Missouri women’s basketball moved to 5-0 after a narrow 60-55 victory over UT-Martin on Thursday night. Despite an admirable fight from the Skyhawks, the Tigers were able to build enough of a cushion in the second half to escape with a victory, even with UT-Martin turning into prime Press Virginia in the final minutes of the game.
The first two quarters weren’t necessarily dominated by the Skyhawks, but the visitors looked like the better team over the opening 20 minutes of action. UT-Martin came out of the gates unafraid of their SEC peers, penetrating the paint often and creating open looks from downtown. On the other hand, Missouri struggled finding a rhythm on offense, as they shot a measly 4/15 from beyond the arc. The Tigers trailed the Skyhawks 26-25 at halftime.
“They were the more physical team tonight,” head coach Robin Pingeton said after the game. “They played harder than we did.”
It wasn’t until late in the third quarter where the Tigers found an extended groove on offense. After failing to generate open looks inside despite running a myriad of off-ball screens and cuts, they were finally able to spring free off of cuts and capitalize on easy opportunities at the rim.
“We talked the whole game about slip cuts, back cuts, seven cuts, all that to get {UT-Martin} out of their gaps and out of that pack line,” Missouri guard Haley Troup said after the game. “Late in the game, I thought we finally started to get some of those {cuts} going.”
Hayley Frank led the Tigers in scoring with 15 points. Sara Rose-Smith had 12 points of her own and registered her third game with double-digit rebounds, as her and Ashton Judd nearly outrebounded the Skyhawks by themselves in the second half. However, the Tigers shot below 25% from long-range for the third time this season and struggled handling UT-Martin’s full-court press at the end of the game, as Missouri turned it over six times in the final 3:07 of regulation. While Pingeton acknowledged that the absences of Mama Dembele and Averi Kroenke, two of Missouri’s steadiest ball-handlers, forced some players into unfamiliar roles, she recognized the need for improvement when a team turns up the heat defensively.
“I thought our spacing wasn’t very good. I didn’t think we had good discipline,” Pingeton said. “We’ve just got to show more poise in those situations.”
Despite the loss, UT-Martin deserves kudos for their performance. You see, fear is a powerful emotion. It can permeate even the strongest humans, wrap itself around you like a straitjacket and make the possible seem impossible. Fear is a destroyer of dreams, an invisible steel wall to success that can single-handedly prevent people from reaching their full potential.
Some people, however, are immune to fear. You know those people. They’re the ones that’ll climb any fence, the ones that’ll talk to any person regardless of if they know them or not. They must’ve gotten some sort of vaccine at birth that has made it impossible for them to ever feel a hint of “what if this goes wrong? What if I fail?”.
The women’s basketball team from the University of Tennessee at Martin walked into Mizzou Arena on Thursday night without a lick of fear. Although they hadn’t defeated a Power 6 team since 2015, the Skyhawks had built a reputation as one of the toughest teams in the Ohio Valley Conference. Over the past few seasons, they’d played ranked Virginia Tech and Louisville close while winning a combined 67 games from 2018-21.
It was clear from the jump that the Skyhawks wouldn’t fold despite being the underdogs. They were launching threes without hesitation (and making them), attacking the basket like their pants were on fire and dove for loose balls like they’d attended the Dave Cowens School of Hustle. Their full-court press, which single-handedly kept UT-Martin in the game until the final buzzer, would’ve made Dennis Gates happy. The Skyhawk bench was an energy factory all night long. It was a valiant effort from one of the better mid-major squads in the nation.
Missouri will pack their bags and head to the Bahamas for their next couple of games, as the Tigers are set to take on Wake Forest and (14) Virginia Tech at the Baha Mar Hoops Pink Flamingo Classic next Monday and Wednesday, respectively. Missouri will look to take down a non-SEC ranked opponent for the first time since 2017 and will also be looking for their first victory outside of the United States since 2016, when they defeated Creighton in another Bahamas-based tournament.