Mizzou MBB takes lessons from season opener into game two
COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)
Mizzou men's basketball coach Dennis Gates said he learned a lot about his team in the group's season-opening win against Southern Indiana. He specifically pointed to how the group overcame adversity in the final minutes of Monday's win.
"No one pointed a finger at another. No one blamed one person. It is a team dynamic," he said.
The Tigers held an 18-point lead over the Screaming Eagles heading into the final five minutes of game. But, Southern Indiana lit it up from three point range, going 14-17 from beyond the arc in just the second half. MU got the win, but USI did get within six points in the final seconds.
Gates said he saw his team come together in those closing minutes.
"Okay, this is a little adversity. Who are we? It's one thing to set it up in practice, but in games, when it happens organically, who are we in that moment," he said.
The team said that that was an important test to face, especially so early in the season, as the schedule will grow more and more difficult. 12 players on Gates' 15-man roster are upperclassmen, which players said gives them an advantage when adversity hits.
"There's definitely a plus to that," graduate student guard Tre Gomillion said. "We got great guys. Isiaih Mosley, Noah Carter, DeAndre Gholston, I could go on and on and on. It's just great to have those guys to know, like, there's gonna be runs. There's gonna be punches thrown, but we can throw punches too. It's a game of runs."
You can watch the full press conference with Gomillion in the video player below.
Next up - the Tigers will do battle with Penn on Friday night at Mizzou Arena. Gates pointed to multiple areas he would like to see growth in in the second game of the season.
"Continue to have a positive assists-to-turnover ratio. Whenever you have that, you have a multitude of shots being created by the unselfishness, the extra pass, you have great spacing," he said. "The other thing would be rebounding. We got to great job securing clean rebounds that lead to breaks and other opportunities."
Players said there are a lot of similarities, as far as game plan, in Friday's match up with Penn, compared to the season-opener against Southern Indiana.
"Our defense was incredible in the first half of last game, so we're trying to get back to that," guard DeAndre Gholston said. "Make more open shots, you know, we're a good shooting team and we haven't shown it in the exhibition and in the first game and we're gonna show it."
You can watch the full press conference with Gholston, as well as guard Nick Honor in the video players below.
The Tigers and the Quakers will tip off at 7:00 p.m. on Friday night at Mizzou Arena.
