Missouri Tigers hope Jeremiah Tilmon’s return is enough to stop three-game slide
As is often the case with a missing starter, Missouri provided more quality playing time to others with Jeremiah Tilmon gone for the past two games because of a death in his family.
Kobe Brown and Parker Braun in particular, flashed good moments in games against Arkansas and Georgia.
But the No. 20 Tigers (13-6 overall, 6-6 in SEC) dropped them both to push their losing streak to three games, and the return of Tilmon — announced Friday by men’s basketball coach Cuonzo Martin — for Saturday’s game at South Carolina is welcome news.
“We’re as good anyone when we have all our parts, and obviously Jeremiah is having his best year,” Martin said.
The 6-10 Tilmon is having his best season, averaging 13.6 points and 7.8 rebounds. Over his last 10 games, starting with the Jan. 2 victory at Arkansas, he’s averaging 16.2 points and 8.2 rebounds. In that stretch, Tilmon tossed in a career-best 33 points against TCU.
In league games, Tilmon is connecting on 62.7% of his field goals, tops in the SEC.
Brown and Braun have taken advantage of their additional exposure. Brown is coming off a career-best 21 points at Georgia. Braun assured overtime against the Razorbacks with a layup to tie the score and a block on the other end.
But Tilmon’s big body presence is missed. Missouri has four players who average at least 9.8 points but for several weeks the Tigers were running offense through Tilmon.
“You’re talking about a physical low post presence, and the last six, seven, eight games we’re going inside and he was a focal point of what we were doing and we were getting major production,” Martin said. “When you don’t have that presence to go inside...
“I still say those were two games we felt like we should have won, Arkansas and Georgia. We didn’t do what we needed to do. But when you that level of presence and experience, now all the sudden a guy who was playing five or seven minutes is now playing 20-plus minutes.”
From an strategy standpoint, the Tigers were playing without the top rim protector — Tilmon averaged 2.2 blocks in that 10-game span — and opponents could apply some additional pressure on guards knowing if they get beat, Tilmon wouldn’t be roaming near the bucket.
“That’s what I would do, you lose a key guy, that’s the scouting report,” Martin said.
Missouri needs all the help it can get these days. After climbing to No. 10 in the polls two weeks ago, the Tigers dropped 10 spots when factoring in losses to Ole Miss and Arkansas. They could drop out of the rankings with another loss.
This story was originally published February 19, 2021 at 1:57 PM.