So long, January.
Missouri basketball will finish the opening month of Southeastern Conference play with five wins and two losses in the league.
No. 24/22 Missouri basketball beat No. 16/16 Ole Miss 83-75 on Saturday evening at Columbia, jumping into a share of third place in the SEC standings.
Senior guards Tamar Bates and Caleb Grill’s combined 51 points commanded the bulk of the immediate postgame attention. Only two players all season had tallied 25 or more points in a game against Ole Miss this season. Mizzou doubled that total in one night through Bates’ 26- and Grill’s 25-point performances.
More: ‘Special performances’: How Missouri basketball’s Tamar Bates, Caleb Grill sunk Ole Miss
But there was a lot more noteworthy action as the Tigers knocked off their third ranked opponent of the season. Here are three day-after notes from Saturday’s win:
Has Missouri basketball has turned rebounding into a strength?
Missouri has outrebounded its opponents in five of its seven SEC games so far, which is a good barometer for improved performances but a metric that doesn’t quite tell the full tale.
Per CBB Analytics, the Tigers have a 32.1% offensive rebounding rate in conference play, which is in the top third of all Division-I teams. Missouri has a defensive rebounding percentage of 72.4% in that same timespan, which is in the 81st percentile among Division-I teams.
Against Ole Miss, Missouri pulled in 28 of the 33 available defensive boards and held the Rebels to three second-chance points, and it grabbed 11 of the 34 available offensive boards and put up eight second-chance points.
That’s the metric that matters.
On Saturday, the success was by committee. Five different players had between five and seven rebounds as the Tigers won the battle on the boards 39-28.
That tells us that the Tigers, who finished last in the league in total rebounding in both of Dennis Gates’ first two seasons in Columbia, are now a factor on the boards — at least enough for rebounding not to lose them games.
“Ultimately, from the standpoint of having a Josh Gray, having a Mark Mitchell, having Trent Pierce — it rubs off on Tamar Bates, who was challenged this summer about his rebounding from me,” Gates said Saturday. “And, ultimately, we know what Caleb Grill does on the rebounds. And I think Ant Robinson took a piece of that, and he had seven or eight defensive rebounds tonight.”
Is sky-high free throw rate offsetting poor conversion rate?
Mizzou is second in the nation in free throw attempts, taking 28.5 attempts per game.
Mizzou is No. 183 in the nation at free throw percentage, knocking down 71.5% of its attempts.
So, which one matters more?
Against Ole Miss, Missouri shot 12 free throws in the opening seven minutes of the second half. Tony Perkins was 2-for-4; Trent Pierce was 0-for-2; Josh Gray was 2-for-4. The Tigers went through that spell 6 of 12, leaving points on the board and never quite putting the Rebels to bed. That’s not ideal.
But the Tigers were persistent, and drawing fouls eventually helped seal the game. Mizzou shot 31 free throws in the second half. To put that gargantuan number into perspective, Winthrop leads the nation with 30.5 free throw attempts … per game.
Missouri only made 70.9% of them, but the 22 points they scored from the line in the second half was 13 points more than Ole Miss scored from the line. That is ideal.
MU won the game by eight points.
Mizzou probably isn’t going to be an elite free throw shooting team this season. Bates is an astounding 94.6% from the line, but after that the Tigers’ top three players at getting to the line — Mark Mitchell, Anthony Robinson II and Tony Perkins — are a combined 71.4%. Through 20 games, the numbers are the numbers.
But the rate that the Tigers get to the stripe is going to decide a lot of games this season. It certainly helped Saturday.
Has the ceiling raised again on Mizzou’s season?
Missouri climbed three spots in the NET rankings to No. 24 for its win over Ole Miss. The Tigers moved to No. 29 in the analytics site KenPom’s rankings. When the national polls roll around Monday, Missouri will more than likely still be a top-25 team and may even get a slight bump after a 1-1 week.
The Tigers are in the midst of a telling stretch of games, and with the win over Ole Miss are off to a hot start. All of Mizzou’s next three games will be Quad 1 affairs, which is the top tier in the college basketball catalogue.
More: Missouri basketball score: Mizzou beats Ole Miss for ranked win at Mizzou Arena
Mizzou faces Mississippi State next Saturday in Starkville, Mississippi, where the Bulldogs shape up as the No. 20 team in the NET. Then it’s a trip to Knoxville, Tennessee, to face a No. 4 in the NET Tennessee. Then it’s back to Columbia to face Texas A&M, the current No. 12 in the rankings.
A trip to the NCAA Tournament seems all but assured. The Tigers are now playing for seeding. The next three games could go a long way in determining what that will be in March.
“I think this is one of the best teams in the country. It’s not coaching speak, it’s what I believe,” Mississippi coach Chris Beard said Saturday. “We all know about this team last year and all the adversity they had. They just kept fighting and scrapping, so you know the DNA is here. Now (Missouri is) healthy. (Gates has) got depth. He’s got some good players. You know, there’s a reason they beat Kansas at home, and there’s a reason they’re off to a great start in the SEC.”
This article originally appeared on Columbia Daily Tribune: Missouri basketball takeaways: What Ole Miss win tells us about Tigers
