ST. LOUIS - It would be easy to pinpoint a variety of areas in which Missouri struggled on Friday night against No. 7 seed Miami. A facet that stuck out like a sore thumb throughout the game was the Tigers' response to different defensive looks that the Hurricanes threw at them.
The Hurricanes ran a ton of zone, primarily a three-two, in the first half. They went away from it and suffered some consequences.
Luckily for them, the stretch of great defense in the first half, which led to them taking a 27-17 lead, was more than enough to set the Tigers back. The success of it caught the Tigers off guard, regardless of on-court personnel. It quickly became effective for Miami and a problem for Missouri.
"We were ready for the zone, but I would say the amount of zone was a surprise," Crews told reporters following the loss. "We knew they would throw a zone probably, but they remained in it because it was working."
Crews was absolutely right. The zone did work.
Even if the Tigers were taking good perimeter shots, they weren't falling. The calling card for this Missouri team was attacking the rim and drawing fouls. Neither of those things happened at a high enough frequency to prevent its opponent from controlling the game.
Head coach Jai Lucas flipped between a zone and a man look throughout the game, but primarily in the first half. The opening 20 minutes are when the Tigers had the most trouble picking apart the zone, which led to a 4-for-15 mark from the perimeter in the first half.
"Just going back and forth and (we) couldn't get the ball into the middle, into the paint, and it was a little difficult," junior guard Anthony Robinson II said. "It flustered us a little bit and we really couldn't figure it out all the way."
Miami's zone also allowed for more physicality on both ends of the floor. When the ball went to the high post or, though infrequent, the paint, Miami's bigs were bumping and bruising whichever Tiger had the ball. Malik Reneau and Ernest Udeh were the perfect anchors for Miami's zone defense because of their size and ability to defend the rim, throwing another wild card into a tricky defense to assess.
A majority of why the Hurricanes wanted to block off the rim was to disallow senior forward Mark Mitchell from getting downhill. It ended up working for him and everybody else.
"They just hopped in that zone and didn't want us to get to the rim," Crews said. "Credit to them. They held that down for a while. The refs let us play for a little bit and obviously, some of us weren't making our shots. It's unfortunate at the end of the day, but we had the right guys taking them."
Life for Mitchell was hard on Friday night, given that the game plan was centered solely around him. The Hurricanes did a variety of things to shut him down, but it came down to Reneau and Udeh doing their jobs well, along with the team as a collective.
"They were physical. They pushed him out and they were doubling him," Robinson said. "They really made it difficult for him."
Missouri forward Mark Mitchell (25) and Miami guard Noam Dovrat (14) fight for a ball during the first half of an NCAA Tournament first-round game between Missouri and Miami on Friday, March 20, 2026, at the Enterprise Center in St. Louis. | (Cal Tobias/OnSI)
Lucas wanted to make sure Mitchell received as much contact and saw as many faces if he ever got to the rim. That meant double teams and being defended by Udeh, who is both bigger and taller than him.
"For me, it was just trying to make it as hard as possible. So we started with size," Lucas said following the win. "We wanted to put somebody a little bit bigger on him. And then every time he got in the paint, we wanted him to at least see two people. So some of the stuff they did and some of the lineups gave us the ability to do that a little bit."
The shots the Tigers were attempting from the perimeter aren't regrettable whatsoever, especially if they were there for the taking. It came down to simple makes and misses, with the latter being the end result.
"We essentially got what we wanted. Just got to execute," Crews said. "We got to the rim, we got to the free throw line. We got guys taking the open threes. Just got to knock them down (and) execute them."
Missouri was well aware of the potential for a zone defense against the Hurricane. It meant that it would have to be ready to knock down some shots.
It didn't and that was that. The Tigers did feel like they were getting the looks they wanted and expected, though.
"They ran a three-two early on and we respected it," junior forward Trent Pierce said. "Some of our shots didn't fall early on. We only scored 26 in the first half and we feel like we should've scored a lot more."
Pierce himself had multiple chances to drill open shots. He finished the game with seven points on 2-for-9 shooting, going 1-for-6 from the three-point line. For reference, Pierce is shooting 39.8 percent from the perimeter on the season and is making just under two a game.
When he saw the Hurricanes bring out their zone early in the first half, his eyes lit up. A zone defense is a perimeter shooter's dream come true and it lead to him getting ideal looks, though they weren't dropping.
"I was getting shots that I wanted. They just weren't going in," Pierce said. "They all felt good, they just didn't go in."
Sophomore guard T.O. Barrett plays a completely different style of basketball than Pierce, yet he still struggled to put the ball in the hoop inside the Enterprise Center. He didn't score a single point on seven attempts against the Hurricanes, which was an uncharacteristically poor night for him.
The physicality of Miami's big men made it hard to penetrate its zone. That took away Barrett's chances of both scoring and setting up others around him.
"Usually I get to the paint, draw a foul, stuff like that, so I can create for my teammates," Barrett said. "I just didn't do as much of that tonight."
Missouri's ineptitude on offense, primarily in the first half, ended up being a major roadblock to a potential upset. It battled back and eventually started making shots, but the slow and inefficient first half clearly set it back.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com/college/missouri as How Miami's Defensive Approach 'Flustered' Mizzou in March Madness Loss .
