COLUMBIA, Mo. — 659 days seperate Josh Gray’s two most recent three-point attempts.
But before Friday night, the center for the Missouri Tigers had never made one in his five-year collegiate career.
But at the 8:41 mark in the first half of Missouri’s 91-56 win over Pacific, Gray stepped back behind the line, hesitated, looked to his right, before arching a ball into the net for the first three-point make of his career.
“I always told my team, I was a good shooter at heart,” Gray said after the game. “They were sagging off a couple of times. I think I felt like I owed it to myself, to my team.”
Caleb Grill, just a few feet away from Gray at the top of the paint, was as confident as anyone that Gray would extend Missouri’s lead to 12 with the falling shot.
“You’d be surprised, he hits a lot of threes in practice,” Grill said. “Maybe a surprise to many people out there, but when he shot it, I didn’t even think about crashing because, I mean, that’s like his spot right there, top of the key.”
Don’t expect Gray to be firing away from deep all season, but head coach Dennis Gates saw the process of Gray building up the confidence to take the shot. It’s a result of the practice process Gates has been fostering since June.
“He’s been doing it in practice, so that’s the only reason he had the courage to do it in the game,” Gates said. “He didn’t do one thing that he has not done the last six months. The celebration was the only thing he hadn’t done yet.”
Friday night was a showing of the risks Gates has encouraged his team to make through practice. Risks that are necessary to earn, and maintain, playing time. With how much Gates’ lineup fluctuate from game to game, there’s no space for complacency.
Even after securing one of the most lopsided wins in program history, a 111-39 win over Mississippi Valley State last Thursday.
“Some concerns that, after winning by 72 points, they may come out flat,” Gates said. “But if you’re fighting for minutes every day, you’re not going to come out flat, you’re not going to look at the jersey in front of who you’re playing. You’re going to look at, I got an opportunity to fight for minutes.”
This environment has generated what Gates believes is the deepest lineup he’s coached in his three seasons at Missouri. 12 different players took the court for Missouri in the win over Pacific. 11 scored points and eight contributed to the 42 points the team scored on three-point shots.
“Ultimately, you got to think of it like a 12-round fight,” Gates said. “If you have 12 rounds of jabs, eventually a team is going to succumb to something.”
Even with the deep rotation, junior Aidan Shaw did not crack the lineup. Gates preserved Shaw to save him up for the other two games Missouri has in a six-day stretch.
“Coach [Gates] has one of those good problems,” Gray said, “A bunch of great players, trying to figure out which spot goes with the pieces and stuff like that. I feel like our depth is just amazing. Past two games really showed that”
Friday’s win saw the introduction of another one of those pieces to the lineup in true freshman T.O. Barrett. The three-star prospect had been dealing with an injury before making his collegiate debut with seven minutes remaining in the game.
“He’s one of our better defenders, along with Ant[hony] Robinson [II] and Marcus Allen,” Gates said of Barrett. “His athleticism, saw a glimpse of that when he went up and blocked the shot. He makes those plays consistently in practice. … What he’s doing is continuing to get better. He’s continuing to learn our system, and he’s going to be important to us as we continue throughout the season.”
Gates’ lineups through his time at Missouri have always been fluctuant. He reiterated that after the Pacific win. The team has seen the benefits of it early on, winning its past four non-conference games.
The challenge, as Gray explained, is figuring out exactly where each player fits in. A puzzle can only be completed if each piece has a defined space. Gates and the Tigers weren’t able to put it together last season.
But, Gray believes this team is getting closer to actually playing as one unit on the court.
“I feel like first two or three games we were just trying to figure each other out,” Gray said. “Now, I feel like, going into December, we’re figuring each other out, our niches.”
Gray’s niche during games might not be sinking three-point shots, but he did so enough in practice to earn the trust of his teammates. His shooting ability adds what Grill believes is “dynamic” addition to Missouri’s offense.
In Grill’s mind, Gray can win in many different ways. With a shuffling of rotations, though intentional ones, through practice and during game, Gates looks to find just how many ways his Missouri team can win.
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