The symbolism was a little on the nose.
Shortly after Missouri basketball’s game against Alabama on Wednesday night, a fire was reported in a suite in Section 112 of Mizzou Arena. It was quickly extinguished, and no injuries were reported.
The cause of the fire? Currently undisclosed.
But it’s surely not a coincidence that it started less than an hour after No. 16/15-ranked Missouri’s offense burned No. 4/4 Alabama for a 110-98 win, right?
The Tigers were hot to the touch, sizzling at a rate the Crimson Tide tried, and failed, mightily to contain.
The fire alarm started ringing about two minutes into Alabama coach Nate Oats’ postgame press conference — ‘a fire has been reported,’ the automated messaging system relayed on repeat around Mizzou Arena’s halls. Oats recognized the immediate irony.
“Yeah,” he said. “They were on fire tonight.”
Sure were.
Missouri (20-6, 9-4) shot 60.3% from the field. The Tigers clipped nine triples, led by three from Caleb Grill, who scored 25 points in the win. Mizzou scored 40 points in the paint, led by Mark Mitchell’s magnificent night working the inside for a career-high 31-point performance.
Grill and Mitchell combined for an 18-of-23 mark from the free throw line, part of 47 total free throw attempts. Eighteen of Mizzou’s 35 field goals were assisted. The Tigers turned 14 turnovers directly into 21 points.
If there’s an offensive stat to keep, Mizzou likely put up a gaudy total.
The gaudiest of them all? Missouri scored 1.45 points per possession.
When it looks like it did Wednesday — when Missouri’s offense is operating at its very best — there looked to be exceptionally little Alabama could do to stop the Tigers.
The Tigers did that by making Alabama pick its poison.
The Crimson Tide sagged off Mitchell and Anthony Robinson II at the 3-point line to protect driving lanes on two separate occasions in the first half. They aren’t MU’s best deep-ball shooters, but they punished the Tide for having the gall, knocking down their open looks for triples.
When Alabama adjusted and started getting bodies to the perimeter, Mitchell came alive inside, working the paint and drawing and-1 opportunities nearly every time the ball came his way.
That was the to-and-fro the Tigers kept pushing. Alabama was forced to abandon one — inside or outside — to try and stop the other.
Missouri’s offensive adjustments were quicker.
“We just have a lot of weapons,” Mitchell said. “I think we can beat you inside. We can obviously beat you outside, and I think that’s probably a hard thing for teams to game plan. We knew some coverages that they might show us and some different looks that they might give us, and we never panicked, just because the coach prepared us so well.”
Missouri needed every swish.
Alabama was the nation’s No. 3-ranked offense entering the evening, and it sure looked like that. As much as Mizzou did to separate, the game wasn’t out of sight until there was less than a minute on the court.
The Crimson Tide shot 53.8% from the field. They were 13-of-31 (41.9%) from 3-point range. Elite point guard Mark Sears scored 35 points. On two occasions in the second half, Alabama got within six points of MU’s lead.
And still … that wasn’t nearly enough to fully track down Gates’ Tigers.
“I credit Alabama. They did some great things. They gave us their best punch, I just thought our guys were counter-punchers,” Gates said. “And, you know, we were sort of in a in a defensive mode and were able to punch back. And, again, there were several plays that allowed us to re-spark or reignite our our momentum, and these guys just continue to make plays on both ends of the court. And they played the played the game unselfishly.”
How about some of those moments?
After Sears tallied six straight points to make it a two-score game with 10 minutes to play, the game was more in the balance than it had been since the first minute of play.
The answer? Trent Pierce fought off traffic after hauling in an offensive board and delicately put a shot back up and in. Mitchell drew an and-1 underneath the rim and scored the free throw. Grill went 2-of-2 at the line and then nailed a 20-footer on an inbounds pass.
Crisis averted with a 9-0 run in 1 minute, 27 seconds; 15-point lead restored.
The difference in the game, ultimately, was the 12-0 run Mizzou opened the game with. Everything that was to come was contained within those electric 2:28 of game time.
Pierce and Robinson knocked down 3s within a minute of tipoff. The duo took fastbreaks straight to the rim for layups. Tamar Bates pump-faked a shot from the corner and took it inside for a couple more paint points.
Dotted throughout, Grill converted some signature who-needs-separation 3s; Tony Perkins made the Tide pay at the line and in the mid-range; Mitchell drew and-1 after and-1; and the Tigers turned 12 steals into instant offense.
Mizzou caught fire, and rode that into a win that takes the Tigers into a tie for fourth place in the SEC. With a third top-five victory on the résumé and a sixth Quad 1 win, Gates’ team will likely soon receive projections for a top-four seed in the NCAA Tournament.
More: Here’s why Missouri basketball coach Dennis Gates grabbed arena microphone during Alabama win
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Alabama didn’t have answers.
And when it looks like that, who could?
“When everybody’s playing like that, I just think it’s a tough matchup for anybody,” Grill said. “We’ve just got to keep continuing, as coach said, to keep moving forward and keep getting better each day.”
This article originally appeared on Columbia Daily Tribune: How Missouri basketball offense became unstoppable against Alabama
