What I’m looking at: kansas

We’ve made it to the biggest game of the season. Take a look at what I’ll be watching in today’s Missouri (7-1) matchup with No. 1 kansas (7-1) at noon on ESPN2.

kansas is 7-1 for the sixth consecutive season and has had a particularly difficult schedule through the early portion of the season, beating Duke, North Carolina and Michigan State. The team’s lone loss came in its most recent matchup, 76-63 to Creighton in Omaha, Neb, the team’s lone true-road game.

The birds from the west score 80.3 points per game and give up 67.1. They shoot 50.3 percent from the field, 34.6 percent (56-of-162) from 3 and 70.4 percent (76-108) from the free-throw line.

kansas is ranked No. 344 (out of 355) in the country in free-throw attempts per game at 13.5 per game, (Mizzou is third at 31.6), but has recorded 10 or more steals in three games.

Graduate center Hunter Dickinson (7-foot-2, 265 pounds) leads the kansas inside-out offense with 14.5 points per game, while he brings down a team-high 9.0 rebounds per contest. Senior guard Zeke Mayo (6-4, 185) is next in scoring at 11.8 points per game, while he brings down 4.3 rebounds per game and Columbia-native graduate guard Dajuan Harris Jr. (6-2, 175) scores 10.4 points per game and dishes out 6.0 assists per contest. Harris has scored in double figures in three of the team’s past four games and five games overall this season, while dishing out 22 assists to just three turnovers in the past three games.

Along with those three, kansas will likely start senior forward KJ Adams (6-7, 235) and junior guard AJ Storr (6-7, 205).

The Tigers are 3-5 all-time when playing the country’s No. 1-ranked team in Columbia, with all three wins being against a kansas team ranked No. 1.

Today’s game will feature the country’s two active leading scorers. Dickinson leads the way now at 2,324 points after surpassing Marques Warrick (2,318) this season.

The first and biggest for me is how well Mizzou defends the paint.

kansas’ offense hasn’t worked from the outside this season, but it is elite from within the 3-point line. Mizzou has had trouble in multiple games defending the interior on drives, if the Tigers have trouble with that today, they will be in trouble. But one of the major issues with Tiger defenses under coach Dennis Gates has been defense of the 3-point line and closing out, that shouldn’t be as much of an issue today, though I’m sure if kansas players are open, they will hit 3s. So the Tigers can’t just forget about covering the exterior.

Guarding the paint, and keeping Dickinson from having a great performance, will be a major key today.

The other will be the Tiger offense vs. itself.

The issue went away a bit during the easy part of the schedule because the Tigers were just significantly more talented than their opponents, but it came screaming back in those last five minutes of the first half against Cal.

Mizzou cannot have a sequence today where the offense goes completely dead and gets turnover happy. Expecting another 18-point comeback is a bad strategy against any team, but it’s a REALLY bad one today. If Mizzou is going to win, it has to keep up the whole game, if it falls far behind at any point, its in trouble. So that means no major lulls.

There’s not really a full team-based one here today.

I mentioned in my answers for the kansas team site’s version of Know your Foe that I see two ways Mizzou could win today, one is a game that looks a lot like Braggin’ Rights 2022.

Get some early turnovers, start incredibly hot from the field, build a 10-point lead and run away with it as the crowd rattles a team that hasn’t faced the type of animosity-filled environment it will today.

Or, an individual, elite performance. We’ve seen that Ant Robinson is capable of it, I think Tamar Bates is capable of it on the offensive side, there will be no Caleb Grill so it won’t be someone just knocking down 3s all day, but I think Mark Mitchell also has the ability to control the game on both sides of the floor.

That’s a number of guys who could have a career day that leads to a win. But I don’t see many other routes today.

So that means, I’m looking for Mizzou to keep it exciting and stay in it. No major lulls means the offense is working and keeping Mizzou Arena involved.

The 2022 version of this matchup, my second year on the beat in Jeff City, is one of my favorite coverage experiences I’ve ever had because of the energy in the arena, even though the game kind of sucked.

I’m excited for what a close matchup could bring and where this game might end up ranking for me in coverage experiences.

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