Three-pointers help Mizzou end long conference road skid

Missouri broke a 32-game losing streak in conference road games by using an obvious formula.

The Tigers beat South Carolina 79-68 because they did what they do well and overcame their biggest issue. Coach Cuonzo Martin’s best three-point shooting team ever made three-pointers, and the Tigers only turned the ball over 13 times, which is a real accomplishment for a Missouri squad that had 21 turnovers in each of its last two games.

Mizzou converted 14 of 24 three-point attempts, tying a season high for successful threes. Freshman Jontay Porter had five of them and scored a career high 19 points. Jordan Barnett and Kassius Robertson each made four threes.

“I’m not going to promise I’m going to shoot like that every game,” Porter said.

Their collective effort helped end a streak so long that none of the players on this roster were a part of the MU team that won at Arkansas on Jan. 28, 2014, when Missouri’s most recent previous conference win occurred. Porter, who was 14 at the time, guessed that he was “watching Mizzou at home, shaking my head.”

Missouri (11-3, 1-0 Southeastern Conference) made nine threes in the first half. South Carolina (9-5, 0-2) made just nine total field goals in the half.

With about 7  1/2 minutes remaining in the first half and the Tigers up 21-19, Barnett hit his third three of the night. Porter hit two soon after. Those shots spurred a 15-2 run.

Mizzou has struggled this season against defenses that apply pressure on the ball, but it knew coming into Wednesday that the Gamecocks would try to trap ball handlers coming off picks. So the Tigers were prepared. Robertson said they wanted Porter to set picks, then pop out to the three-point line.

“We knew that turnaround throwback to ’Tay was going to be open all game,” Robertson said of Porter. “He passed up a couple of them. He probably could have hit a couple more.”

Instead of turning the ball over, Missouri faced the pressure and turned the looks it saw into open three-pointers. The Tigers freed themselves on the wings for open shots, so they didn’t have to force risky passes inside, which they have defaulted to in the past.

“We just took certain things out of our way, made our guards play in the middle of the floor and make plays,” Martin said. “I thought they did a tremendous job.”

After Mizzou’s Dec. 23 loss to Illinois, Martin said he needed more production from his power forwards, Kevin Puryear and Porter, who was scoreless in that game. Against South Carolina — the Tigers’ first opponent since that Braggin’ Rights game — the two combined for 13 rebounds, including 10 rebounds in the first half.

Puryear, who scored 6 points, grabbed an offensive board with just more than a minute remaining in the first half and passed to Robertson, who made his third three of the game and Mizzou’s final one of the half to put the Tigers ahead by 16 points. Robertson, a graduate transfer, finished with a game high 23 points on 6 of 12 shooting for his third straight 20-point game.

About 3 minutes into the game, freshman center Jeremiah Tilmon went to the bench with two fouls — including a flagrant one — and didn’t return until the second half. But his absence didn’t matter much. The Tigers still outrebounded the Gamecocks by two during the first 20 minutes.

Tilmon left the game again when he drew his third foul just seconds into the second half, but Mizzou’s hot shooting continued.

Jordan Geist, who scored 10 points and recorded a team high 6 assists, made a three through a foul, just as Barnett did in the first half. Robertson swished another three-pointer soon after to make it 48-33 with just more than 15 minutes remaining.

South Carolina forward Chris Silva, who led the Gamecocks with 18 points, went to the bench after referees called him for his fourth foul with more than 15 minutes remaining, and Missouri’s lead ballooned to 21 points while he was out.

He didn’t come back into the game until about 4 minutes remained. By that time, the Gamecocks had begun a 12-3 run that would trim the Tigers’ lead to nine points. But Mizzou’s hot shooting and South Carolina’s offensive struggles during the first 35 minutes were too much to overcome.

The Gamecocks began the second half 3 of 13 from the field, which led to one fan yelling for South Carolina coach Frank Martin to just put in a walk-on with more than 11 minutes remaining. The fan then left what was already a mostly empty Colonial Life Arena.

Frank Martin has called attendance this season — after his team made the Final Four a season ago — “embarrassing.” Students being on break and snow in this part of the country didn’t help draw fans Wednesday.

But a conference win away from home still counts, even if it happened in front of approximately 2,000 people. And the Tigers, still learning to win after years of losing, won’t be picky.

MISSOURI 79, SOUTH CAROLINA 68

This story was originally published January 3, 2018 at 10:26 PM with the headline "Three-pointers help Mizzou end long conference road skid."