Nate Oats' presser was cut short by the fire alarm going off at Mizzou Arena. He only managed to get through his opening statement and wasn't able to take questions.
Here's what Oats said in his opener.
“Obviously not one of our better defensive games. You gotta give them lots of credit, they came out ready to go. They came out 12-0. Scored 18 before the first media. Getting our guys ready to go is part of my job as a head coach and I didn’t do a very good job tonight.
“So, we didn’t start the game out well and then we didn’t guard. Shoot, gave up 110 points. I think we gave them a 1.39 today on our defensive end. That’s a pretty elite offense. We gave up 21 points off turnovers. They’re top-five in the country in steal percentage. Gave them 12 steals. They scored off them. We didn’t do a great job prepping our guys with the pressure, and they do a good job at it.
“But you look at some effort stuff. I mean, Caleb Grill ends up with 25 points, but he had 10 rebounds. He had more rebounds — nobody had more rebounds than him on our team. Dioubate is the only guy. Dioubate had 10. Nobody else had more than four. So, four our entire frontcourt to have three and two, Jarin had four. For a guard to outrebound us that bad, I just think they wanted this game a little more tonight, which was a little disappointing because we had a lot riding on this game. We were still in full control of our destiny with the league championship had we won out. We no longer are and Missouri deserves a lot of credit for it.
“They have a good team. I mean they’ve been winning a lot of big games. They’re, shoot, 17-1 I believe at home now. The crowd was into it. Obviously we helped with that giving up the 12-0 run. But they got the crowd into it. Even when we cut it to I think six with about 10 to go there, they were perfect.”
“They were on fire tonight, that’s for sure. We’ve known that for about two hours. Somebody else just figured it out…
“They were great. We weren’t very good.”
Here's what Oats said in his opener.
“Obviously not one of our better defensive games. You gotta give them lots of credit, they came out ready to go. They came out 12-0. Scored 18 before the first media. Getting our guys ready to go is part of my job as a head coach and I didn’t do a very good job tonight.
“So, we didn’t start the game out well and then we didn’t guard. Shoot, gave up 110 points. I think we gave them a 1.39 today on our defensive end. That’s a pretty elite offense. We gave up 21 points off turnovers. They’re top-five in the country in steal percentage. Gave them 12 steals. They scored off them. We didn’t do a great job prepping our guys with the pressure, and they do a good job at it.
“But you look at some effort stuff. I mean, Caleb Grill ends up with 25 points, but he had 10 rebounds. He had more rebounds — nobody had more rebounds than him on our team. Dioubate is the only guy. Dioubate had 10. Nobody else had more than four. So, four our entire frontcourt to have three and two, Jarin had four. For a guard to outrebound us that bad, I just think they wanted this game a little more tonight, which was a little disappointing because we had a lot riding on this game. We were still in full control of our destiny with the league championship had we won out. We no longer are and Missouri deserves a lot of credit for it.
“They have a good team. I mean they’ve been winning a lot of big games. They’re, shoot, 17-1 I believe at home now. The crowd was into it. Obviously we helped with that giving up the 12-0 run. But they got the crowd into it. Even when we cut it to I think six with about 10 to go there, they were perfect.”
“They were on fire tonight, that’s for sure. We’ve known that for about two hours. Somebody else just figured it out…
“They were great. We weren’t very good.”
