Mizzou women’s basketball is coming off an 11-point win against Texas A&M, improving to 2-6 in the SEC action. Now the Tigers will get a small break as they will not play Thursday, receiving “a bye” until Sunday. This could not come at a better time as Mizzou has been plagued up and down the roster. At one point the team was down to six healthy players during practices. Currently the Tigers are one of only two SEC teams (alongside Kentucky) who has played eight conference games.
“It’s been a long time to coming to get that bye,” Harper said after their last game against Texas A&M. “We’re going to be able to improve on a few things here and there, but we could probably use days off right now as much as anything.”
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After the break the Tigers will travel to Mississippi State for their only game of the week on Sunday. With only one game this week, before previewing the matchup I will be using this next section to review the past month of action as Mizzou is officially halfway through conference play.
SEC Play: Midpoint Report
While the record may not reflect it, SEC play has been a period of great growth for this Mizzou team. At the same time last year, Mizzou was in the basement of the conference at 1-7 with eight conference games remaining. While the Tigers are still susceptible to blowouts against the best teams in the SEC, they have built hefty leads in the games they have won.
In its three conference wins last season, Mizzou’s average margin of victory was 4.3. In the two wins this year that number has jumped to 18.0. This is largely because of fast first quarters, taking them by surprise and creating a deficit they can’t overcome. The Tigers outscored Arkansas in the first 20-4 and Texas A&M 21-9 in the first 10 minutes.
However there is still plenty of room to improve if the Tigers hope to eventually take down some of these top teams and become a perennial tournament contender. One of Kellie Harper’s key points in most losses highlights the team’s inability to put together a full 40 minutes of good basketball. As a result, in conference play the Tigers’ opponents have tended to separate themselves in one particular quarter. Against Florida and Alabama, that came in the first frame. Against Ole Miss, it came in the fourth and final.
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If Mizzou wants to pull off any upsets the rest of the season they will need to avoid allowing long scoring runs. The Tigers have often ended games with unused timeout, so it’s likely a good idea to use those when the team is struggling and falling behind against the conference’s flurry of elite opponents. This starts against Mississippi State on Sunday.
Stark Contrast
Mizzou and Mississippi State played a pair of diametrically opposed matchups last season. The first took place in Columbia, where the Tigers pulled off the unlikely 78-77 upset thanks to a 31-point performance from Grace Slaughter capped off by a buzzer-beater for the win. The two teams met for the second time in the SEC Tournament, where the Bulldogs found revenge with a 75-55 win thanks to a 31-0 run in the final game of Robin Pingeton’s tenure at Mizzou. Overall Mississippi State leads the series 12-6 due to a 4-game winning streak from 2013-2015.
The Bulldogs are in the the bottom half of the conference with a 3-5 SEC record. However a strong non-conference start plus wins against ranked Kentucky and Tennessee means that they are the final SEC team projected in the NCAA Tournament as a 9-seed.
Mississippi State’s last game came in that upset to Tennessee, taking down the Lady Vols on the road 77-62. The Bulldogs’ senior forward Kharyssa Richardson was the deciding factor with a team-leading 21 points on 9-11 shooting from the field. While she has only averaged 8.2 points this season, Richardson’s size could cause issues for a smaller Mizzou team.
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Player to Watch: Jayla Smith
One player who I have yet to highlight in this series but deserves all the credit is Jayla Smith. However this has simply been the story of her season at Mizzou, serving as a beacon of consistency all year. Coach Harper has referred to her as a “simple” player in the sense that she is consistent as a shooter, slasher and defender.
“She doesn’t make things harder than they need to be, she starts at a pretty good baseline,” Harper said. “You see where the production has come from with Jayla and it’s been really positive.”
This is best reflected in the fact that she was one of the few players around the nation shooting 50/40/90 splits up until she fell just below 50% from the field last week. However, she is still shooting 41.5% from three and 94.3% on free throws. Smith is coming off one of her best performances of the season against Texas A&M, scoring 15 points on 5-11 shooting while collecting four rebounds. For the Tigers to pull off the upset in Starkville, Smith needs to maximize her production off the bench.
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That Mizzou-Mississippi State matchup starts at 2 p.m. Sunday on the road. The game will be available to watch on SEC Network+ through the ESPN app.
