Did the Press Make a Difference?

A tale of two coaches’ perspectives Press made a difference — or did it?

Columbia Daily Tribune
March 21, 2009

BOISE, Idaho — The two coaches had differing opinions on what transpired in the Missouri basketball team’s 78-59 victory over Cornell yesterday in the first round of the NCAA Tournament’s West Regional at Taco Bell Arena in Boise, Idaho.

In Mike Anderson’s mind, his Tigers’ defensive pressure wore down the Big Red, who might have only turned the ball over nine times — the fewest of any MU opponent this season — but shot 23 for 64 from the field and was outscored 49-34 in the last 20 minutes.

“I thought just our presence, guys being there in position, I thought it kind of made them a little hesitant,” Anderson said afterward. “I just thought our defense was pretty darn good and we were rebounding the ball, we were pushing the ball, and I thought you saw the effect of that in the second half.”

His counterpart disputed that.

“You know, I’ll respectfully disagree,” Cornell Coach Steve Donahue said. “I thought the pressure helped us get open shots. To me, that’s the underrated thing with Mike’s team is their offense. They don’t turn the ball over. They share the ball. …

“It’s difficult to press us because we can make shots and I just thought that allowed us to get open looks. … It might have been more difficult if they stayed with us and guarded us straight up. I was disappointed in shots that I thought we could make, and obviously, a couple guys in particular just had bad days shooting.”

Ryan Wittman, the Big Red’s leading scorer, finished with a team-high 18 points but was 7 for 17 from the field. Point guard Louis Dale went 1 for 11 from the field and had only three points, 10 below his season average. Guard Chris Wroblewski wound up with seven points but missed 5 of 8 field-goal attempts. Cornell made only 6 of 21 3-point attempts.

Those numbers were undeniable, but Donahue also refused to attribute those misfires to tired legs.

“It’s hard to get tired in an NCAA game,” he said. “These timeouts are three minutes long and you get and extra 30” second timeout, “and that’s three minutes long. I didn’t sense fatigue at all, and we played a lot of guys.”