Missouri Tigers basketball blown out by Florida State in Jacksonville Classic final
The Missouri Tigers were dominated by Florida State from the opening tip to the final whistle of a 81-58 loss in the Jacksonville Classic championship game on Monday night at UNF Arena.
Mizzou was a step behind guarding the Seminoles all night long, allowing them to shoot 61.1% (33 of 54) from the field and 41.7% (10 of 24) on three-pointers. Four Florida State players scored in double figures.
“They were the aggressor,” Tigers coach Cuonzo Martin said. “They played with athleticism, got to the rim, made plays. Good one-on-one players, and we felt like our one-on-one defense had to be at a premium, first and foremost. And when they have bigs in there that are not really shooters, our bigs have to do a better job protecting the paint with our ball screen coverage.”
The Tigers (3-2) made just 38.2% of their shots in the defeat, the offense again unable to find a steady groove. Guard Amari Davis led Mizzou with 14 points and forward Kobe Brown had 13.
The Seminoles are the tallest team in the nation and they picked apart the Tigers by using that superior length to clog up passing lines and force turnovers for easy scoring chances.
“I feel like it kind of forced our offense like out of the perimeter,” Davis said of the troubles FSU’s length caused. “I know they were denying passes and they was in the passing lanes making it hard for us to make simple passes on the wing and to the top, and that kind of forced us out of our offense.”
Mizzou turned the ball over 17 times as it made careless mistakes, leading directly to 24 Florida State points.
“I wouldn’t say frantic, we were definitely more alert from them being in the passing lanes,” Brown said. “We just have to be strong with the ball, honestly. Just have to make better decisions. Instead of trying to force a pass to someone when they’re denying, back cut him and bring the next guy. We work on in in practice, we just got to apply it to the game really.”
Florida State (4-1) showed why it was a preseason top-20 team as it took control in the early minutes, scoring the first six points with ease. Mizzou quickly found itself in a hole.
Shortly before the midway point of the first half, Javon Pickett overthrew an inbounds pass to Jarron “Boogie” Coleman and Florida State guard Caleb Mills rose up to intercept the ball. Mills drove to the basket and then fooled Coleman with a pass back to guard Cam’Ron Fletcher, who rose up for an emphatic slam as part of an 11-0 Seminole scoring run. The Tigers trailed 27-10 at that point with 9:57 left in the half, but it would get much worse.
A few minutes later, RayQuan Evans was left largely unguarded as he drained a three-pointer from the top of the arc to expand the Tigers’ deficit to 21 points. The Seminoles shot 5 of 11 from the deep before halftime and they made 18 of their 28 field goal attempts.
Mizzou entered halftime trailing 44-23, scoring fewer than 25 points in the opening half for the fourth consecutive game.
“We couldn’t get into an offensive flow,” Martin said. “They were getting out in transition, got a steal. I think it was [24] points in the first half off turnovers and they just made plays from there. And we could never get over the hump.”
Florida State led by as many as 28 points in the second half as it coasted to the victory.
“Every game is a big game for us, but we’re playing for March,” Davis said. “So this game right here, like Coach said, it’s a learning process. So we’re gonna go back, look at film, look at what we could do and we could have did better and we’ll go from there.”
The Tigers next face Wichita State at 8 p.m. Friday at Mizzou Arena in Columbia.
This story was originally published November 22, 2021 at 9:41 PM.
