A lot of this has already been said, but wanted to put my thoughts out there. A great win for the program tonight. The crowd was really into it at the end. Muller, Chatman, and Strong all commented on how involved the crowd was and how it gave them energy. If there was a game I wish a recruit attended it was this one. Still would be nice to get Red Alert more involved - it is so much harder to run plays and communicate on offense when the crowd is loud. The players were really fired up about this win and they should be. Coach talked about getting fans back in the seats and how winning games consistently will do that. Fans need a reason to come and I'm hopeful this team can bring that life back for the sake of the program.
I would put Missouri State (Kenpom - 73) in the same tier as Murray State (Kenpom - 94) which is why this was such a huge win. The duo of Tevin Brown and KJ Williams could be compared to Mosley and Prim.
This was obviously the best game of the season for the defense. Missouri State has had at least 72 points at the end of regulation in each of their games so far and we held them to 64. The intensity was really there late in the second half and in overtime. If we can play at that level consistently we are going to be in every single conference game.
Another big reason why we won tonight was because of the three point shooting. We shot 13 of 23 from 3 which is unreal. That is not going to happen very often, but we did a great job moving the ball and shooting good shots. The free throw shooting (14-15) was another key factor in the game for us. The only one we missed was Fleming on the front end of a one and one unfortunately. We are shooting 74.6% from the line this year which is up from 66.1% from last year.
The biggest thing we have to improve on in my opinion is the turnovers. We cannot expect to consistently win games when Fleming and Freeman combine for 10 turnovers (on the other hand, Mosley and Prim combined for 12
). One thing I noticed in particular this game was Fleming jumping before knowing where he is going with the ball. Also, next time out we will need to figure out an answer for Prim defensively. He shot 13-15 from the field.