Analysis: Two sides to one season for Tigers

Missouri women's basketball has issues rooted in an ineffective offense.

By John Montesantos

Published Feb. 12, 2010

The Missouri women's basketball team has fallen on hard times, also known as its conference schedule. If non-conference games were supposed to be a warm up for the Big 12, the Tigers might have forgotten to stretch beforehand.

After a strong 10-3 start to the year, conference play sent the team back to its old ways. The Tigers' 1-9 conference record thus far has them on pace for another low seed in the Big 12 Tournament.

Missouri has earned the 10th, 12th and 11th seeds consecutively in the past three years, failing to win more than five of its 16 conference contests in a season during that span. As for the tournament, the Tigers have just one playoff win in the three-year slide.

With less than a month until this year's tourney, the Missouri women find themselves in a near-lifeless slump. Aside from an upset over Baylor on Jan. 23, the Tigers have gone winless in their last eleven contests.

In the beginning of the season, coach Cindy Stein would often blame poor performances on a strong first half followed by a lax second half. She called it, "the tale of two halves."

Now nearing the postseason, the 2009-10 season as a whole has become a tale of two halves with Missouri's non-conference and conference schedules appearing as two separate halves within one season.

In the first half of the year, the team dominated out-of-conference opponents entering Big 12 play. The Tigers had 10 wins, and their only losses were by single digits in close contests.

But once conference play started, the "second half" began. In their 10 Big 12 games so far, Missouri has come away with one win. Granted, it was over a strong Baylor squad headed by Big 12 Player of the Year candidate freshman center Brittney Griner. But when surrounded by the nine losses, the upset appears to be a fluke.

The problem behind all this is simple: The Tigers don't put enough points on the board. Defense has never been a problem for Missouri, as they sit at a solid fourth in conference in scoring defense (59.3 points per game) and consistently win the turnover battle. As for offense, the Tigers are dead last in the conference with 63 points per contest.

The worst offensive performances came recently for the Tigers. They scored a then-season low 39 points in their loss to Iowa State on Feb. 7, before breaking that record the next game with a 37-33 loss to Kansas State on Wednesday.

The graduation of two-time leading scorer Alyssa Hollins might have hurt Missouri's 2009-10 production. Senior forward Jessra Johnson has been less than stellar filling in, with her scoring and rebounding numbers failing to improve since her sophomore year.

Senior forward Amanda Hanneman seemed to be the answer to Missouri's scoring prayers early on, sinking nearly three 3-pointers a game in the first half of the season. Since then, Hanneman has dropped off the score sheets, scoring more than 10 points twice in 10 conference games.

Aside from these two spotty scorers, the Tigers have no other players who average in double figures. No matter how well the defense plays, the offense needs to be more productive to get the wins.

The loss to Kansas State put the Tigers at 11-12 overall, on pace for their third straight losing season. Their 1-9 conference showing brings back memories of a 1-11 Big 12 start in 2007-2008.

With six games remaining in the regular season (including a pair against undefeated Nebraska) Missouri has little time to turn things around. Next up for the Tigers are the No. 3 Nebraska Cornhuskers at 1 p.m. Saturday at Mizzou Arena.