Career Night for Trent Pierce Leads Mizzou to Blowout Win Over Long Island

Returning to Mizzou Arena for the first time after upsetting the former top-ranked Kansas Jayhawks, the Missouri Tigers had a little more momentum on their side than usual.

Missouri fully carried that into Saturday against the Long Island Sharks, completing a convincing 88-61 win to mark its ninth-straight of the season.

In the first half, it was largely the Trent Pierce show. Even though the sophomore only received eight minutes of action before halftime, he already reached a new career-high of 17 points by knocking down 4-of-7 triples. By the end of the afternoon, he had 24 on 8-of-14 shooting from the field.

“I had a good shooting day, it’s been a rough past couple games for me shooting it and I think just my confidence, knowing that I could shoot the ball, coach and my teammates encouraging me to keep shooting, allowed me to go into this game forgetting about the last missed shot and just hitting my next one,” Pierce said.

Pierce’s involvement within the rotation had started to dwindle in previous matchups. He only played seven minutes against Cal and five against Kansas, and was unable to score in either game. Nevertheless, the forward kept a positive mindset and made the most of his opportunity.

“Trent wants to play, and what he showed today was his ability to not focus on the minutes he had, but doing something with what he got,” coach Dennis Gates said. “You didn’t see him blink at all … he’s going to be unbelievable for us, and he’s going to continue to help us.”

Gates has encouraged his players to “shoot the ball,” and despite some struggles there, Pierce stayed true to the area of his game he was recruited for in the first place. The confidence he immediately displayed gave the Tigers a big boost on offense, and helped them finish the game with an impressive 14-of-28 clip from behind the arc.

Marques Warrick added 16 points with four 3-pointers of his own, while Jacob Crews and Tony Perkins each provided two.

It was the opposite result for Long Island, shooting just 8-of-24 as a team from 3-point range. Its offense struggled to find any sort of leeway from the Missouri defense, which prevented it from getting quality looks.

Mark Mitchell did much of the work inside the paint, finishing the game with 15 points, seven rebounds, five assists and three blocks on 7-of-9 shooting. The Sharks had little answer for his strength and force down low, providing some rather easy looks. Though, his free throw output left much to be desired, only knocking down 1-of-5.

The Tigers got to to the free-throw line at a strong rate, but didn’t convert as many opportunities as they might’ve liked. As a collective group, it shot a total of 12-of-19.

At first, Long Island jumped out of the gate with some confidence. It gained an 8-7 lead over Missouri with 15:31 remaining in the first half, but rather quickly, the home team took hold of the direction the rest of the game would go in.

From the 15:29 to 11:14 mark in the first half, the Tigers went on a 14-0 run started by Bates at the the charity stripe and ended by Robinson in the very same place. To fill in the gaps, Mitchell finished two layups in the paint, while both Warrick and Aidan Shaw knocked down a 3-pointer of their own.

Thanks in large part to Pierce, Missouri kept that momentum building up until halftime to gain a 45-24 lead. An 8-3 run for the Sharks at the start of the second half gave a little bit of a scare, but the Tigers were able to avoid a major second half slip and began to push the pace offensively once more.

Never shy of shooting it from deep, Missouri continued its dominance in non-conference play — even if the result was largely predictable. However, the circumstances around the game could’ve made up for upset territory, in what Gates called a “trap game.”

“Coming off an emotional high against Kansas, our team was able to show character as it relates to how they handled the new attention or the new phone calls or the messages of congratulations,” Gates said. “I thought they had an edge to them, in addition to having finals. You had two things that could really deter a team.”

The Tigers avoided succumbing to those deterrents, and will get a shorter break following the win before going up against Jacksonville State at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday in Columbia, Mo.