Initial thoughts: Drake

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Here's what was on my mind right as the final buzzer sounded and Drake ended Missouri's season with a 67-57 loss in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.

Pace

Everyone talked about it all week.

Drake is the slowest team in college basketball and the Tigers like to play fast, whoever was able to dictate the pace was going to be the team with the biggest advantage.

And the Tigers let Drake dictate the pace almost the entire game.

It was nearly Mizzou's downfall until the Tigers finally started moving at their own pace with a handful of minutes left to play.

Missouri got back in the game playing fast and attacking the paint, finally. But allowed Drake to dictate how slow the game was going to move for the first 35 minutes, then couldn't hit the shots down the stretch to finish the comeback.

Inept offense

It goes along with letting Drake dictate the pace, but that was the worst the Tiger offense has looked, maybe all year. If it's not the worst, it's right there with Texas.

There was no energy, shots weren't falling, the Tigers were unable to attack the paint against a team they had a significant size advantage against.

Nothing worked.

The Tigers were held to their second-lowest scoring total of the season and never got going from the field.

If it wasn't for Drake handing them opportunity after opportunity at the free-throw line, the final score would have looked a lot worse.

Bennett Stirtz

Have to give credit where it's due, that kid is GOOD.

He was able to do basically whatever he wanted on offense on the way to a 21-point, four-assist day.

And he played literally every minute, all 40.

Just a very impressive overall performance from the guy who was in Division II last year.

Disappointing end

For how good the team was for most of the season, that was an incredibly disappointing way for the season to end.

But the Tigers faltered throughout the final nine games of the season and that was the end result.

Dennis Gates kept saying we hadn't seen the best the Tigers could play, but we did back against Alabama. It was all downhill from there.

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Initial thoughts: Drake

Pace

Inept offense

Bennett Stirtz

Disappointing end

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