By MATT PIKE
St. Joseph Post
By MATT PIKE
St. Joseph Post
The Missouri Tigers begin their NCAA Tournament run today, taking on former Northwest Missouri State coach Ben McCollum and the Drake Bulldogs.
Missouri finished the season 22-11 and earned the sixth seed in the tournament, while Drake finished 30-3 getting the 11th seed.
Missouri head coach Dennis Gates says while Drake wants to control the pace of the game, the Tigers aim to make it a high school affair
"Both programs will continue to do what they've done throughout the course of the season, and we'll continue to do that as well," Gates tells reporters. "I think at the end of the day, if their ball isn't going in and ours is going in, it can feel like things are being sped up a bit and that's kind of what we want to continue to do."
McCollum says it is difficult to prepare for the variety of defenses the Tigers will throw at them
"You know you can kind of get down a rabbit hole trying to figure it out, and a lot of it just comes back to conceptual basketball of just playing the right way," McCollum explains. "Move the basketball, do what we've done all season long, and keep it pretty simple."
Former Northwest Missouri State player Bennett Stirtz, who followed McCollum to Drake, says the Bulldogs want the game played at their pace
"We're going to have to play our game, obviously the SEC is the best conference in the nation, Mizzou will be ready to go, they play really physical, and they try to speed you up, things like that," Stirtz says. "So, I'd just say play our speed, try not to get sped up and just play calm."
Meanwhile Tigers guard Tamar Bates says pushing the tempo begins on the defensive end
"We're not going to try to do anything outside of what we've done all year to speed things up," Bates says. "I mean we'll be solid defensively and take away what we can, obviously they have some things that they're really good at on the offensive end that they've stuck too, so for us it's just about doing what we do."
Missouri and Drake tipoff tonight at 6:35 in Wichita. Coverage begins on KFEQ at 6pm.
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