Missouri can knock off NCAA Tournament-bound teams. But Tigers can’t beat Ole Miss
At one point in the first half, Ole Miss clanked 10 straight field goal attempts. The Rebels lost one point off their lead. Maybe then, Mizzou figured it wasn’t their night.
What is it about Ole Miss that the Missouri men’s basketball team can’t handle? The Tigers have defeated several heavyweights this season, but they can’t overcome a Rebels team that for the moment is on the outside looking in at the NCAA Tournament.
Ole Miss completed the season sweep with a 60-53 triumph on Tuesday at Mizzou Arena. The 24th-ranked Tigers believed they had turned a corner on Saturday, winning at South Carolina to end a three-game losing streak.
Instead, Ole Miss threw an off-speed pitch in the form of a zone defense that doubled Jeremiah Tilmon in the post, a slower pace of offense than Mizzou prefers and by making enough shots in the clutch to pull out a resume-building victory.
“We’ve always had success against zone,” said Missouri coach Cuonzo Martin, whose Tigers fell to 14-7 overall and 7-7 in the SEC. “But I don’t think were aggressive tonight.”
A good zone defense makes the offense hesitate and that’s what Ole Miss (13-9, 8-7) accomplished much of the night as Missouri matched a season-low output.
“The zone had us stagnant,” guard Mark Smith said.
When the Tigers got looks, they didn’t fall. Xavier Pinson missed eight of nine shots from the floor as Missouri wound up at 35.1% overall from the field and seven of 23 (30.4%) from beyond the three-point arc.
Ole Miss wasn’t much better but the Rebels got to the free-throw line 19 times and knocked down 15. Missouri went six of 11 from the stripe.
Troubles started building early for the Tigers. The ever-improving Kobe Brown picked up his second foul before three minutes had elapsed, throwing off Missouri’s rotation.
Ole Miss survived a five-minute scoring drought in the first half because Mizzou also couldn’t muster much of anything. The Rebels closed in a flurry to take a nine-point halftime lead.
Missouri made a stand in the second half. The defense tightened. The Tigers had six of seven steals in the second half. Tilmon came up with a pair of blocks.
The Tigers used an 11-0 run — Brown’s six points and Torrance Watson’s corner three — to take a 43-41 lead with 9:25 remaining.
A Tilmon spin move made it 50-50 at the 2:44 mark. At this point, the game was a jump ball. The Rebels won the tap.
Baskets by Devontae Shuler and KJ Buffen around a Mark Smith missed jumper gave the Rebels a four-point lead and Missouri didn’t have another possession with a chance to go ahead or tie.
Tilmon finished with 10 points and 10 rebounds in his second game back since missing the previous two games because of his grandmother’s death. Martin said he thought Tilmon started feeling the impact of the layoff on Tuesday.
“He was solid,” Martin said. “I don’t think this was his best effort. I thought fatigue caught up with him tonight.”
Maybe that explains a moment in the first half. Tilmon had made all 12 of his shots — field goals and free throws — on Saturday at South Carolina and his first two on Tuesday. His first miss since returning? A dunk attempt.
Or maybe that’s just Ole Miss, which seems to bring out the worst in the Tigers.
A&M game off
Mizzou’s game Saturday against Texas A&M in Columbia was postponed on Wednesday because of COVID-19 issues within the Aggies program. That leaves the Tigers with two scheduled SEC regular season games remaining, Wednesday, March 3 at Florida and Saturday, March 6 at home vs. LSU.
This story was originally published February 23, 2021 at 10:58 PM.