December 25, 2017
Missouri (8-4) at Ohio (9-3)
Missouri crushed the same Utah State team we beat earlier in the year, and has a win over an 8-3 Ole Miss squad. They've played two top 20 teams and lost both by 15+, and also have losses vs Penn State and East Carolina(who is 9-1 but no clue how good they are).
Its obvious looking at their roster that they are a step below other good power conference teams, they are just not developing their players nearly as much as most big schools seem to.
Scouting
PG Trevoy Lufkin SR 83 OVR 94 speed/83 quickness. 90 defense/81 steals, extremely good defender. 84 close/81 med/75 3. 93 off the dribble. Their best player and I'm surprised he isn't rated higher. He is not a great athlete, 59 str/67 hustle, both C's. Still, he's a guy that can hurt us a lot. 13.1 ppg/3.3 apg.
SG Donnie Humphrey SO 76 OVR 92 speed/87 quickness/81 vertical, pretty athletic. 6'6, very big for a guard. 80 defense/70 steals, pedestrian... 82 close/82 med/693. 81 off the dribble/78 in traffic. 7.4 ppg. Only a 3* recruit, 165 OVR. But, A+ potential. Wonder how good he'll be when he's a senior.
SF Chrisman Chase JR 80 OVR 6'7, natural SF, with the traditional weaknesses of a SF at this level. Speed, quickness, and defense are all under 80. 84 close/82 med/74 3/81 in traffic. Good athlete, great dunker(92). Just 9.2 ppg this year, we expect he'll get more against us but if they play man defense(I think I saw that they do), Santiago will try hard to get by him.
PF Buzz Holloway SR 79 OVR 6'6, natural SF. He's a better SF than Chase. Quicker, better on ball defense, terrible post skills. 75 orb/75 drb, 60 post offense/71 post defense. 89 9close/82 med/79 3/87 in traffic. He'll be a big threat but Bright is very fast and can at least stay in front of him on the wing. With his size and awful post play we need to take advantage.
C Antwan Barro SR 78 OVR 6'9, natural PF. 81 orb/78 drb, 81 post off/77 post def. Great steals guy(77/A for a PF), very good shot blocker (75). 87 close/88 in traffic. 15.5 ppg/6 rpg. He's definitely a threat ot us, and it'll make it harder to score over Holloway since he'll be on the waek side to block shots.
Their backup PG would start for us, he's very good. They have a 7 foot backup center rated 72 OVR, a poor rebounder but solid post skills. His name is Jay Volpenhein and he'll be a threat when he comes in. They have good guard depth but Volpenhein is really their only big man depth. Already weak inside with holloway, we could hurt them inside if we can drive and draw fouls.
They seem weak defensively aside from Lufkin, who is a defensive god.
Half
| Time
| OHIO
| MIZ
| Notes
|
1
| 14:30
| 11
| 10
| We open up with a 9-2 lead and are rolling... crazy stuff though as they run 34 seconds off the shot clock before a bullshit pass from the right corner to the left blcok through our defense and a 3 point play. Santiago throws away an inbounds pass... and here I mean McCully is going to face a full court press but he's standing 5 feet from Santiago, and Santiago throws the ball like 5 feet wide of him and straight out of bounds. Two things I've never seen before in this game back to back. They drain a 3 afterwards... 11-10, was 11-4!
|
1
| 13:30
| 11
| 12
| Santiago misses an open 3, they get a layup on the other end and we trail. Timeout Ohio.
|
1
| 11:30
| 17
| 14
| Santiago gets back to basics, driving around their terribly slow SF for a layup, then Grundy with two buckets inside in a row. Grundy leads us with 8, 4-4 inside, mostly luck as to who has been in the right spot to cut to the hoop or posted up in the right place, Bright hasn't had any shots yet. Backups are in.
|
1
| 7:30
| 23
| 21
| Withers scores 4 straight before getting fouled and missing two free throws, then missing a hook our next trip. They score 6 straight and tie us up at 21 before Northcutt puts us back into the lead. Timeout Mizzou.
|
1
| 5:30
| 27
| 22
| Starters are back in They just ended a 6-0 run for us at the FT line.
|
1
| 1:20
| 38
| 29
| It gets as close as 32-29 but our defense takes over again and we score 6 straight. Santiago just missed a FT that would have made it a 10 point game, 9 will have to do.
|
| HALF
| 38
| 31
| Jimenez misses a 3 that would have put us up 10 at the half. Despite the score only in the 30s, its an offensive half. We shoot 65%, they shoot 52%. Both sides have been working the clock trying to find open shots. They are only 2-9 from 3. Barro, their Center is 5-5 and leads them with 11 points. No one else has more than 4. Barro picked up his 2nd foul in the final 2 minutes.
