The Missouri men’s basketball team turned the ball over a season high 19 times, including 11 in the first half, leading to a low scoring first half and a deficit that was too big to climb back from. The Tigers lost their ninth straight game in a 68-56 loss at Alabama on Wednesday night. Sophomore guard Terrence Phillips led the team in scoring, assists and steals with 16 points, seven assists and four steals in 34 minutes off the bench.
Phillips along with Russell Woods and his 13 points helped the Tigers get to within 28-24 less than two minutes into the second half after the pair scored seven points in a minute. Alabama’s Dazon Ingram responded with back-to-back three’s opening up Alabama’s lead for good.
As much as turnovers played a part in this game, the stat that jumped out to Mizzou coach Kim Anderson was the difference in rebounding. That was a point of emphasis before the game.
“When you look at their (Alabama’s) second chance opportunities, 14-3, the difference in the game is 12 points…there’s 11 right there,” said Anderson. “That shouldn’t happen. We need to be stronger.”
Mizzou had one of their better shooting games of the seasons, by Tiger standards, still finishing at just 40.5%, but the Tigers were 7-of-14 from three point range.
“I thought it was a fairly ugly basketball game, which is kind of the way we wanted it to be,” Anderson said. “You got to give a lot of credit to Alabama. First half they struggled from the field, second half they came out and made some key shots.”
