Missouri Basketball: What We Learned About Loss to Arizona

It wasn’t pretty, or fun, or watchable really, but we discuss our takeaways from Missouri basketball’s loss at Arizona.

Coming off of a winning streak that saw the Tigers excel against sub-par competition over the past couple weeks, there still wasn’t a lot of expectation for Missouri basketball going against a nationally ranked Arizona squad on the road.

But showing some degree of improvement from their losses against Xavier, Kansas State and Northwestern was something we were expecting, and that didn’t happen. No close game (unless you watched only until the second television timeout), no leader out on the court, and certainly no defense.

One of the major points that everyone is hanging on right now is the fact that through the same amount of games as last year, Missouri have produced nearly the same results against teams that are very similar. Decent or squeaking by wins against the no-name guys, and clear losses or blowouts to the power conference teams.

Indeed, for the guy who is the eternal Missouri pessimist (of which we all know at least one), right now he’s having a heyday of “I-told-you-so’s” and self pity. “I told you Missouri won’t win ten games this year,” or any like variations.

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Ah! Not so fast. Let’s go back to last year and look at the starting lineup that took the court for Kim Anderson’s team. The starting five against Xavier last year, which was on December 13, 2014, were Keith Shamburger, Jonathan Williams III, Montaque Gill-Caesar, Ryan Rosburg and Namon Wright. This group was not cohesive, and essentially peaked after their conference opener against LSU.

The two hold overs from that lineup are Rosburg and Wright. The three new players one year later against Arizona were Terrence Phillips, Kevin Puryear and Wes Clark. When we look at that lineup, clearly Rosburg has been the weak point who either needs to get better or start riding pine, it’s that simple. His lack of production and poor decision making have brought on some debates as to whether he’s among the worst players in program history. Although I don’t subscribe to that sentiment myself, it’s clear these conversations are out there because he hasn’t played well.

Aside from Rosberg however, there is promise. With guys like Jakeenan Gant, K.J. Walton and Cullen Vanleer available to come off the bench, this team actually has a degree of depth, whereas last year’s team wasn’t even deep on the floor.

My point is this; to all the nay-sayers who are freaking out and comparing this season to last year and worried that Anderson isn’t going to be able to cut it as a coach, look at who we have on the floor and ask yourself if this team is likely to peak after their next couple wins, or if they have a really good chance of coming together and finding themselves as a team during one of the next few games, and rattling off some conference wins.

This isn’t last year’s team. Their desire to get better and play for one another wasn’t even there and it was evident. This year’s team isn’t going to come out and just start smashing schools from power-five conferences yet, but as these young and extremely talented players gain more confidence on the floor, it’s only a matter of time before their desire to compete will take them to where they want to be.

Although Wright led scorers with nine points on Sunday, there wasn’t anyone leading for Mizzou on the floor. Most players looked nervous, killing the idea of making smooth and confident shots. Everyone wanted to be the guy that didn’t mess up, rather than the guy who did well.

That being said, they’ve got a lot to learn to become a better team, but their capacity to play better is much, much greater that it was 365 days ago. The season still writes itself as the Tigers host the N.C. State Wolfpack on Saturday December 19 at Mizzou Arena. Game time is set for 5:00pm CT on the SEC Network.

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