Well, what can be said...I picked Mizzou to win this one, the spread was 4.5 to MU, but I sure was feeling good at halftime. MU was shooting horribly, we were handling the pressure and the young Hawks looked fairly comfortable on offense.
A whole lot changed late in this one. Turnovers piled up, shots fell for Mizzou and we were tired. Just like our guests from RMN said in our question post, MU would throw bodies at us. They did and it wore us down, especially Cole. In the end we didn't have anyone to turn to, their zone gave us fits and our normal closers struggled to hit the shot. Flat out this one got away from us and Missouri certainly did their part to help that.
Game flow chart is tough to look at. Built a lead, maintained a lead and lost it late. I said at halftime 65 would be the magic number in the open thread and I honestly can't believe we didn't hit that. We had 54 at the 7:54 mark and that's when the train ran out of steam. No lead was safe in this one and win or lose this was the best game this year, it's what you watch for.
More Stats, Charts and Breakdown after the jump...
Keys to the game. You guessed it, minus the offensive boards we were pretty much a disaster in the other three categories. Turnovers were pointed to by many prior to the game and we killed ourselves in that regard. Field goal percentage wasn't particularly strong by either side but it almost makes it that much more frustrating knowing we could have had this one fairly easily if we handle our business better with regards to shooting.
Player impact chart really puts things in perspective with Cole. I was pretty hard on him last night but in retrospect he did a fantastic job of being a big man. Cole cleaned up on the glass, he had 5 blocks and even dropped in 8 points. He also worked his ass off and deserves credit for that. The real problem is he ran out of gas and due the Morris twins going back into hiding, Cole had nobody to bail him out when he needed a breather. I am impressed with how balance the scoring was but it's easy to take the shot when you're up 14. No one but Little and Sherron looked ready and willing to take the shot when we needed it.
Team stats tell the tale that we were all afraid of. Turnovers, fouls and steals. Missouri forced them, Kansas committed them. Missouri exceeded their average as far as steals on the night and our 27 turnovers were well above our average and theirs as far as creating them. We did dominate the boards so that likely softened the blow but when you factor in their much lower 13 turnovers, 10 from the first half, we basically gave away 14 possessions. Convert 2 of those and we win this one. Another shocker 2-15 from the 3 point line...ouch!! I knew it wasn't good, but that's worse than I expected.
Looking at the individual side of things, most of it's been covered. The one thing I will point out is our fairly balanced 8 man rotation that had seemingly emerged of late was essentially cut to 6. Wrong game to do that and a stat line by the Morris duo of 22 mins, 4 points and 7 fouls might have something to do with it. They'll get better but my gut tells me these two were a little caught up in the environment and clearly McMorris lost his head a bit.