Missouri Tigers men’s basketball scrapes its way past Northern Illinois, 54-37
.JPG "Missouri’s DaJuan Gordon, right, pulls down a rebound in front of Northern Illinois’s Chinedu Kingsley Okanu, left, during the first half of an NCAA college basketball game, Thursday, Nov. 18, 2021, in Columbia, Mo. (AP Photo/L.G. Patterson)")
Missouri men’s basketball scraped out a 54-37 win against Northern Illinois on Thursday night in an all-around dismal offensive performance. It was the fewest points scored by the Tigers in a win since Dec. 22, 2020.
The Tigers shot 20 of 49 (40.8%) from the field and 2 of 14 (14.3%) from beyond the three-point arc. But the Huskies were even worse, making a mere 13 of their 54 shots from the field (24.1%) at Mizzou Arena.
“Gritty performance to bounce back and get a win,” Mizzou coach Cuonzo Martin said. “...I thought guys did a great job. I thought we we got better in practice, but it was sluggish just because of the mental part. You need to get this game to get it out your system and move forward.”
Forward Kobe Brown led Martin’s squad in scoring and rebounding with 13 points and 13 rebounds. He also added four blocks. Missouri center Jordan Wilmore had 11 points, six rebounds and three blocks.
For the second consecutive game, the Mizzou offense was painfully stagnant in the first half. There was hardly any movement or plays even being executed outside of some dribble handoffs and the rare screen.
“I really want guys to space out and play,” Martin said. “I think we have some pretty good guys off the dribble, but what happens is, I have to help them in practice because I think we’re holding the ball a little too much. I think nothing wrong to be anxious to score the ball, but the ball has to move. I think we’re best when the ball is moving, being aggressive, getting downhill.”
It was arguably a worse first half offensive performance for Mizzou than last time out, an upset loss to the Summit League’s Kansas City Roos. The only reason the Tigers weren’t trailing on Thursday was because the shots weren’t falling for Northern Illinois.
But guard Keshawn Wiliams hit a step-back three-pointer with 5 minutes, 32 seconds left in the first half to give the Huskies a 15-14 lead and the spark they needed. They drained their next three shots from the field, extending their lead to 21-16 by the under-four timeout.
The Tigers had some luck go their way out of the timeout, though, finally able to knock down some shots as they went on an 8-0 run following an and-one layup from Brown (though he missed the shot at the line) to close out the half with a 24-21 lead.
Mizzou made just 37.5% of its shots in the first half and made 1 of 11 three-point attempts.
The brief run didn’t carry over into the second half, however, as Mizzou went back to its offensive woes. The team didn’t score a point until the 15:01 mark, on a backdoor-cut layup from Ronnie DeGray III.
The Tigers weren’t able to string much of anything together offensively until Wilmore dunked the ball with 10:07 left to tie the game 32-32.
Mizzou then went on a 10-0 run in a little over four minutes, with six of those points coming from Wilmore, the 7-foot-3 sophomore. The home team was in full control from there to pull out the victory.
“It was a big step up for us in the right direction,” guard DaJuan Gordon said. “And we just trying to add on to it.”
This story was originally published November 18, 2021 at 9:05 PM.
