COLUMBIA, Mo. — Missouri never trailed despite stalling into some trials and tribulations.
Mizzou men’s basketball led Vanderbilt by 17 points in the first half of Saturday’s Southeastern Conference showdown. In the second half — following a heft roll-about in muddy offense, the Tigers led by just one.
However, a closing shift that MU coach Dennis Gates described as “timely” saw Missouri score the final nine points of the game to beat the Commodores 75-66 and move to 2-1 in SEC play.
“Coach always talks about us having endurance, and I think today, we did that,” said forward Mark Mitchell, who led Mizzou with 19 points. “Basketball is a game of runs and highs and lows.”
Speaking of runs, the Tigers started with a big one. MU made its first five shots of the game, four of which were from 3-point range. By the time the home team missed a field goal, it was already up 15-8 on the ‘Dores.
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“The shots came to us,” point guard Anthony Robinson II said. He scored 15 points despite some uncharacteristic inconsistency from the free-throw line.
It took Missouri 9:05 of game time to score its first 25 points of the contest. The next 25 took the Tigers more than 17 minutes to scrounge up.
“They made some incredible shots early,” first-year Vanderbilt coach Mark Byington said. “Some of those shots were indefensible, no matter what we’re doing out there. It kind of found this level (where) they didn’t make some of the same ones. Our defense did a good job of getting us back in the game.”
As it is occasionally wont to do, the Mizzou offense stagnated. The ball screens and dribble handoffs that forced the Vandy defense to chase MU players around became less effective and seemingly less utilized. Instead of dropping through the net, 3-point shots were missed and settled for. After that 4-4 start from deep, the Tigers made just three of their next 15 3-point attempts.
Missouri is at its best, offensively, when it operates quickly. So is Vanderbilt, and as the Tigers threatened to doze off at the wheel, the Commodores tried to run the floor right past ‘em.
“That stagnation probably led to some of their run-outs on their offensive end,” Mitchell said.
Vandy scored the final seven points of the first half to head back to the locker rooms down 41-32. Mizzou generated a couple of sparks early in the second half, but the ‘Dores had more runs in their pockets.
An 8-0 run for the visitors peaked when a 3-pointer trimmed the MU lead to one — 61-60 with 5:32 to go.
“That was winning time right there,” Byington said.
Mizzou was better equipped to do it.
A dunk, steal and made free throw by guard Tamar Bates cut off Vanderbilt’s momentum right after the Commodores clawed back within a point. They stayed within a possession until there were just under two minutes to go.
From that point, MU’s Caleb Grill and Mitchell combined for the final seven points of the contest to seal the result. The decisive players, though, might have been defensive ones.
Grill recorded two steals inside the final five minutes, and forward Trent Pierce — who again got the start over center Josh Gray as Gates prioritized versatility in his starting lineup — poked the ball away on a fast break, too.
“We had a couple turnovers there in transition, where that’s our advantage,” Byington said. “In transition, we should get something good and we had two turnovers there that were crushing.”
“The game is won on the defensive end, and our guys executed that,” Gates said.
In terms of a blown lead and recovery, Missouri survived. In terms of performing during crunch-time situations, the Tigers passed a test.
“In the end, we made plays — and that’s what good teams do,” Mitchell said. “You can have the highs and lows and get stagnant over the course of the game, but we prevailed.”
Gates, famously known for expansive rotations, gave only eight players runs of 15 minutes or more. No freshmen saw the floor at any point. And from a stoppage shortly after the Commodores closed within one point to the end of the game, Gates used only six players.
Robinson, Bates, Grill and Mitchell were on the floor for all of the critical minutes. Guard Marques Warrick was replaced by Pierce for the final 1:52 — the span in which Mizzou closed the game on a 7-0 run.
“Their experience is their experience,” Gates said of his closing crew. “They understood the flow of the game. I thought they were clicking in all different ways. I wish I could throw some young guys in there, but at the end of the day, these are the games you have to win in this conference. You got to take care of home court, especially against a team like Vanderbilt and obviously against a team like LSU.”
That’s not Gates taking a shot at Mizzou’s last two opponents, both of which it beat this week. It’s the reality in this year’s ultra-competitive SEC: A team that can’t take care of a beatable foe in friendly confines won’t make much of this season.
No. 8 Florida (15-1, 2-1 SEC) will have that view of Missouri when it hosts the Tigers at 8 p.m. Tuesday for MU’s next game. Like with Mizzou’s league opener against Auburn, it’s not a game that the away team will be expected to win.
But for now, the Tigers can relish in having taken care of business by launching a two-game winning streak during this week’s two-game home stand — and in a lesson that holding on to a wire-to-wire lead over Vanderbilt taught them.
“I believe that we’re a resilient team,” Robinson said.
