Sacramento, CA — It didn’t feel natural to let Utah State go to the rim. but that’s exactly the head coach dennis gates And his staff wanted Mizzou players to do the same.
The Aggies were one of the hottest-shooting teams in the NCAA Tournament, connecting on 38.5% of their 3s, which ranked 11th in the nation. To slow them down in Thursday’s first-round matchup in the NCAA tournament, Gates wanted his players to be able to deny as many open passes as possible along the perimeter.
he had his team faceguard usu junior point guard steven ashworth, who averaged 7.2 attempts from beyond the arc per game and knocked them down at a 44.3% clip. He also wanted his players to avoid laxity on defense, leaving the Tigers with limited help coming from the weak side if one was beaten off the dribble or isolated on a block. .
The Aggies missed their first 11 triples in the first half, with Ashworth going 0-4 from deep. However, the team went 13-of-17 on 2-pointers, with all but five of Utah State’s 31 points coming in the paint in the first half.
Gates said, “You have to understand, at that point, they don’t want to score like that, don’t want to go on like that the whole game.” “Our guys, appreciate them, it’s hard to give up layups or different things, but they stayed disciplined and they didn’t over-rotate, which is one of the game plans we used in their conference. Was able to watch the game. Sometimes you don’t want to fill your teammates in on every game of the season a team has played, but you have to understand the key points they face. We can’t stress this enough. He saw the film himself and he was able to see it.
Missouri stuck to the plan, even as the Aggies began adding on a few more threes. USU missed its first two attempts from outside to start the second half, but scored on the next two to tie the game at 39–39.
But the team went only 2-9 for the remainder of the game. The Tigers did a better job of slowing the Aggies down inside, as well as holding them to 11–17 on 2-pointers. USU ended the game shooting only 16.7% from the 3-point line. Ashworth was 2-10. Stiff defense helped Mizzou pull out a 76–65 victory.
“Our approach was to press full court,” the senior guard said. d’moi hodge, who had a game-high four steals. “We knew what they wanted. They wanted jump shots. We tried to push them to the basket so they could take 2s, let the big man score. We put it in front of shooters … them tough 3s.” Asks him to take shots, forces him to take bad shots. That helped us in the long run.”
The No. 7 seed Tigers will continue to lock down on defense in the second round of the NCAA Tournament when it takes on No. 15 seed Princeton on Saturday.
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