Mizzou basketball nearly blew a 21-point lead to Vanderbilt, exposing how the Tigers can't stop opposing runs will struggle in March Madness.
COLUMBIA, Mo. — Mizzou basketball (18-8, 8-5 Southeastern Conference) led for 31:57 of a 40:00 basketball game. It led for the entire 20:00 of the second half and held a 19-point lead with 7:24 remaining in the game.
Five different Tigers scored in double-figures while the team shot 50% from 3-point range as a collective. The Tigers also made 11 more free throws and dished out five more assists than their opponents.
These stats traditionally point toward a blowout win for the team they favor. That was far from the case in Mizzou’s 81-80 win over No. 19 Vanderbilt (21-5, 8-5).
The Commodores cut Mizzou’s 19-point lead to a 10-point lead in 40 seconds. They continued to chip away at the lead bit by bit, as the Commodores chased the Tigers off their platform of safety and into the den of a Vanderbilt squad that has completed multiple late-game runs this season.
“You could feel the momentum,” Vanderbilt head coach Mark Byington said. “Our guys felt it. … And we made a good run at them, and we got there towards the end. And really, we're an inch away from winning.”
Byington isn’t describing that inch away in a metaphorical sense — the Commodores were quite literally an inch away from sneaking out a win. With 1.8 seconds remaining and the Tigers up 81-80, Mizzou forward Mark Mitchell hurled an inbound pass toward Anthony Robinson II that instead landed directly into the hands of Vanderbilt guard Tyler Tanner.
Tanner heaved the shot up from beyond halfcourt. The building paused for a moment as the ball hung in the air.
“First I said, ‘Oh sh*t’, because Mark threw the ball short,” Mizzou head coach Dennis Gates said.
Luckily for Gates, his worries didn’t continue, as Tanner’s shot bounced off the side of the rim as the final buzzer sounded, ending the game with a one-point Mizzou victory and stopping Vanderbilt’s miraculous comeback by mere inches.
So what went wrong for Mizzou to go from sitting on the verge of a blowout to a narrow victory it escaped with in the closest way possible?
Unfortunately for the Tigers, it’s something that’s going to haunt them in the postseason: an inability to stop momentum.
Heading into the week, Gates said that his team needed to play clean and consistent basketball to win big games.
“We have to be able now to put 40 straight minutes together of consistent basketball with no panic," Gates said Tuesday. "Teams get up and down with the score. Runs happen.”
The opposite occurred Wednesday night. The last eight minutes of the Tigers’ conference matchup against the Commodores were filled to the brim with panicked, frenzied and unorganized basketball.
Mizzou could not figure out Vanderbilt’s press-defense, turning the ball over five times in the final 6:56 and not making a field goal in the final 3:00. The chaotic Commodore press rattled Mizzou despite the Tigers having five capable ball-handlers on the floor to counter it.
Luckily, Vanderbilt ran out of time and was forced to resort to intentionally fouling, leading the Tigers to sink five free-throws in the final 1:21 to put the game away.
“Our guys, they may have bent a little bit, but we did not break,” Gates said. “That's a sign of a great team.”
This wasn’t a slight bend, though. This was a rubber band stretched to its absolute limit, waiting to snap and inflict pain on the one who held it.
In this case, Mizzou is the one holding the band, and the chances of pushing the limit that far again without it breaking are slim to none, especially in a postseason scenario in which runs and press-defenses similar to Vanderbilt’s are extremely common.
A team entering a competitive environment can only test its luck so much before it comes back to bite them.