What Led to Some of Mizzou’s Best, Worst Moments of Season Against Vanderbilt – Sports Illustrated

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Against Vanderbilt, Missouri managed to play arguably 25 minutes of its best basketball of the season. 25 minutes of looking like a team that could compete with some of the best in the postseason.
If you felt safe turning the channel off once Missouri had built a 21-point lead with 8:45 remaining though, the final score of 81-80 would be completely confusing. Not only for the fact of how quickly Vanderbilt was able to cut down the score, but also questioning how the same Missouri team that built the lead had come inches away from losing it all.
From the stretch in between the 16:28 mark of the first half and the 8:41 of the second half, Missouri outscored Vanderbilt 62-35. Missouri was playing complementary basketball, with its size advantage on defense preventing many easy shots for the Commodores, while finding open offensive looks of its own.
“They were making it hard for us to create space,” Vanderbilt head coach Mark Byington said of how Missouri limited the Vanderbilt offense, which entered the game as the fifth-ranked scoring team in the SEC. “They were physical and hitting us on cuts and kind of grabbing us on screens. We couldn't separate from them, and there just wasn't a lot of space out there.”
The defense was also aided by a surprising player, with redshirt freshman center Trent Burns playing for 17:51 of the game after averaging just 4.25 minutes across the previous four games. He had the highest +/- on the team, +19. 
“Several guys played beyond their abilities and did some great things,” Gates said. “Our player of the game was Trent Burns. I thought he did a tremendous job in practice, and what he did in practice showed up in the game.”
Offensively, Missouri was consistently able to dish passes out to an open Trent Pierce, Jayden Stone or T.O. Barrett for 3s, with that trio shooting 8 for 15 from 3-point range in the first half. Missouri built momentum for itself with each possession.
“They were scoring, so they were setting up their defense the entire time,” Byington said. “I thought they had the right mentality, and I thought we didn't for most of the game. And I thought it showed in the way they play.”
Up to the point of Missouri’s 65-44 lead, the Tigers had sent a clear statement of what they were capable of. Getting the win was still vital for Missouri boosting its chances at a spot in the NCAA Tournament. But the last nine minutes of play from the Tigers takes at least a little bit away from what could’ve been an emphatic, undeniable win.
It was really a span of just 39 seconds where Missouri’s lead was significantly threatened, with the Commodores scoring nine unanswered points in that span. 
During the final 8:19 of play, where Missouri was outscored 34-16, allowing makes from 3 and turnovers were the biggest contributing factors to the near collapse. Missouri gave up seven turnovers in the final nine minutes and the Commodores made five of their last seven 3-point attempts in the game.
“Not happy about the turnovers late in the game,” Gates said. “…You can't give up six points with two field goals — meaning 3s or and-ones. You got to force teams late in games to have 3-point field goals, and we didn't do a good job of that.”
Missouri’s offense didn’t completely lose its scoring ability — key shots from Stone, Pierce and a 3 from Anthony Robinson II were crucial for the Tigers still winning. But turnovers disrupted too many possessions, and Missouri was still trying to manage the clock, looking to drag out as many possessions as it could. In the final nine minutes, Vanderbilt took 18 shot attempts and Missouri took nine.
“Being able to get steals and make plays and be aggressive,” Byington said of Vanderbilt’s comeback attempt. “We were able to make them catch the ball kind of where we wanted to, and then they weren't really hurting us on the other end. So that is a tough situation they're in — they don't want to take quick shots and let us come back. So I think even when we weren't getting stops early in the possession, we would get them at the end. But you could feel the momentum.”
By managing to hang on thanks to Tyler Tanner’s buzzer-beater attempt bouncing off the inside of the rim, Missouri preserved one of its best wins of the season, no matter the style points that were lost along the way.
“Our guys, they may have bent a little bit, but we did not break,” Gates said. “That's a sign of a great team.”
Though this was another concerning late-game execution moment from Missouri, it was also another performance that showed the continuous improvement Missouri has built on since January.
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Joey Van Zummeren is the lead writer for Missouri Tigers on SI, covering the Tigers since 2023. He also has experience reporting on the Green Bay Packers and high school sports. A Belleville, Ill., native, he joined Missouri Tigers On SI as an intern in 2023.
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