COLUMBIA, Mo. — When Missouri men’s basketball suited up for a game on Saturday, the result was the same as it has frequently been: a loss to Florida, the Tigers’ fifth consecutive defeat and eighth in the last nine games.
But the process, the underlying mechanics, were at least a little bit different — for anyone with access to the analytics that showed it to see.
With 15:18 left in the game, the Gators were on an 8-0 run — a stretch that ultimately defined the night. Mizzou coach Dennis Gates seemed to sense this. It wasn’t a new situation, as the Tigers had lost a few games at this stage of the second half, but he had a new response.
Onto the floor and tasked with keeping a run from spiraling into a loss went Sean East II, Tamar Bates, Jesus Carralero Martin, Aidan Shaw and Trent Pierce. All five players appear regularly for MU, but that combination of personnel had never played in a game together.
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Through the previous 700 minutes of the 2023-24 season, Gates had deployed roughly 250 unique combinations of five players, according to CBB Analytics’ lineup data. That set of five wasn’t one of them.
After nearly three minutes on the floor that ended 4-2 in Missouri’s favor, Gates turned to his bench again. Nick Honor replaced East, and boom — another brand-new lineup.
Lineup experimentation was expected to be a key part of Gates’ coaching process during a season that began with few clear-cut options for regular contributors but a long list of potential rotation members on any given night. But continuing to test new sets of players at such a key part of the season — and of a game — shows the lengths that MU’s second-year coach is going to in order to find something that works.
The trend underscoring Gates’ more recent tinkering is the balance of his five-player combinations. The Tigers start games with three guards and two frontcourt players: East, Honor and Bates fill the backcourt while Noah Carter and a rotating fifth player take on the big roles. That dynamic is what changed with those new combinations.
Carralero, Shaw and Pierce all fall into MU’s “big†category, and there were three of them on the floor at once with just two guards working around them. Through Mizzou’s first 15 games of the season — a mix of buy games, nonconference tests and early Southeastern Conference action — Gates used 22 different lineups that featured three bigs. Only two of those lineups appeared in more than one game, and just four racked up three or more minutes of floor time together.
But in Missouri’s past three games, Gates has trotted 23 unique three-big lineups onto the floor, giving that scheme more play recently.
It’s not the Tigers’ new primary setup, by any means. In that three-game span, nine two-big groupings saw more playing time than any singular three-big lineup. It does, however, seem to be an area where analytics are informing Gates’ decisions.
The makeup of Mizzou’s frontcourt options is varied. There’s Carralero, a pass-first offense player who brings enough experience defensively to guard bigger players when needed. There’s Carter, who’s plenty willing to shoot on offense but isn’t the most desirable matchup in the post. Pierce and fellow freshman Jordan Butler bring length but are still adjusting to the pace and physicality of the college game. Shaw is an incredible athlete and rim protector but hasn’t shown an ability to provide much offensively aside from highlight-reel dunks. And center Connor Vanover, who at 7-foot-5 is the tallest player in college basketball, has yet to make much of an impact or see a sustained role. Center Mabor Majak is a frequent DNP — did not play — on the box score who has yet to score this season.
The challenge for Gates is finding the right sub-combination of three frontcourt players. The group that he used to try and slow down Florida at a vital stage of the game — Carralero, Shaw and Pierce — seemed like an analytically supported choice.
In six minutes together, regardless of which accompanying guards are on the floor with them, that trio has assembled a plus-25.4 net rating in six minutes, meaning that Mizzou outscores its opponents at a rate of 25.4 points per 100 possessions with them in the game.
It’s a group designed to get stops. With Carralero, Shaw and Pierce all in the game, Mizzou has given up just 42.4 points per 100 possessions and recovered 83.3% of available defensive rebounds — both values that, albeit small in sample size, are in the top percentile of college basketball trios.
That trio has produced the best defensive results of any three-big bunch. It suffers offensively, given those three combine for 8.3 points per game and MU scores only 67.8 points per 100 possessions when those three are playing together. But at a time when Missouri needed to slow down the Gators’ unrelenting, rebound-heavy offense, the numbers gave Gates an answer.
Shaw, Pierce and Carter make up the most common three-big group, having seen 11 minutes of floor time together. The Tigers, which have a plus-1.3 net rating across the entire season despite a losing record, are at minus-24.8 with that trio, which hasn’t found much success defensively.
Particularly intriguing to watch as SEC play continues will be lineups that use Shaw, Carralero and Carter together or Carralero, Carter and Pierce — MU’s net ratings are plus-6.1 and plus-18.8 when those are the three-big looks.
And as Gates continues to experiment through the back half of a likely losing season, the answer to the big question of who to get on the floor may have a three-big answer.