These two freshmen resurrected Mizzou’s offense in a win over Georgia

The Jordan Barnett scoring tear was never going to last.

During the 10 games leading up to Missouri’s 68-56 win over Georgia on Wednesday, Barnett had shot 53.4 percent from the field and 51.5 percent from three on 11.8 shots per game.

Here’s a list of all the players who have had equal or better shooting percentages over an entire season while averaging at least 10 shots per game since 1992, according to Sports Reference:

…

Yeah, zero.

So Missouri would eventually have to find different ways to score, and the moment for that arrived Wednesday.

The Tigers did so. It just took them until the second half, when freshmen forward Jontay Porter and center Jeremiah Tilmon ignited a 13-2 run that put Missouri ahead 33-25 early in the second half.

A bit after that run, Porter, 6-foot-11 and versatile, stole the ball while guarding a Bulldog on the perimeter, which excited the crowd even more. Then, every Tiger seemed to feel better after one of Missouri’s worst offensive halves this season.

Missouri made 57.1 percent of its shots in the second half after hitting 26.7 percent of them in the first half.

Tilmon and Porter combined for 25 points on 9-of-16 shooting. Porter, who tied Kassius Robertson with a team high 15 points, also had 10 rebounds for his second career double-double.

Barnett made just two of seven shots from the field and one of five three-pointers. That could have sunk Missouri. In the first half, when the Tigers were 8 of 30 from the field, it seemed it might.

But then Tilmon and Porter became Mizzou’s go-to players. All 10 of Tilmon’s points came in the second half.

Coming into Wednesday, Kevin Puryear had failed to score more than six points in any of Mizzou’s last six games, so coach Cuonzo Martin took Puryear out of the starting lineup to let him “relax.” That meant the 6-foot-11 Porter, making his first start, played alongside the 6-foot-10 Tilmon for decent chunks of this win.

Missouri had a size advantage few teams possess, and the Tigers used it on both ends of the court. They needed to against Georgia, one of the country’s best teams at defending the three.

Martin thought the freshmen big men both ran the floor well for the first time in a while, which allowed for easy dunks like the one Porter had near the end of the first half. And when the Tigers slowed down while Tilmon and Porter were both on the floor, Missouri’s offense almost always relied on posting one of them up.

The Tigers, who made more threes through their first 15 games than any other team in program history, hit just five of 20 three-point attempts on Wednesday. But they were OK anyway.

“I feel like you can’t double-team,” Tilmon said of the predicament he and Porter give defenses, which caused Martin to raise his eyebrows. “If you double-team me, I can kick the ball out to him. He’s guaranteed to knock the shot down.”

On defense, the two freshmen helped contain Georgia’s Yante Maten. One of the SEC’s best players, Maten scored a season low nine points on 2-of-8 shooting. It was the first time all season a team had held him to single digits, and Porter was the primary defender on the 6-foot-8 senior.

Early in the second half, Maten couldn’t move Porter the way he wanted to down low. He forced up an ugly shot, and Tilmon grabbed one of his three rebounds. Six seconds later, Missouri had whipped the ball to the other end of the court, and Tilmon dunked it.

“Give their team defense credit,” Georgia coach Mark Fox said. “Yante’s been a good player. He was not a good player tonight. Their defense deserves some credit for that.”

Coming into Wednesday, KenPom.com had been able to reliably track Missouri’s lineups for 98.9 percent of Missouri’s past five games. According to the analytics website, Porter and Tilmon spent just 14.5 percent of those tracked minutes on the floor together.

One reason why: When Porter begins games on the bench, he will often sub in early for Tilmon. Another: Foul trouble often hinders Tilmon, who committed just two fouls and played 20 minutes Wednesday.

“That was the most physically they’ve let the post guys play all year,” Fox said. “And they didn’t respond well. We let the post guys have our way with us.”

Martin does not want Puryear to be content coming off the bench, and the junior forward scored seven straight points to give Missouri a 57-44 lead with 6 minutes remaining. So he showed the renewed energy his coach was looking for.

But Porter and Tilmon showed plenty of energy, too. The two of them, on the floor together, pulled Missouri out of its sluggish first half and gave the Tigers this win.

This story was originally published January 11, 2018 at 12:28 AM with the headline "These two freshmen resurrected Mizzou’s offense in a win over Georgia."