On our end Santiago has 9, Grundy 8, Jimenez 6. We're 1-6 from 3 but 17-27 from the field. We drew 7 fouls but only made it to the line 7 times on the half... making only 3, which is annoying as hell. Good half, need to stop their guards again this half to win. Barro can have 25 points as long as their guards don't get hot.
|
2
| 14:55
| 44
| 34
| Well its been a real tough defensive start to the half, turnovers and missed shots on both sides, lots of tight D and contested shots. We're up 6-3 on the half though which means we're up 10 for the game.
|
2
| 13:55
| 49
| 36
| They get a bucket inside, we get a 3 from Jimenez. They fall over getting the ball up court, pretty funny actually, the ball handler falls over and loses control, the SG running up ahead of him dives for the ball and saves it to Jimenez, Jimenez runs in between two mizzou players lying on the ground at our free throw line and goes up for a dunk. 13 point lead! 6th man bonus as well.
|
2
| 11:30
| 50
| 38
| Backups are in with a 12 point cushion. Barro just picked up his 3rd foul. I don't think he's been very effective so far this half anyway.
|
2
| 10:30
| 52
| 40
| Still 12, they call a timeout. I'm stalling with the backups, Mizzou has an edge over these guys overall. Run 20 seconds off the clock, then try to get Withers or Northcutt in a good spot is pretty much my strategy.
|
2
| 7:15
| 54
| 44
| Strategy working pretty much perfectly, 3 minutes off the clock and its still a 10 point lead, Withers has a hook inside for our only points. Timeout mizzou.
|
2
| 5:10
| 54
| 46
| We didnt score anymore but the defense has been playing soo strong I saw no need to rush the starters back in. After a foul and two free throws for missouri I do go ahead though, starters are in for the rest.
|
2
| 3:40
| 54
| 48
| I call a timeout, Jimenez misses a wide open 3 on our first trip, but they come up empty too... next trip we turn it over and they get a layup.
|
2
| 2:05
| 56
| 50
| They cut it to 4 as we commit another stupid turnover... on a big trip with 2:30 to go through we run some clock, run our offense but have trouble finding anytying, but McCully comes up big, driving by his man and hitting a runner with a few seconds on the shot clock. Timeout mizzou.
|
2
| 1:50
| 56
| 50
| They go straight inside but miss a post shot with their backup center. Our ball.
|
2
| 1:05
| 56
| 52
| Ugh, I completely botch the last 10 seconds of our trip and end up getting a 3 by Jimenez blocked. They get Barro the bucket this time, he has 17 btw. And we are up four with a minute left.
|
2
| 0:32
| 56
| 52
| I'm trying to feed the post in the final seconds of the shot clock and they tip it out of bounds. McCully ends up taking a bad shot and they get the board.
|
2
| 0:27
| 56
| 53
| Bright fouls a shooter, he makes 1 out of 2, we board.
|
2
| 0:16
| 56
| 53
| Well the good news is that they only have 3 fouls so they have to commit a bunch of them. The bad news is that for the second time today Santiago just throws away an inbounds pass to an open man 10 feet away.... Mizzou ball.
|
2
| 0:03
| 56
| 56
| They hit an open 3. This is a bit embarrassing, hah.
|
OH MY GOD. I throw the ball up close to half court and call a timeout, 2.5 seconds left. I control Jimenez, Santiago is on the left sideline behind half court. Jimenez sets up about 4 or 5 feet from the top of the key, its a clean pass, Mizzou's guard gets out on him, Jiminez goes straight up with the ball, and as the ball hits the basket my screen flashes for a split second, which i've never seen before. It pops up an xbox achievement, BUZZER BEATER - the shot is good, there's less than 0.5 on the clock, they inbound and time runs out.
So I don't think my stalling tactics were un-sound. But in the final 4 minutes or so, shit just went wrong all over. All we needed was one basket somewhere in the final two minutes and we win, or one offensive rebound to take an extra 30 seconds off the clock. The problem is that things just started going very wrong. I even started running my offense 3 seconds sooner(18 seconds instead of 15) to give me a bit more time to create a shot, but we just turned it over WAY too often in that final stretch. We weren't even getting shots on half our trips down court in the final 3-4 minutes.
That buzzer beater was AWESOME but it is diminished slightly because we blew a 12 point lead and had only scored 4 points in 10 minutes before that shot.
Ohio 59
Missouri 56
Barro scores 17 for them, he never missed, 7-7 on the game, he just took 2 shots in the 2nd half... fouls weren't the issue, he played 30 minutes. SG Humphrey with 10 points.
McCully: 8 points
Jimenez: 15 points/4 steals
Santiago: 12 points
Bright: 2 points/7 boards
Grundy: 8 points/7 boards/2 blocks
Withers: 6 points
Bright was 1-5 today. Grundy 4-6, we got our second half lead off turnovers and fast break points so the big men didn't get the ball as often in the 2nd half.