Last 5 games: best offense and worst defense in the country

Posted on: March 6, 2025 at 15:35:13 CT

Yes, it's true. Over the past five games, Mizzou ranks #1 in offensive efficiency and #364 in defensive efficiency.

https://www.stltoday.com/sports/college/mizzou/article_d9559d8e-fabd-11ef-b5f4-ebb701c2fb71.html

Article:

COLUMBIA, Mo. — At the moment, Missouri men’s basketball contains multitudes. Or maybe just extremes.

At the most critical point in the regular season, the No. 15 Tigers (21-9 overall, 10-7 Southeastern Conference) are playing their most confusing basketball yet. Their offense is humming in a way that very few, if any, others are. And their defense is bafflingly regressing into something that at times provides as much resistance as an automatic revolving door.

The result: The ultimate mixed bag of late-season trends has added uncertainty to the program’s most-anticipated postseason in a decade.

The contrast could not be starker between some of Mizzou’s offensive and defensive stats over the past five games — a span that includes a Feb. 19 win over Alabama, a Feb. 22 loss at Arkansas, a Feb. 25 win against South Carolina, a March 1 loss at Vanderbilt and Wednesday’s defeat at Oklahoma. If that sounds like hyperbole, it isn’t.

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Over that five-game span, Missouri has posted an offensive rating of 131.3 points per possession, according to CBB Analytics, which is the best such mark in the nation. The Tigers’ defensive rating of 126.0 points allowed per 100 possessions sits 364th in the country — better known as last among the 364 Division I teams.

Furthermore: Mizzou leads the country in field goal percentage (52.6%) over the last five games but is last in opponent field-goal percentage, with opposing teams making 51.9% of their shots. The Tigers have the nation’s best half-court offense in the previous five but have given up the most paint points per game (44) of anyone in the country.

Partly because of how well opponents are shooting, MU averages the fewest defensive rebounds per game of any Division I team in its past five. But when the Tigers do corral a defensive rebound, their 1.12 points per possession starting with a defensive board is the most efficient clip in the nation over the past five games.

Missouri’s 0.97 points per possession in the middle 10 seconds of the shot clock is the best mark in the nation over the past five games, while giving up 1.2 points per possession to opponents in the final 10 seconds of the shot clock is the worst.

There are some mildly less extreme examples, too. Mizzou has drawn the fourth-most fouls per game over the past five but has been whistled for the third-most.

Get the polarizing picture? It’s befuddling.

Those numbers paint the picture of a team capable of beating any other team and losing to any other team, which fits the Tigers. Their ceiling is as high as any other program’s, but the floor seems to be lowering too.

And while Missouri’s spot in the NCAA Tournament is secure — the only thing up for debate is seeding now — these past five games show a concerning indicator that isn’t captured in any stats, even the advanced ones.

“We were the more hungry team for the first 25 games we played this year,” guard Caleb Grill told reporters after Wednesday’s defeat. “And the last couple games we’ve played ... we haven’t had that same aggression, hunger.”

Any hunger gone A.W.O.L. isn’t without stakes that should have kept it around. Mizzou’s recent three-game losing skid away from home took the Tigers from being in control of a double bye in the SEC Tournament, to being in the mix but no longer controlling their own destiny, to out of the conversation entirely. Now, MU will be seeded somewhere between fifth and eighth in the conference postseason. It still has at least two games to go before Selection Sunday, but Missouri is straddling the No. 5/6 seed line for the NCAA Tournament more than it is the No. 4/5 line of last week.

Relevant to Grill’s concern about hunger is the intensity and desperation with which Mizzou’s recent opponents have played — especially Arkansas, Vanderbilt and Oklahoma, all of which beat the Tigers at the second time of asking this season.

Those teams, to their credit and MU’s detriment, were playing for their NCAA Tournament lives and looked the part. Missouri has become the team to beat to seal a bid or keep tournament hopes alive, and its defense has been the primary philanthropist in that arrangement.

While Mizzou has taken just 43.3% of its shots in the paint or at the rim, the Razorbacks, Commodores and Sooners collectively took 58.8% of their shots in those two zones. More than half of OU’s shots on Wednesday came right at the rim.

“We’re fouling too much,” Grill said. “We’re not guarding, keeping people in front of us right now. We’re not rotating proper rotations. You put that all together? You ain’t keeping anybody out of the paint. You aren’t stopping anybody.”

And while the Tigers have been generally good at getting to the free-throw line, they’ve been slightly worse at keeping opponents away from it.

Welcome to the dichotomous denouement, when winning isn’t as simple as playing the country’s best offense and losing isn’t as simple as playing the country’s worst defense. Consistent concessions of points in the paint happen seconds before and after efficient half-court sets.

The timing of this trend — after Saturday’s regular-season finale against Kentucky, it’s all win-or-go-home basketball — adds urgency to the matter. Where Mizzou goes from here is a question for the poles, of which gives way first: the nation’s best offense or the nation’s worst defense.