Hoopin’ and Hollerin: Tigers Bring Unbeaten Start Home for Back-to-Back Tests Against UT Martin and Lindenwood

Three games into the regular season, Missouri has yet to lose. After an exhibition tune-up against Lincoln, the Tigers survived Howard 91-88 i overtime, rolled at Little Rock 73-50 and put 106 on Tennessee Tech in a 47-point win. At 3-0, they average 90.0 points a game and allow 65.7, a combined margin of 73 points.The one close call came against Howard on Nov. 2, the kind of night a coaching staff circles on the film schedule. Missouri coach Kellie Harper said the team has made progress since that game, particularly in its offensive execution and ball movement.The Tigers went from a single-digit assist total in their opener to 21 in their third game against Tennessee Tech. Harper said the improvement reflects the team’s growing comfort with its offensive system.“The emphasis since game one has really been on sharing the basketball, finding assists, finding the easy opportunity for our team,” Harper said. “For us to go from a single-digit number of assists to 21 in our third game, I think that’s really telling of how our players are accepting our system.”Missouri now gets a chance to continue that progress. Thursday at 6:30 p.m., UT Martin arrives at Mizzou Arena. Sunday at 2 p.m., Lindenwood follows, after first stopping in Columbia on Friday to play Stephens College. Both visitors are Ohio Valley Conference programs, and they have little else in common.Thursday: UT MartinThe Skyhawks are 2-1, and their first three games read like three different seasons. They opened with a 90-89 nail-biter over Eastern Kentucky, then three days later beat Christian Brothers 105-41. On Sunday, SEC opponent Mississippi State handed them a 114-68 loss. UT Martin scores 87.7 points a game and allows 81.3, which tells you how it likes to play: fast, loose and with defense a secondary concern.The offense lives in the paint. The Skyhawks shoot 45.9 percent as a team but only 24.1 percent from three. Raven Sims is the engine at 17.3 points a game, including a 28-point night against Eastern Kentucky. Olivia Smith adds 12.0 points and has 15 assists and eight steals through three games, and Tyler Jones and Alorian Story each average 9.7. UT Martin harasses opponents, averaging 11.7 steals a game with a plus-4.0 turnover margin, and it crashes the glass at 43.0 rebounds a night.Mississippi State is the best look at how the Skyhawks hold up against a high-major opponent, and it wasn’t pretty. The Bulldogs shot 60 percent, scored 54 points in the paint and ran up 41 fast-break points. UT Martin went 5-of-28 from three, and Sims shot 7-of-17.The lesson for Missouri is that the Skyhawks’ pressure is dangerous to teams that give the ball away. The Howard game showed the Tigers can get careless, and UT Martin is built to punish exactly that. Harper said the team’s ability to handle opposing pressure and continue executing its own offense will remain important as the schedule picks up.Missouri is the clear favorite, but this is the tougher of the two games because the Skyhawks can score enough to stay close for a half.Sunday: LindenwoodLindenwood has had a rough opening stretch, and it’s about to get more crowded. The Lions lost three of their first four games, all on the road: 63-46 at Colorado State, 66-52 at Denver and 71-35 at Louisville on Tuesday. Their lone win was a 62-49 home victory over Evansville. Through four games, they average 48.8 points, allow 62.3 and sit at minus-13.5 in scoring margin.The schedule doesn’t help. Lindenwood plays Stephens College in Columbia on Friday, then faces Missouri on Sunday. That makes it the Lions’ second game in three days and their sixth in 14. The Stephens game could be a chance to get right before the step up, or a chance to lose legs before it. Either way, the Lions will be short on rest when they take the floor at Mizzou Arena.The numbers show where the trouble is. Lindenwood shoots 32.2 percent from the field, 29.2 percent from three and 57.4 percent at the free-throw line. The Lions give the ball away 16 times a game and get outrebounded by four. Cadence Dykstra makes the offense go, averaging 10.5 points and a team-high 14 assists, but she also has 22 turnovers, which puts a target on her for Missouri’s defense. Violet McNece (7.8 points a game) takes the most threes on the team and has made just 8 of 29. Konstantina Mantziori (7.0) and Saniah Tyler (6.5) are the other main scorers, and Brenna Rucker leads the team on the boards at 6.5 a game.The Evansville win is Lindenwood’s blueprint for a good day. The Lions forced 21 turnovers, turned them into 24 points and hit 10 threes, five of them from McNece. That is a hard recipe to repeat against Missouri’s pace. Louisville held Lindenwood to 35 points on 26 percent shooting, a total the Tigers have reached in a single half this season. If Missouri protects the ball and gets out in transition, this one should be decided early.The Bottom LineThree wins by an average of 24.3 points tell you what Missouri can do against teams it is supposed to beat. This week is about proving it can do that consistently.Harper has seen growth in the Tigers’ rebounding and offensive execution, but she also knows there is work left to do. She pointed to spacing, finishing around the basket and screening as areas where Missouri can improve offensively. On defense, she wants better execution in ball-screen coverage, rotations and one-on-one situations.“We have not arrived,” Harper said. “I love the progress that I feel like we’ve made.”The coach also pointed to a shift in the team’s expectations around effort. Last season, Harper said, she would clip and show the team hustle plays, such as players diving on the floor for loose balls. This season, those plays have become routine.“I haven’t celebrated it once yet because it happens so often,” Harper said. “It’s just what they do, and it’s expected. It’s not out of the ordinary. It’s a normal thing.”UT Martin is the real check on the Tigers’ focus: if they cough up the ball, the Skyhawks will turn it into an uncomfortable evening. Lindenwood is more about depth and discipline, a chance to build a lead and empty the bench against a team playing its second game in three days.What comes next is Kansas State on Nov. 22 in Kansas City, the Tigers’ first power-conference opponent of the season. Missouri’s early results have been solid, but they have come against teams that Thursday and Sunday’s visitors resemble more than Kansas State does. How cleanly the Tigers handle this week will go a long way toward showing whether they are ready for that step up.