With under two minutes left to play against Saint Louis, Missouri senior guard Lauren Hansen knocked down her fourth 3-point shot of the night.
That shot gave Missouri women’s basketball a 20-point lead, and brought the team’s 3-point total on the night to 11 — marking its best behind-the-arc shooting of the season.
The Tigers went on to make three more, finishing with a total of 14 3s in their dominating 82-52 victory over the Billikens at home.
Missouri head coach Robin Pingeton praised her team Wednesday night.
“I feel like there were definitely a lot of positives,” Pingeton said. “It was nice to see the ball finally fall for us. We’ve talked about that before, and I thought it was just a matter of time. We know we’ve got players that can knock down shots, [so] it was good to see [those shots] finally fall for us tonight.”
Everything seemed to click for the Tiger offense, which saw every player with minutes on the floor in the scoring column. Hansen led the team with 24 points, followed by senior forward Hayley Frank and junior center Jayla Kelly, who recorded 14 and 11 points, respectively.
“It’s great when everyone gets in that scoring column,” Pingeton said. “Everybody works so hard, and … we’ve got injuries that we didn’t anticipate, so we really need everybody on this roster [to contribute].
One such injury for the Tigers was junior guard Mama Dembele, who suffered a broken nose earlier in the season. After missing four games, Dembele once again entered the starting lineup — bringing energy to the Tiger offense.
“I thought Mama did a really tremendous job of pushing [the] ball in transition,” Pingeton said. “Especially [early on], she was really trying to advance the ball and push the pace. [That] was huge for us tonight.”
Hansen was on the receiving end of multiple transition passes from Dembele.
“I think just being present [helped me be successful],” Hansen said. “Mama did a great job just finding me in transition. … [I was] just getting open looks and [my teammates] were finding me, so that’s just working for me right now.”
In her first game back, Dembele had a productive night, tallying with 9 points and three rebounds. She also recorded the second-most assists on the team with five and described her ability to pass the ball effectively as something her teammates made “easy.”
“I have amazing shooters on this team,” she said. “Everybody was sprinting the rails [in transition], so it was really easy for me to actually see the court and see who was open. Why would I go and take a bad shot when [my teammates] can hit those shots? Obviously, my teammates did a really good job. I just had to hit the pass.”
Pingeton commended her players for their near 50% shooting — which earned them their second-highest point total of the season — but added that she would also like to see them contribute in other ways on the floor, especially with blocks and rebounds.
“Forget the points,” Pingeton said. “If everybody gets some rebounds and deflections, I’ll be really happy.”
The Tigers did just that. Every player on the court also grabbed at least two boards, but in addition to rebounding well, Missouri also held its own on the defensive end. In their third-best defensive outing of the season, the Tigers held the Billikens to just 5 points in the second quarter and 52 points on the night.
“We’ve been working on our defense for the last seven months,” Pingeton said. “I’ve got to remind them of just how much time and energy they put into that, and I feel like we’re actually starting to take some pride in that.”
The win did not come without flaws, however. For the fifth time this season, the Tigers recorded more than 12 turnovers — a marker Pingeton set to limit careless ball handling.
“There were some possessions we let people get away from us,” Pingeton said. “Probably the most frustrating piece [of the performance] was the turnovers that we had tonight. … That’s just an area where we can’t afford to give up possessions. … That area has got to get better for us.”
Pingeton’s team shared in her frustration, which Hansen attested to during her post-game press conference.
“[We need] to definitely take care of the ball better,” she said. “That just goes into attention to detail and our preparation leading up to [games]. [We also need to be] continuing things that we did well tonight and just being more physical. Teams are going to get better from here on out, so we need to just be upping our ante.”
Now only five games away from SEC play, the Tiger offense can look forward to adding graduate guard Katlyn Gilbert, who has missed the last two games due to injury, back to the lineup. In her four games played this season, Gilbert has averaged 3.6 points and 2.3 rebounds but leads the team in assists.
“It’s unfortunate [because] she played so well against Wake Forest,” Pingeton said. “[We] definitely could have used her against Virginia Tech — that was a big loss for us. She’s just trying to manage the load right now and take it day by day. Hopefully we’ll have her back soon.”
Similar to the rest of the season, the Tigers’ ability to make 3s consistently will likely play a big role in their success as the team travels to the Arizona State Classic. There, the team will face UMass and Arizona State — both teams with worse 3-point percentages than Missouri.
Pingeton stressed the importance of shooting well all-around, but especially from 3, saying she wanted her team to take good-rhythm 3s instead of rushing shots.
“I thought, for the majority of [the Saint Louis game], our shots from the perimeter were pretty in-rhythm,” Pingeton said. “But we definitely want to be an inside-out team. We need to get to the free-throw line a little bit more consistently, and the only way we’re going to do that is by attacking.”
For a team shooting above 34% from 3, rhythm seems to be working. For now, however, Pingeton plans to remain focused on taking the season one game at a time.
“We talk a lot about how it’s going to be a marathon, not a sprint,” she said. “There’s a lot of games that are going to go on [our] resume. Whether we win or lose, as long as we’re learning and are able to make adjustments … in the big picture, that’s a really big positive thing for us.”
Edited by Davis Wilson | dwilson@maneater.com
Copy edited by Jacob Richey
