Jacob Crews got his first start in two seasons for Missouri on Thursday night.
After he strafed Alabama State for 6 of 8 3-point shooting and scored a team-high 20 points in an 85-77 win, it’s expected that he will get his second straight start Sunday when the Tigers welcome Bethune-Cookman to Columbia for their next-to-last nonconference game.
Crews certainly earned the chance to start. He’s the second-leading scorer for Missouri (9-2), averaging 14.4 points per game and canning 54.7 percent of his shots from the field. That includes an impressive 51.5 accuracy rate on 3-pointers.
The Tigers’ problem is finding other reliable knockdown shooters from deep. The rest of the team is 55 of 172, or just under 32 percent, from the 3-point line. In their losses at Notre Dame and against Kansas, they canned only 13 of 48 3-point attempts.
For now, Missouri coach Dennis Gates isn’t overly concerned about perimeter shooting outside Crews.
“We just got to knock down the shots,” he said.
Mark Mitchell leads the Tigers in scoring at 18.1 points per game, shooting 59.1 percent from the field.
While Missouri looks for more consistency from the perimeter, the Wildcats (3-6) try to build on their last game, an 80-59 drilling of visiting South Carolina State on Dec. 5. Jakobi Heady scored 22 points for Bethune-Cookman, which shot 49.2 percent from the field in snapping a three-game losing streak.
The Wildcats hoped for a better record through nine games but have faced a really tough schedule for a team expected to win the Southwestern Athletic Conference. They have two losses to top 25 teams, including an overtime game at Auburn to start the season. They are slated to take a trip to new No. 1 Arizona later this month.
Heady leads four double-figure scorers at 15.6 points per game, connecting on 48.8 percent of his shots. Transfer guard Doctor Bradley, who was named the preseason SWAC Defensive Player of the Year, hasn’t played a minute.
This is the start of a four-game road trip for the Wildcats.
–Field Level Media
