Mizzou Basketball won an exhibition game in Manhattan, Kansas tonight. Even though the game didn’t count, the last time a win in Bramlage happened for the Tigers was in February of 2004. So 22 years is a minute.
I don’t mean to bring that up to make it a bigger deal than it is. Bramlage wasn’t full, Kansas State is expected to be amongst the worst teams in the Big 12 this year, but it’s also been a place where we’ve watched the Tigers march into only to be slaughtered. So winning there, in any manner, feels nice. Even if it doesn’t count.
Here’s the screen cap of the Statbroadcast box:
Everyone played some kind of minutes except Jaylen Carey, Nicholas Randall, and CJ Gunn.
Trent Burns played 3 minutes, Luke Northweather played 4, Aaron Rowe played 5, and Jamier Jones played 8. Mark Mitchell played 16 minutes and didn’t make a shot, and Trent Pierce only played 15 minutes but scored 10 points.
It was clear Dennis Gates was in the crash lab late. Mitchell was off the floor the final 10 minutes, Pierce was off the floor for the final 12 minutes. When Mark left the floor for the last time Missouri had a 9 point lead. Down the stretch it was a combination of Jason Crowe, Jr., Kennard Davis, Jr., Aidan Chronister, Cord Stansberry, Toni Bryant, and Bryson Tiller. And after Mitchell came out, there were 5 substitutions. So it was clear what the goal was. Get these young guys the experience of closing out a game on the road.
So with that said, here are some quick takeaways:
Jason Crowe, Jr. looks the part
The 5-star McDonald’s All American had some rocky moments, but with 21 points on 18 shots, 5 assists, 3 steals and just a couple turnovers, he looked about what you had hoped. Crowe was off from distance, connecting on just one of his six three point attempts. But the rest of his game was in full effect.
There were a few times when Crowe was given the ball during, what can only be described with the Benny Hill theme song, and he made the bad call to forge ahead into traffic and only made things worse. That’s part of the growth with a freshman point guard who is not really a point guard. There are going to be moments where you aren’t sure what he’s doing. But otherwise, Crowe was terrific.
Mark Mitchell looks a bit rusty
It’s not surprising, but we didn’t see the best version of Mark Mitchell. He’s still got a ways to go to be fully acclimated, plus with the jostling between campus and court, it might take him some time to get back to the Mark Mitchell we’ve been accustomed to.
Of all the guys on the roster, he’s the one I’m least worried about. It might take time for him to find his exact role, but I doubt there are going to be a lot of nights like this one for the 5th year senior.
Defense?
At Missouri, Dennis Gates has yet to field a top 50 defense. In fact his best defense was 68th.
This unit looks like it could be different. For all the bumps they had offensively, the defense was excellent for most of the night. They came out of the gates a little iffy, but they locked down for the rest of the half, and opened the game up with their D to start the second half.
I’ll update this post with the official study hall graphics later, but if you’re looking at intensity, blocks, steals, deflections, they did it all.
Toni Bryant played like a freshman
Bryant played 24 minutes, and had 6 points on 2-6 shooting. But just 1 of 4 from behind the arc. And two of those shots I didn’t care for. He’s a good shooter when it’s a catch and shoot, but he’s got to learn that it’s ok to pass up a shot if there’s a hesitation or a fumbled catch.
Still you have to like his energy on defense, and he had 2 blocked shots. But needs to get more rebounds.
Relax on Bryson Tiller
Tiller was pretty bad offensively. He was pretty good offensively at the Mizzou Pro Day. He’s figuring that part of his game out in a lot of ways. But what he is already is a pretty good defender, and a tough physical presence inside. He had 9 rebounds and 5 blocks! That’s tough.
He had 5 turnovers too! That’s not good.
If there’s one thing about Gates, is he’s been really good about figuring out how best to deploy his players to generate offense. That part with Tiller is still a work in progress. But the defensive side of certainly something to be hopfeul about.
I’ll post Study Hall here when I have it. But that’s about as much as you can take away from this game. It was weird, Dennis Gates used a ton of lineups, he didn’t run his big dogs out there much, and massaged a win with three freshmen on the floor for most of the closing minutes. You take it.
I’m looking forward to the games that count.