January 26, 2021

By Jack Soble

When Missouri men’s basketball assistant coach and lead scout (per the team) for Tuesday’s game at Auburn Chris Hollender took a look at the tape from its season, he chose to ignore 11 of the Tigers’ 16 games played so far.

Why did he choose not to watch the majority of Auburn’s film? Because on Jan. 9, it became a completely different team with the arrival of true freshman point guard and former five-star recruit Sharife Cooper.

“I think they played the majority of their games before him without a point guard,” Hollender said.

Cooper was under NCAA investigation — there are rumors as to why, but no official reason has been given — and ineligible to play for most of the season thus far. Since his debut against Alabama, he’s exploded onto the scene as one of the SEC’s premier players.

With 26 points against the Crimson Tide, Cooper’s highlights accounted for most of what SEC fans saw on Twitter. Bear in mind that Auburn lost that game, which happened at the same time as an NFL playoff game.

In other words, it was a big deal.

Since then, his production hasn’t exactly subsided. He followed that performance with 28 points in a blowout win over Georgia and has taken the league by storm ever since.

“He controls a lot of the game; he’s got the ball in his hands a lot,” Hollender said. “Everything starts and 70% of the time, it may finish with him. So we really don’t spend a lot of time watching those games where he didn’t play, and [it’s a] totally different-looking team on the floor.”

If 70% is an exaggeration, it’s not by much. Cooper’s 21.2 points per game would rank second in the SEC, barely behind LSU’s Cameron Thomas with 21.7, if he had enough games played to qualify.

“Just the way he controls the game,” forward Mitchell Smith said. “He changes speeds really well, like we saw on film. It might look like he’s walking around at times, but I know about his burst to the basket with speed.”

His passing numbers are even more ridiculous. If he qualified, Cooper’s 9.0 assists per game would lead the league by a full 1.4.

To put Cooper’s assists totals in perspective, the gap between Cooper and South Carolina’s Jermaine Couisnard, who clocks in at fourth on the SEC leaderboard with 4.1 per game, is larger than the gap between Couisnard now and Couisnard if he had never passed the ball in any game.

“He’s an excellent passer, especially with his left hand,” Hollender said. “I don’t know if you’ve been able to notice that, but for a right-handed guy, he’s exceptional with his left hand. And unselfish, you know, a guy like that, he’s averaging a lot of points, but he really does a great job of finding his teammates.”

Typically, Auburn will look to kick-start Cooper’s playmaking abilities with on-ball screens early in the possession. Hollender said that Missouri might have to defend 60 of them. It contrasts with Tennessee’s style, which isn’t nearly as dependent on them.

Against this system, Missouri’s defensive versatility — a point of pride for Tigers coach Cuonzo Martin — will be put to the test. Bigger men such as Kobe Brown, Javon Pickett and Mitchell Smith will switch onto Cooper at various points in the game, and it will be up to them to stay with him.

“I feel like it’ll be interesting,” Brown said. “We just have to take that challenge. Take it to the heart, you know, do as best you can and get the job done.”

Martin has compared Smith, standing at 6’10”, to a credit card in the past because “you can’t leave your home without him.” Part of the reason is his ability to guard quicker players while being that tall. If Missouri pulls out a win tonight, it might be a big reason why.

“We gotta make sure we’re calling out our defensive principles out loud,” Smith said. “Making sure everybody’s on their lines and stuff. Making sure everybody’s doing what they’re supposed to do on defense. [That’s] how Missouri plays basketball.”

_Edited by Kyle Pinnell | kpinnell@themaneater.com_