Nick Honor discusses balance of decision-making, Dennis Gates chimes in

Missouri secured a necessary win on Saturday, beating the Georgia Bulldogs in Athens by 22 to move on to 21-8 and strengthen their NCAA Tournament resume. As per usual, it was the Tiger offense that powered the win, scoring 85 points with point guard Nick Honor leading the show. He’s been the lead guard for this Mizzou club all year but is rarely their primary scorer. Against UGA, though, Honor went for 17 points to tie his season-high.

After the game, Honor simply said he was given opportunities to attack by Georgia and took them.

“I just take what they give me out there,” he said. “I make sure my guys get shots, and then when I feel like I need to score, I score.” Georgia happened to be a game where Honor felt the defense was giving him easy chances to score.

Missouri head coach Dennis Gates butted in to praise Honor for his humble approach, but says he wants to see him be aggressive as a scorer like he was on Saturday.

“(Honor) sees the game a certain way, and he wants his teammates to be happy,” Gates said. “And that forces him to not be as aggressive as he could because we have guys on the floor that can score at every position. So, he does a great job at managing the personalities, but also, when he sees the game a certain way, we just need him to do what he demonstrated tonight.

“I’ve been saying it all along: (Honor) needs to be more selfish. Sometimes the word selfish has a negative connotation, but in our program, if you’re too unselfish, that turns the word into ‘selfish.’ And Nick Honor needs to be able to play off the dribble how he has, and we basically flipped the court upside down and wanted to go to more ball screens than anything, and we were able to score off the dribble.”

Dennis Gates certainly empowers his players on offense. The Tigers play fast and fire off open threes whenever they can get them. Point guard Nick Honor is in the minority on this Missouri team as a someone who has a pass-first, score-second mentality on that side of the ball — even though, as Gates notes, he’s plenty good enough to hunt his own shot.