By Joe Posnanski
Kansas City Star
March 20, 2009
The truth is, there isn’t one secret way to win in March, or any other time. Take Missouri’s convincing 78-59 victory over Cornell in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. What was the key to the game? Who knows? Even after it was over, no two people seemed to agree how the Tigers did it.
“I thought our pressure defense was the difference in the game,” Missouri coach Mike Anderson said. “I really, really did.”
“I thought we handled (the pressure defense) pretty well,” Cornell forward Ryan Wittman said. “Like Coach said, we only had nine turnovers.”
“It seemed like we took their legs from them in the second half,” said Leo Lyons, Missouri’s star of the day.
“It’s hard to get tired in an NCAA game — these timeouts are 3 minutes long … I didn’t sense fatigue at all,” Cornell coach Steve Donahue said.
“I think that our speed got them out of their comfort zone,” Missouri guard J.T. Tiller said.
“A game like this, where we felt like we could have won if we played better, it’s definitely disappointing,” Cornell forward Alex Tyler said.
There you go. And remember: This was after the game. It just shows you that basketball is too involved a game to be reduced to one thing, one story line, one distinct way to win. And that’s what might make this Missouri team dangerous in this tournament. Because the Tigers don’t win any one way. They don’t have one strategy. They don’t need one thing to go right.
Give you an example: Whenever basketball people talk about Missouri, what do they usually talk about? Sure: That full-court pressure defense. Forty minutes of hell. That was all anyone talked about Thursday as all the pregame analysis was going on. Donahue talked about how he had his offense practice against seven defenders to prepare for the Missouri challenge.
Well, all the evidence suggests that Missouri’s defense had almost no effect on Friday’s game. Cornell’s players seemed to be relaxed against it. Cornell turned the ball over only nine times, the fewest turnovers Missouri has forced all season. Cornell had a lot of open shots.
Still, Anderson insisted it was that defense that made the difference, going so far as to make this rather odd statement: “They only had three turnovers at halftime, so that played right into our hands because they’re more concerned about taking care of the ball than they are, maybe, trying to score.”
This theory that not forcing turnovers is a good thing is definitely novel, but maybe the Tigers really won because their offense was so efficient, especially in the second half, when they shot 57 percent. Maybe the Tigers won because Leo Lyons was unstoppable — he scored 23 points, grabbed 10 rebounds and at times seemed to be playing basketball against his little brother. He would just throw the ball against the glass, grab the rebound, put it up against the glass again, grab another rebound, until finally he grew tired of the little game and he just scored.
Maybe they won because DeMarre Carroll is one of the most versatile players in college basketball and he had his usual statistical gumbo (13 points, seven rebounds, five assists, two steals, one three-pointer, one blocked shot). Maybe the Tigers won because their guards are just so solid and unselfish; The Tigers turned the ball over only four times, a Missouri NCAA Tournament record. And they had 19 assists on 28 baskets, a fabulous ratio.
“To me, the underrated thing with Mike’s team is their offense,” Donahue said. “They don’t turn the ball over. They share the ball. No one does anything out of the ordinary, where you say, ‘Wow, what did the guy do there? Why did he do that?’ There is none of that.”
Missouri is just so solid. That’s what was so apparent on Friday. You can tell only so much in these first-round games, after all; Missouri is much more talented than Cornell, but we all know that there are upsets in the first round, there are near upsets, and the Tigers were never in any danger at all.
They played lazy offense at times, and they did not shoot well in the first half, and they did not create the sort of havoc they would have liked with their defense. But they still methodically took apart Cornell and left no doubts.
“We’re the ultimate team,” Anderson said after it ended, and he was emphasizing the word “team.” That seems right. The Tigers have three seniors in their starting lineup, they have excellent guards, they have a deep bench, they have different stars on different nights, they have an identity they play ferocious defense, and they seem to be peaking at the right time. They seem to have all the things a college basketball team wants to have in March.
Does that mean it will be a long March? Nobody really knows. And that’s what makes it fun.
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