Press Box: Missouri raising the bar in women's basketball

Missouri head coach Robin Pingeton talks with Sophie Cunningham during the second half of a game against Mississippi State on Feb. 1, 2018, at Mizzou Arena
Missouri head coach Robin Pingeton talks with Sophie Cunningham during the second half of a game against Mississippi State on Feb. 1, 2018, at Mizzou Arena

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UNMISS

In this photo released by the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS), wounded civilians from Bor, the capital of Jonglei state and said to be the scene of fierce clashes between government troops and rebels, are assisted after being transported by U.N. helicopter to Juba, South Sudan, Sunday, Dec. 22, 2013. South Sudan's central government lost control of the capital of a key oil-producing state on Sunday, the military said, as renegade forces loyal to a former deputy president seized more territory in fighting that has raised fears of full-blown civil war in the world's newest country. (AP Photo/UNMISS)

A few minutes after Missouri's 77-73 win against Tennessee last Sunday in Mizzou Arena, after most of the record crowd had filtered out (there remained a healthy contingent of young fans and their parents waiting to meet the players), Volunteers coach Holly Warlick spoke with the media.

She's an easy talker, and when asked about the environment on that day, she got rolling.

"I know y'all can't visualize this, but I've been doing this for over 34 years," Warlick said. "It's what you love. I wouldn't want to come here and play in front of 100 people. It speaks volumes for women's basketball, and this program. So we knew it was going to be big, and that's why these kids come play for us. Because of the tradition and what they get to do. Get to travel, play in the best conference in the country, play in front of this crowd, playing for our crowds at home.

"It's what it should be. It's what it should be. Because women's basketball, those guys were entertained today. It's exciting, give it a chance, it's exciting."

Exciting is the perfect word for what Missouri coach Robin Pingeton and the Tigers have done in the past few years. There's not a player on the roster that can dunk - though both South Carolina's A'ja Wilson and Tennessee's Rennia Davis have shown the athletic ability in warm-ups - but everything else is there.

Sophie Cunningham scored 32 points on 14 shots in that game, the latest iteration in an uber-efficient season. She's the only player in the nation in women's hoops shooting at least 83 percent from the free-throw line, 46 percent from 3-point range and 55 percent from the field.

In 2015-16, when Stephen Curry was named the NBA's first-ever unanimous MVP, he shot 50.4 percent from the floor, 45.4 percent from 3 and 90.8 percent from the foul line.

The level of competition is clearly different, but I make the comparison because it's entirely possible, and might not even be a slight, that Cunningham could be left off of this year's NCAA All-American list. She, like dozens of women's college basketball players around the country, have a fan following. Little girls who wear their jerseys to every game and wait an hour to meet their hero, and having a public face for your program that fans can live vicariously through.

But it's not just Cunningham. Pingeton's great success is, through recruiting and system, creating an offense you have to defend 1-on-1. Give Lauren Aldridge any room? She'll hit five straight 3s to start a game. Without the height or athleticism to defend Cierra Porter and Jordan Frericks under the basket, it's death by 1,000 cuts of high-low post action and offensive rebounds and put-backs.

Don't have bench depth to rest your starters and deal with Kayla Michael, Hannah Schuchts, Jordan Chavis or Jordan Roundtree? Good luck. Even with all of those things, you still have to make shots, which South Carolina didn't do and Mississippi State almost failed to do.

Connecticut is still everyone's favorite to win Geno Auriemma's 12th NCAA title this year, but the Huskies showed a sign of weakness a year ago, slipping up against Mississippi State in overtime to set up an all-SEC national title game.

The competitiveness of women's college basketball has risen in recent years, thanks to programs like Missouri that have taken large steps forward.

It's in a coach's best interest to laud their conference as much as possible to anyone who will listen. Every Power-5 program will say its conference is the toughest, but that might actually be true of the SEC.

Tennessee, the former powerhouse, can finish third at best, and the Bulldogs will likely finish the regular season undefeated. Half the conference is 10-5 or better. At the very least it's the most competitive. What other conference has a school's head coach suing another school's athletic director for alleged actions that may or may not have occurred in a packed, rowdy gym?

"I keep saying this, but this league is unforgiving," Warlick said after the game in Columbia. "It's just unforgiving. It's not one team, and you blow everybody else out. It's just a hard league. You cannot rest anybody, they've got to play every night, Thursday and Sunday. It's a grind, and that's what you love about it, it's competitive."

The Tigers know that as well as any other team. Precautionary measures with Cunningham's knee and a tentative approach at home against LSU resulted in a loss, and Missouri couldn't close the final gap against Georgia on the road.

They've had to fight to hold onto the possibility of finishing third in the conference, where they were picked before the season in the coaches and writers polls.

Pingeton missed on Napheesa Collier (when Auriemma comes calling it's hard to compete), but she, has hit on pretty much every other local kid. Her recruitment of Bri and Cierra Porter is part of why brothers Jontay and Michael wear black and gold, and with Elle Brown and Lindsey Cunningham and McDonald's All-American Sophie Cunningham also from Rock Bridge, she capitalized on local talent to help build the team's fan base into what it is today.

The question for the coming years is whether this is sustainable. Iowa 5-star recruit Grace Berg, the 37th overall and sixth best wing player in the nation in ESPN's 2018 class, has signed her NLI, and the Tigers have a verbal commitment from Strafford in 4-star player Hayley Frank, 2019's eighth best wing in the class by ESPN's system.

But the question for this season is, if Missouri hosts two games in the NCAA Tournament and everyone stays healthy, what is its ceiling? An Elite Eight or Final Four appearance is certainly not out of the question.