Shooting Struggles, Slow Offense Doom Missouri Basketball Against Memphis
COLUMBIA, Mo. — Missouri basketball's scoring output against Memphis was the opposite of its season opener against Arkansas Pine-Bluff.
It was a much more difficult opponent tonight, as the Memphis Tigers had been a March Madness team just last season. However, no one could have expected how dreadful Missouri's offense would play Friday.
Missouri shot an abysmal 18-for-56 from the field, including 6-for-28 shooting from 3-point range. The Tigers couldn't get any sort of momentum going throughout the second half, and every shot seemingly couldn't find the bottom of the net no matter how close to the rim.
Memphis was also a much larger and more athletic team, which Missouri struggled to matchup against. The opposing Tigers were everywhere defensively, forcing Missouri to put up bad looks.
The first half was relatively strong for Missouri, as a 6-0 run at the 10:43 mark gave the Tigers a 16-11 lead off the backs of Noah Carter and Sean East ll.
East looked incredibly confident on the floor, scoring his first nine points on 4-of-5 shooting. The guard drives to the basket like no other, while still being a threat from the outside.
The momentum continued for the Tigers, leading 29-15 with six minutes left in the half. Memphis did manage to get itself within seven points by the end of half, mostly due to a 4-of-16 Missouri shooting clip from behind the arc. Missouri had many open looks but couldn't find the bottom of the net – a trend that dramatically continued.
At the start of the second half, Memphis quickly went on a 12-4 run to tie the game up 38 points a piece. Missouri continued to stay freezing cold offensively, even struggling from the free throw line. Any opportunity it had to get back into the game – with the Mizzou Arena sell-out crowd on their feet – was spoiled by a missed 3-point attempt, turnover, or a Memphis field goal.
By the 5:50 mark, Missouri only had made three field goals in the entire half.
The nightmare continued, leading to a crushing 70-55 defeat. The deficit felt much worse than it was in all actuality, but the life was sucked out of Mizzou Arena by the middle of the second half.
Even after the 3-point shooting performance, head coach Dennis Gates still stressed to his team to shoot those shots, and shoot them with confidence.
"Keep shooting," Gates said. "I've seen these shots, the same shots going in consistently. So do you want to change your entire style of play? No."
Missouri will look to bounce back against Southern Illinois University Edwardsville on Monday, Nov. 13 at 7:00 p.m. CT.
