Missouri Preview
March 20, 2010 05:04 PM | General
March 20, 2010
BUFFALO, N.Y. - They call Missouri’s full-court pressing style The Fastest 40 Minutes in Basketball, a play off of the 40 minutes of Hell Missouri coach Mike Anderson was a part of as a long-time assistant coach on Nolan Richardson’s Arkansas staff.
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| Truck Bryant answers a question during Saturday's press conference at HSBC Arena in Buffalo, N.Y.
All-Pro Photography/Dale Sparks photo |
Missouri leads the country with 365 steals and plays an up-tempo style that will test West Virginia’s ability to hang on to the basketball.
“They're a pressure team,” said West Virginia forward Da’Sean Butler. “They do what they have to do defensively and make everybody pick up their pace to play to their pace, which is extremely chaotic in a way. It's chaos.
“For us to come out successful, we can't fall into that. We need to take care of the ball and just do what we do. Play defense, rebound and win the game,” Butler said.
“I have to take care of the ball, me and Da'Sean and Devin,” added guard Truck Bryant. “That's who is taking care of the ball. We have to try to play a half court game and try to slow the game down.”
If you want to get an idea of how West Virginia has performed against full-court pressure, you can start by going back and digging out the box score from the Mountaineers’ 80-78 win at Cleveland State on Dec. 19.
In that game the Vikings made 14 steals and forced 17 turnovers in a near upset of the Mountaineers, West Virginia needing a layup from Da’Sean Butler with 1.2 seconds left to pull out the victory. A month later, however, West Virginia fared much better against Louisville’s full-court pressure, turning the ball over just 11 times in a 77-74 victory. Schematically, Missouri’s press is similar to other pressure defenses West Virginia has faced in the past, according to West Virginia coach Bob Huggins.
“They change it,” said Huggins. “They put a guy over the ball. They take a guy off the ball. They play some 2-2-1. They play some 2-1-2. The whole scheme is about ball pressure like most presses are."
The best way to beat Missouri’s pressure may be over the top, the Mountaineers using their size and length to keep the ball away from Missouri’s quick guards. Huggins said Missouri’s pressure could actually make it easier for West Virginia to score because the press spreads the floor and that can create gaps and seams to get to the rim.
Missouri coach Mike Anderson compares West Virginia to Big 12 foe Kansas State where Huggins left his imprint during his one-year stay in Manhattan.
“We're not an overly sized team,” said Anderson. “We certainly are going to have to play this game and play lights out from the standpoint of matching their size, their toughness and especially at the rim. I think that's what they do well. They can shoot it and they can go get it. It's going to be a game of will of tempos but I think our guys are looking forward to the challenge and the opportunity to continue to advance in the tournament.”
Tip time for West Virginia’s game on Sunday against Missouri at HSBC Arena is set for approximately 2:40 p.m. following the conclusion of the Syracuse-Gonzaga game.
Notebook:
“We go to Georgetown, who at that time was 13th, 14th in the country, somewhere in there. We get a big win in Georgetown. I'm usually not all that jovial but I was pretty happy. I get out and get on the bus and I have a Jimmy John's sandwich sitting there and I can't wait to eat my Jimmy John's and watch a replay of the game on the bus on the way home. And one of our guys walks up and drops like seven to 10 DVDs on my chair on the bus.
“I said, ‘What's this?’ They said, ‘Come on, Huggs, we have Pitt on Monday’ who happened to be number two in the country at that time. We have had four in the Top 10. Other leagues don't do that. If other leagues did that they would hail themselves as the greatest league of all time. We were in, allegedly, a down year. It's brutal. And it's 18 games and it takes a toll.”
Missouri’s Zaire Taylor, who grew up in Staten Island, N.Y., offered his take on the Big East.
“The Big East has a lot of talented teams, some elite teams, but at the same time they got about 30 to 40 teams in the conference,” he said. “So you have got to measure ... so when you figure the Big East brings eight out of 20 into the tournament, and then the Big 12 brings seven out of 12, so we're going over 50 percent. They're still around 30.”
- Missouri is 8-0 when scoring 90 points or more in a game this season.
- Missouri, like West Virginia, is not a great shooting team. The Tigers are making 44.3 percent of their field goal attempts while the Mountaineers are shooting 43.3 percent.
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| Da'Sean Butler makes a point during Saturday's press conference at HSBC Arena in Buffalo, N.Y.
All-Pro Photography/Dale Sparks photo |
“Five degrees warmer and they’re opening the fire hydrants,” Caridi joked.
Anderson made 15 trips to the tournament as an assistant with Richardson, and has made five trips to the Big Dance in eight years as head coach at UAB and Missouri.
Last year, Anderson led Mizzou to a school-record 31 victories and a trip to the Elite Eight where it was knocked out by Connecticut. Anderson was named NABC coach of the year in 2009.
