession that Rosburg was in the game by either going right at him or getting an easy rebound where he should have been.  Grade: 2/10.

Overall Thoughts
I apologize for the negative tone of this edition of the Report, but I was very disappointed in the team's performance tonight.  Poor execution and fundamentals were on display as Mizzou made Nicholls State look a lot better than they really are.  I expect the rotation to tighten up considerably when facing Stanford as I have to think that Haith will want Pressey and Oriakhi on the floor as much as possible as those two are very key to Mizzou's success.  Hopefully, it was a good learning experience while still getting a win.  It will be interesting to see how these guys do next week against much better competition.

Next up:  Stanford on Thanksgiving Day at Noon.