Mizzou basketball vs. Utah State Aggies: NCAA Tournament lineups, matchup analysis

THE DETAILS

When: 12:40 p.m. (Central), Thursday

Where: Golden 1 Center (Sacramento, California)

TV: TNT (Brad Nessler, Brendan Haywood and Dana Jacobson)

Odds: Utah State -2

STARTING LINEUPS

About Utah State (26-8, 13-5 Mountain West):

Missouri learned its fate will consist of a first round matchup against Utah State on Thursday. The Tigers will play the first game of the day in Sacramento with the winner taking on the victor of Arizona vs. Princeton on Saturday. The Aggies lost in the Mountain West Championship Game to San Diego State on Saturday. In many ways, Utah State is similar to Missouri. The Aggies average 78.6 points compared to Missouri’s 79.5 points per game. Steven Ashworth leads the team with 16.4 points per game on 46.4% shooting. His 44.8% three-point shooting can electrify a crowd and he’s accustomed to playing more than 33 minutes per game.

Taylor Funk, Max Shulga and Sean Bairstow all shoot better than 38% from behind the arc as well. Utah State tends to rely on its starting five for the majority of the game. The Aggies began the season 9-0 before falling to Weber State and SMU in December. They defeated fellow mid-major tournament team Oral Roberts 95-85 as their lone nonconference win against a team playing its way into the field.

The Aggies began conference play 3-2 and then 6-4. They seemed likely to miss the NCAA Tournament for the second consecutive year. But they rattled off five consecutive wins to close the regular season, including home wins against Nevada and Boise State, as well as two key road wins. Heading into the conference tournament, the third seeded Aggies were largely considered a bubble team needing to play its way into the field. They defeated New Mexico in the first round before using a second half comeback to defeat Boise State. They fell in the conference championship game to San Diego State after shooting 16.7% from three-point range.

Utah State enters Thursday’s matchup as the favorite despite the lower seed. According to ESPN, No. 7 seeds have won 60.5% of meetings with No. 10 seeds. In the past four tournaments, eight of 15 meetings have been decided by five points or fewer. If the Aggies want to pull out the way, they will have to shoot like they did in the final five games of the regular season where they scored at least 80 points three times.

About Missouri (24-9, 11-7 SEC):

Missouri is searching for its first NCAA Tournament win since a 2010 victory over Clemson in the Round of 64. The Tigers earned a seven seed from the tournament committee and enter the matchup with the Aggies as two point underdogs.

Much like Utah State, the Tigers started off the year 9-0 behind an easier opening nonconference schedule before falling to Kansas by 28 points. Kansas is one of four (Iowa State, Illinois, SEMO) tournament teams that Missouri faced outside of the SEC. Missouri went 3-1 in those games. Missouri went 4-6 in the regular season against SEC teams that earned bids to the NCAA Tournament. During the SEC Tournament, Missouri knocked off Tennessee before losing to No. 1 seed Alabama by 11 points in the semifinals.

Missouri is led by first-year coach Dennis Gates who inherited a team that returned just three players from last year. One of those players, Kobe Brown, earned first-team all-SEC honors after averaging right around 16 points, six rebounds and more than two assists per game. He also shot 45.5% from 3-point range. Guard D’Moi Hodge was named to the SEC All-Tournament team after averaging 23.5 points in the two games. He shot 16-for-27 and 7-for-15 from behind the arc. He is also Missouri’s single-season leader in steals but was not named to the all-SEC defensive team.

The Tigers will likely need to force turnovers against Utah State, which averages 12.1 giveaways per contest. Thursday’s game will likely be a first-to-80-points showdown, and the Tigers will hope to contain Utah State’s offense in order to pull out the victory.