Mark Mitchell’s inbounds play with a second left on the clock put the same thought in his head coach’s head as, we have to imagine, the 10,234 fans who had filed into Mizzou Arena.
The pass was woefully short of its target, and it landed in perhaps the worst place possible: The hands of Vanderbilt guard Tyler Tanner, who couldn’t miss in the second half as the Commodores had tracked Mizzou down from 21 points to, in that nearly fateful moment, a half-court heave to possibly win the game.
Tanner got the ball under control and up into the air in time. It was right on line.
Gates’ self-admitted first reaction: “Oh, s**t,” he told reporters after the game.
Mizzou escaped. Barely. Tanner’s heave made about as much of contact with the inside of the rim as is possible without the ball falling through the net, and the Tigers avoided what could have been one of the most remarkable meltdowns in program history, beating No. 18/19-ranked Vanderbilt 81-80 on Wednesday night in Columbia.
Stress levels and general well-being aside, it’s a massive win for Missouri.
Mizzou needs a strong finish to the season to make the March Madness field. A win over top-20 Vanderbilt — since there are no pictures of the résumé — helps the Tigers a remarkable amount.
It got across the line on Wednesday, as much as it tried to cough one up.
Here’s what Gates said to reporters after Mizzou’s win over Vandy:
A majority of the questions the two players, Jayden Stone and Trent Pierce, who joined Gates in his pregame press conference, were about the final minutes of the near-collapse.
Gates had criticisms. We’ll get to those. But he had a reminder for the room and the cameras.
“This is a great win. This is not a loss,” Gates said. “This is a win. This is a win. Let me remind everybody in here, this is a win. So, let’s project our questions like we won.”
He’s right. A double-digit win, which is what the game was trending toward for most of the night, would have helped Mizzou in the advanced analytics and NET rankings more, but the Tigers bolstered their résumé nonetheless.
If Mizzou needed to finish the regular season with three or four more wins before Selection Sunday, then it has one.
“We did not break, and that’s the most important part,” Gates said. … “Yes, we were up 20. Who in here did not watch the Oklahoma-Vanderbilt game (when Vandy also nearly came back from down 21 points)? We knew they would make a run, and our guys, they may have bent a little bit, but we did not break.
“That’s a sign of a great team, being able to come back, being able to make shots. Ultimately, we got to get to the foul line in that situation, not have empty possessions. Our guys had resilience, so I’m proud of them. This is a win.”
First: The inbounds pass.
“First, I said, ‘oh, s**t,’ because Mark threw the ball short, right?” Gates said. “You don’t want to use all your timeouts, but that’s not the pass we want. And Mark Mitchell’s parents, his dad even said, ‘Son, I got to teach you how to throw.’ That pass — Mark knew. Mark’s (thrown) some long, long passes before.”
And that speaks to a larger issue in Mizzou’s performance. The Tigers were the better team for 30 minutes, from the opening two minutes of the game to the final eight minutes. The difference between the good and the bad, almost without fail, was how Missouri looked after the ball.
Vanderbilt ran a high press that Mark Byington described as a “Hail Mary” move, with the Commodores facing a 21-point deficit.
But the Commodores also started making shots. They closed 13-of-18 (72.2%) from the field in the final 8:19, after Mizzou opened up its largest lead of the game.
“Not happy about the turnovers late in the game. Had to save some timeouts, but I thought we successfully broke the press,” Gates said. “You can’t give up six points with two field goals, meaning 3s or and-1s. You’ve got to force teams late in games to have 2-point field goals, and we didn’t do a good job of that, and we’ve got to do a better job of protecting the 3-point line and giving up and-1s, but more importantly, taking care of the basketball.”
Mizzou desperately needs center depth. Shawn Phillips Jr. has, for the most part, been solid as the Tigers’ primary center, but he was foul-prone against Vanderbilt — a common theme in the big man’s game in SEC play.
While Phillips sat, the Tigers turned to 7-foot-5 center Trent Burns, whose high billing hasn’t quite materialized in his first season on the floor.
On Wednesday, he gave Missouri his best minutes. He had a team-high +19 plus/minus over a career-high 18 minutes, and he hauled in seven rebounds and registered a block.
“Our player of the game was Trent Burns,” Gates said. “I thought he did a tremendous job in practice, and what he did in practice showed up in the game. And whatever that was, it was more so toward me, because I told him, ‘I’m not going to play you ever again if you don’t earn it in practice.’ It is what it is.
“We need somebody to step up, especially at that five spot. And tonight, it was Trent Burns, and his teammates did a great job of pushing him through and demanding of him as well, and that was the response that we needed.”
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