Missouri report card.

Well, that was fun!!!

General Impressions Not many good of general impressions. First off, we got "out"ed. We got out-hustled, out-prepared, out-toughed, out-played, out-thought, out-coached. We shriveled under pressure. We got our asses handed to us by a group of mid majors. Folks have commented about we "only have 2 NBA level talents". That's 2 more than Missouri has...and to be honest they had the 3 best players on the floor tonight. The epitome of idiocy is with a minute left, down 18, we roll the ball up the floor to save time. Good lord, we looked STUPID. Of course that did allow their walk ons few more minutes of PT. I had hoped the start of conference play would get this team over the hump as OOC games mean little IMO, other than to prepare for conference play. It appears UK failed to use them for that purpose. Hope the players figure it out soon, real soon.

Jacob Toppin F I have to applaud Jacob for pushing me to do something I don't normally do, give an F grade. I typically don't give them because I believe the players put in too much effort to disrespect them in such a manner. Well Jacob, congrats because you showed no effort and in doing so you disrespected the fans who show up to the games to support you and the team, who buy merchandise and contribute to the NIL. His Zero points, 4 rebound, 3 turnover and one assist night in 13 minutes was worthy of a FAIL. F is for the ####ing lack of respect you showed us.

Cason Wallace B By far the best player for UK, better than Oscar IMO. In 32 minutes he hit 5 of his 13 trey, although I'm not sure why he shot so many. But in his defense, I believe 5 were shot in the last 10 or 11 minutes. Overall he was 7-16 with an assist and a TO to go with a block. His defense at times was suspect.

Oscar Tshiebwe B- The abysmal FT shooting sours his game. He managed 11-17 from the charity stripe. His inability or unwillingness to pass the ball out results in him going 1 on 4 to muscle it up. Played 40 minutes and officially had 8 shots. Its not because he didn't attempt just 8, its because he just got fouled, and fouled, and fouled so the missed ones don't count, then he goes to the line to clang a couple. His 19 rebounds awesome. One of the few pleasant aspects of the game is just him rebounds balls he has no right to get. Its like watching Dennis Rodman without the nose rings, tattoo and asshole attitude. But the 40 minutes concerns me. Look for a tired Oscar come March, or an injured one.

Sahvir Wheeler C- Seems harsh, sure. 38 minutes of mediocrity, in a hodgepodge of poor shots, missed shots, poor decisions and just an inability to lead the team. We are a rudderless team with nobody at the helm. Sure, he had 8 assists to only 2 turnovers but time and time again he failed to see players who were open.

Antonio Reeves D No credit for the shot with no time, or the foul 0:08 seconds. This is KY, we were beat. He looked like a chump with the foul. Take the loss like a man, and don't pad your stats with a meaningless basket. 8 pts in 15 minutes, including the bogus deuce. Shot 3-6 including the bogus deuce, and failed to hit any of his 3 treys. Of course he could have chucked the shot up from outside the line with 0.5 seconds and hope it had fallen.

Chris Livingston D+ I was hopeful that Chris would show something. The positives were his rebounding..sort of. He managed 4 in 12 minutes, hit 1 of his 5 shots and had a couple turnovers. He played one minute less than Toppin but he actually tried and gave effort. But the line does not support anything better than a D+

CJ Fredrick I/C Ouch

Lance Ware B Folks rag on Lance but I see his worth, his value. Wasn't as tough as I would have liked but still was productive, more than 5 other guys IMO. Has to be a career high minutes with 30. Had 6 rebounds to place him second most on UK, and equal the highest glass eaters for MO. 6 pts on 3-5 shooting, with 3 assists and a TO. He isn't going to give you 10 and 8 nightly but he came close, close enough.

Adou Thiero B Nice game for him but those who believe he is the difference maker need to take a step back. Granted he was the only UK player with a positive +/-. which was 7. Played 17 minutes, made his only shot which was a trey, and hit 2 of his 3 FT for 5 pts. Also managed a couple assists. But most importantly sent a message that play hard and you play

Ugonna Onyenso DNP

Daimion Collins DNP Keep in mind Cal recruited him. Why? Somebody enlighten me...PLEASE.

Coaching F An embarrassing effort, one that he should be ashamed of. I'll put much of the blame on the staff here. I've long harped about the OOC being a time to prepare yet once again Cal has failed to achieve that. This was our first true road game. Does it make sense for that to also be a conference one? The team was ill prepared to play in front of a 95% hostile fan base in their home gym. Nope, we got to player a bunch of crap teams at home and good teams at neutral sites. Also done a terrible job getting us tourney ready. We played ZERO tourney environment game (ie any of the T-giving classics where you got 3 games in 3 days where you have to prepare quickly...you know, like March Madness). Additionally Cal still has no idea of a lineup that works best. Why? Well maybe because we have to see 35 plus minutes of Sav, Oscar, Wallace, Toppin and Reeves against N. FL and podunk U. Cal's "style" is no long fun or innovative, its just old and stale.

Officials C Apparently the new rules this year are
*if you hit the ball last, sometimes you get it back
*slapping the backboard after a made basket/dunk is no long a technical foul
*they changed the 5 seconds in the lane to 10 seconds
Tony Greene, Rob Rorke, Keith Kimble were bad, just bad both ways. In their defense, having to listen to Cal and Oscar complain about every missed shot as being fouled has to get old. Yo, Oscar, you didn't get hit on any of your FT misses!

Commentators CYeah, we got it.....UK played bad, and MO well. Of course what else could they say. Even a blind man (not a Dick Vitale reference) could see that.

Other Overall we shot 46% and 35% which is better then expected. MO only his 2 more treys than we did (we shot 8-23 and they hit 10-25). Our wretched FT shooting of 63% resulted in a +8 pts from the line for MO. They won the TO battle 14 for us and 8 for them as a result of excellent defense and horrible decisions by us. We did win the rebounds because we have a secret weapon. If I tell you it won't be a secret (and its the worse kept secret of all time). Our vaulted bench put in 13 pts to their 33. They also won the assist battle 18-15