What No. 21 Mizzou Focused on During Preparation for the Postseason

To do this, Missouri spent the early part of the week scouting themselves, not any opponent.

Though the Tigers let a top-four seed, and therefore, a double bye in the tournament out of their grasp, Missouri still landed the No. 7 seed, earning a bye out of the first round. The identity of their first opponent wasn't known until Wednesday night, when No. 10 seed Mississippi State took down No. 15 seed LSU in the first round of the Tournament.

But during practice Tuesday, the team didn't talk about the possibility of facing either of those opponents.

"What we want to do is obviously concentrate on ourselves," head coach Dennis Gates said Tuesday. "We'll find out Wednesday who we play. Until then, you look at certain things you try to implement."

For the Tigers, that self scout has focused on two areas that have clearly been at the root of their recent skid: avoiding fouling and improving in late-game scenarios.

Against No. 19 Kentucky in the regular season finale, Missouri trailed by as few as six in the final two minutes, but couldn't close the deal. In the game before, Missouri trailed by nine with 4:10 left but couldn't forge any more of a comeback.

"We've let some end of game situations slip us, so we want to be able to cover those in more detail," Gates said.

Missouri still ended the regular season leading the conference in free-throw attempt differential, but in the last five games, Missouri averaged 5.8 less free throws than its opponents. Arkansas dominated on the line against the Tigers, with the Razorbacks taking 37 free-throw attempts and Missouri only 17.

"Being able to keep teams off the (free-throw) line and keep a certain deviation, being able to not foul, and if you're not in the bonus, you want fouls on the floor so they can take the ball out. When they're in the bonus, you want to avoid shooting fouls and maybe one-on-ones. Those are with lesser free-throw percentage guys. So those are things that you have to in detail focus on, but it's going to be very strategic."

Missouri's defense has also been a factor in the rough cap to the regular season. It was never the best unit for the Tigers this season, but it was one that could generate energy and points for Missouri with turnovers and other impact plays.

The intensity that Missouri brought defensively early in the SEC slate wasn't appearing at the same rate in the last stretch.

"I think we had kind of that mentality that we wanted to prove everybody, and we were doing a lot of the little things," Grill said of what was working for Missouri earlier in the season. "We were helping one another on defense, which maybe doesn't show up in the stat sheet."

With the nature of the postseason, there's not much time left for the Tigers to find the same rhythm they found at their peak. Not only is it single elimination in both tournaments, but also the pace and uncertainty of opponents adds other challenges.

"You got to flip the switch, because there's no preparation other than walkthroughs," Gates said. "You have games every day, and you got to decide and figure out, once the game is over, which scouting report to pull out. So you want to aid, concentrate on your team and then concentrate on the opponents."

Although Missouri's focus during practices and walkthroughs this week were focused on itself, Gates did spend the weekend scouting both of Missouri's possible opponents for the second round of the SEC Tournament. Those informed what the team focused on Monday-Wednesday.

"Now, what common denominator from an offensive standpoint do I deliver to my team that's in common and defensively the same thing, and that's what you work on. The next part of that is now getting to the next level of that scouting report. ... once we find out that night who we play, I'll end up delivering the rest of that to the team in an organic way."

Now knowing its opponent, Missouri will look to make the most of the less than 24 hours before having to take on Mississippi State. The Tigers will take on the Bulldogs at 6 p.m. in Nashville, Tennessee. The game will be broadcast on the SEC Network.