Mizzou comes back against Arkansas, then loses in final minute

Missouri keeps saying it must learn how to finish close games.

If the Tigers eventually do so, this contest, a 65-63 loss to Arkansas, will be a teaching moment. But for now there is no silver lining in a comeback that fell short because Missouri began to crack near the end.

“It doesn’t really matter if you can’t finish,” MU graduate transfer guard Kassius Robertson said.

Mizzou came back from down 18 in the first half and took a six-point lead with just more than 5 minutes remaining. Then, with fewer than 2 minutes remaining, the Tigers had two empty possessions when they committed illegal screens — one each by Kevin Puryear and Jeremiah Tilmon.

Missouri allowed Arkansas center Daniel Gafford to score seven of the Razorbacks final 12 points, including four off dunks. The freshman finished with 15 points.

A week ago, in a loss to Florida, Jordan Geist had the ball in his hands for Mizzou’s final possession, and he turned it over.

He had the ball again during the final seconds Saturday, but it will be harder for fans to scapegoat him or Missouri’s lack of point-guard depth this time.

Coach Cuonzo Martin said the play Mizzou ran at the end of the game is one it uses “all the time.” It just didn’t work on Saturday.

“I wish I would have gotten a better look, a wide-open look,” Geist said. “I wish I would have gotten Kash (Robertson) the ball. It didn’t happen like that.”

Instead, Jordan Barnett — who finished with 12 points and 10 rebounds — was late to set a screen for Geist and fell down, taking him out of play. Geist drove to the corner, where an Arkansas big man played help defense, preventing the Missouri guard from driving to the hoop. On the opposite side of the court, Robertson couldn’t free himself from his defender, despite center Reed Nikko setting a screen for him.

So Geist hoisted up a contested shot. It rimmed out. Missouri lost, and the Tigers have still not won consecutive SEC road games since joining the conference.

This would have been the Tigers’ most impressive win of the season, in part because of how improbable it seemed in the first half.

Arkansas went on a 27-5 run to go up 30-12 just more than 15 minutes into the game. Missouri only turned the ball over seven times in the first half, but it struggled to do anything productive on offense during that time.

In the first half, Mizzou made 10 of 29 shots from the field and went to the free-throw line just three times.

Even when the Tigers moved the ball past the half-court line, they seemed frazzled.

Two of Mizzou’s first four possessions ended in travels. A few minutes later, Barnett had to call a timeout because he couldn’t inbound the ball.

This was Missouri’s ugliest moment: Robertson couldn’t free himself from his defender, and Puryear couldn’t set a screen to help him. With the shot clock winding down, Robertson threw the ball to Cullen VanLeer, who hit the front of the rim with a desperation three-pointer from NBA range.

“We weren’t ready for their punch,” Robertson said. “They came out and punched us quick.”

The Tigers played with more patience to close the half, when they used a smaller lineup that included Puryear and Barnett — both 6-7 — as their biggest players.

The Tigers moved the ball around the perimeter, with every player touching it before Terrence Phillips found Barnett underneath the hoop and cut Arkansas’ lead to 10 with less than 2 minutes left in the half. Back-to-back threes from VanLeer and Robertson helped put Mizzou down just seven points, 35-28, at halftime.

Prior to the second half starting, Robertson brought his teammates in a circle around him near a free-throw line and looked at each of them as he spoke. Then he scored eight points on three shots during a 17-2 run that Missouri used to take 59-53 lead with 4 minutes 43 seconds left. He finished with a season high 26 points.

Bud Walton Arena was almost at capacity on Saturday, with more than 18,000 people here. But Missouri had seized the momentum.

At one point during the big Missouri run, Martin’s excitement, anxiety, frustration and whatever else you want to attach to this game boiled over. After a Geist layup, Martin lunged down and punched the air. Then he looked up, screamed and stomped his feet.

Maybe this could have been a breakthrough for Martin’s team.

Instead, the Tigers failed to finish — again.

ARKANSAS 65, MISSOURI 63

This story was originally published January 13, 2018 at 8:05 PM with the headline "Mizzou comes back against Arkansas, then loses in final minute."