Everything Jai Lucas, Miami said about Mizzou after NCAA Tournament win
ST. LOUIS — With 37 seconds remaining, Dennis Gates pulled Mark Mitchell for one final time.
In a moment to say goodbye, Mitchell, who transferred to Missouri two years ago, exited to diluted cheers. The Tigers trailed by 11 points, with their second consecutive NCAA Tournament appearance ending in the first round. Miami pulled away in the final seven minutes, closing the door on Missouri’s season, 80-66, at the Enterprise Center.
“Missouri is so well coached,” Hurricanes head coach Jai Lucas opened his postgame press conference, “Just with how they attack, the way they’re built, the physicality they play with.”
While the primary target for most opponents to confine on offense, Mitchell entered battle against a former coach of his from Duke. The senior forward reiterated that connection postgame, noting how Lucas knew his style of play.
“He was a big part of our game plan and trying to slow him down,” Lucas said. “We knew he led them in points, rebounds and assists, so we just tried to make it hard. We switched our matchups, we put Ernest (Udeh Jr.) on him, tried to give them a different look early.”
Even though Udeh fouled out, the 6-foot-11, 266-pound center caused havoc against Mitchell in the first half. Miami held Mitchell to four points in the first 20 minutes, seeing the forward miss all three of his attempts from the field.
“For me, it was just trying to make it as hard as possible,” Lucas said. “So we started with size, put somebody a little bit bigger on him. And then every time he got in the paint, we wanted him to at least see two people.
“Some of the stuff they did and then some of the lineups gave us the ability to do that a little bit. But then the way (Jayden) Stone started shooting the ball, it made it tougher, because he started to hit some. But we never wanted him to be able to take more than two dribbles and not see somebody.”
Mitchell sank three 3-pointers and led Missouri with 15 points in the second half. But across those final 20 minutes, Miami only turned the ball over twice — not offering Missouri many opportunities to build off errors.
“We took care of the ball in the second half,” Lucas said, “and that’s why we were able to generate the separation we did.”
Road environment
With an attendance of 17,726, it felt like a Missouri home game from the jump. Fan reactions responded in favor of the Tigers. The Hurricanes, though, stuck to their guns, treating Friday’s contest like a traditional road environment.
“We had a good idea coming into the game what we were going to see in the stands,” guard Tre Donaldson said. “Don’t try to over complicate it. Do nothing different. We’ve won some of these, and that’s what we got to go do tonight. I thought we did a really good job of staying poised, staying together, understanding what the task was at hand and handling it well.”
“I think that just really gets me started,” forward Shelton Henderson added. “Hearing fans talk trash to me, just really gets me going. But there’s a lot of Mizzou fans in the crowd that just were against us, and that’s what we like. We like the adversity, and it just pushed us to get this dub.”