The Tigers couldn’t convert from the line, fail to pull off the upset
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: Mizzou builds an early lead before their opponents slowly come back, eventually turning the corner in the third quarter. Oh yeah, and they have to be a ranked team that goes by UT with the main color of orange.
The Tigers (12-12, 1-8 SEC) succumbed to No.18 Tennessee (16-5, 4-5 SEC) 76-71 in eerily similar fashion to the Texas loss from last week.
This one came with a little extra spice, as Mizzou made it close with a comeback attempt in the 4th. While the Tigers never took the lead in the 4th, they cut the lead down to three several times behind the stellar play of De’Myla Brown. She finished with a season-high 18 points, 14 of which came in the final frame.
“My teammates were finding me,” Brown said after the game. “I know Averi [Kroenke] hit me a couple times as we broke the press and I got easily layups…everybody’s just playing selflessly and trying to find the next best shot.”
(Cal Tobias/Rock M)
Down by six with 2:18 remaining, Mizzou was handed a golden opportunity. After Angie Ngalakulondi was fouled by Cooper (her fifth), Zee Spearman was charged with a technical foul. This gave Mizzou four chances at the line plus the ball. But the Tigers fumbled the opportunity, missing 3⁄4 FTs as they were only able to cut the deficit to three with a made bucket from Slaughter on the ensuing possession.
But Tennessee gave them a gift, as they turned the ball over to give Mizzou one final shot. A poor layup attempt from Angie wasn’t enough, as Tennessee went 2-2 from the line to seal this one.
Mizzou struggled from the line as a whole, finishing 15-23 (65.2%) and 7-13 (53.8%) in the fourth quarter. By contrast Tennessee shot 18-24 (75%) and 7-9 (77.8%) in the fourth. Youch.
“I think it’s something that you can continue to work on,” Pingeton said. “[But] it’s a 40 minute game, and these girls work really hard. I got a lot of confidence in any of them when they go to the free throw line.”
Mizzou caught everyone off guard once again, building a 15-3 lead five minutes into the game.
(Cal Tobias/Rock M)
Tennessee would not go quietly into that good night, however, ending the quarter on a run to cut the Mizzou lead down to 22-20. It all came from Talaysia Cooper, who scored 13 of those 20 with three triples. Cooper finished as the leading scorer on both sides with 27 points while shooting 5-10 from three. Oh, and she finished with six steals.
“I think her ability to just go get a steal whenever she wants one is her best offense,” Tennessee head coach Kim Caldwell said. “She makes our team better, and she really gets everyone else to pressure with confidence.”
The Lady Vols’ press sunk their teeth into Mizzou during the second quarter. Mizzou was limited to 11 points and called for FOUR 10-second violations.
As a whole Tennessee was all over Mizzou, forcing 24 turnovers that turned into 20 Volunteer points.
“That’s what they do,” head coach Robin Pingeton said. “They just send two and three [players] at you, and they’re long, they’re athletic…the speed dribbles were not the answer. We wouldn’t have multiple pushers once we got the ball inbounded to engage…at times we made it look easy, and at times it was very disruptive for us. But part of that’s on us, part of that’s credit for them, and that’s what they do.”
All 11 points came from a combination of Ashton Judd (7) and Grace Slaughter (4). Makes sense they were the two leading scorers of the half, as Judd finished with 11 and Slaughter with 7.
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Then, it all fell apart. The cracks showed in the third as Tennessee opened up a seven-point lead after scoring 26 points. The game was tied with two minutes in the quarter, before the Vols ended the quarter with a 9-2 run.
Cooper had another scoring explosion for 10 points, while Kaniya Boyd added 7 including 3 big free throws. These were Boyd’s only 7 points in the game.
Another positive from this game was the rebounding, as Mizzou outrebounded Tennessee 40-39. The Volunteers entered the matchup No.17 in the nation averaging 42.25 rebounds per game.
While this goes in the books as another loss, this team feels very different than the one that was playing at Mizzou Arena two weeks ago. They are playing at their best all season, but it won’t show up in the win column when you constantly face top 20 teams.
“I think a lot of it’s just you’ve got new players playing different roles, and it takes time. You know, we all want, we want it to be instant gratification and microwave society. But sometimes, when you just the how college athletics are now, with recruiting, in the portal, transfers and what that looks like takes time for people to get settled in. I mean, you recruit some players that played different roles at different schools…you can’t always put a timeline on it,” Pingeton said. “But bottom line is, you got to trust the process. You got to keep showing up. And that’s why I’m so proud of these guys right now. It’s basketball, later on it’s life. All they keep doing is leaning in, getting the gym…let’s keep trying to fight to, you know, get to 1-0 on Thursday.”
Easier said than done. Mizzou will host No.7 LSU (23-1, 8-1 SEC) at 6:30 p.m.
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