How Kobe Brown developed into a top scoring threat for Mizzou Tigers basketball
With a little over two minutes remaining in the game and the ball in his hands at the top of the arc, Kobe Brown took a dribble to his left. He then used a spin move to rotate 180 degrees, simultaneously switching the ball to his right hand. The forward took another strong dribble for his next move, backing his man into the paint. Finally, he rose for the jumper. Swish.
The bucket gave the Missouri Tigers their largest lead of the afternoon. Brown scored 12 consecutive points for his team, capped off by that shot, as he willed the Tigers to a 83-75 victory over the Utah Utes last Saturday in Mizzou Arena. Whether by way of a field goal or a trip to the free-throw line, each of those dozen came from some variety of Brown posting up his defender in the paint.
When Brown first got to Missouri, he wasn’t a fan of playing with his back to the basket. The 6-foot-8 Huntsville, Alabama native had been a point guard for most of his career. “But that grew on him,” says Greg Brown, his father and high school coach.
Now in his junior year, Brown has embraced that style of play. He’s scored more points on post-ups and putbacks through 11 games than he did last season or the one prior, according to Synergy’s analytics data.
In doing so, he’s established himself as Mizzou’s best player. And it isn’t close.
He’s averaging 15.0 points, 9.1 rebounds and 2.5 assists, along with 1.7 steals and 1.0 blocks per game. He’s shooting 56.2% from the floor too. He scored a career-high 27 points on 8 of 11 shooting in the win over Utah, marking his fourth game with at least 20 points this season.
Brown grew up as a point guard, but he began playing more off the ball at the two and three spots during his junior and senior years of high school when his brother, Kaleb, joined his team. It was also around that time that the brothers’ longtime trainer, Kelly McCarty, who opened UWin Training Facility following a 15-year pro career overseas in Israel and Russia, started talking with Kobe about using his 6-8 frame to take advantage of smaller defenders, forcing them to the block.
Once he got to Mizzou and was asked to play closer to the basket — often at the four spot alongside Jeremiah Tilmon — Kelly began incorporating drills to enhance Brown’s ability to create shots off the dribble in post-up situations.
Playing the part of the defender, Kelly would cut Brown off, have him change directions and then use his body to create space with his back to the basket. In the midst of the drill, Brown had to identify where his primary defender’s weak side was and where help defenders were coming from as well.
Though many trainers tend to rebound the ball and start a drill over if a player doesn’t hit a shot, Kelly made it a point to have Brown grab his own misses and then go up for the putback. Sometimes with one dribble, other times straight back up.
“It creates that mindset of always staying and watching the path of the ball,” McCarty explains, “where it’s being rebounded, where it’s coming off the rim and then having the quickness of mind to get it.”
Though he sees how those moves have translated to the way Brown is playing now, McCarty doesn’t want to take the credit, insisting that he’s “a freak athlete.”
“It has a lot to do with his ability to see the floor and handle the ball and and just his God given ability as well,” McCarty said.
Practices under Missouri coach Cuonzo Martin made Brown tougher and more physical as well. He’s also spent a lot of time in the weight room adding muscle to his frame over the past few years.
Though he’s adapted well to playing in the low post, Brown still has the mentality of a point guard. In some ways that’s a good thing — he sees the court with great vision and is always looking for the right play — but the Missouri coaching staff wants him to be more aggressive.
“We just got to get him with that mindset of every time down,” Martin said after the Utah game. “If he can look to score it every time down it wouldn’t shock me if he scored 20 a night.”
In past years, Brown was the Tigers’ third or fourth option. But as one of the best scorers on the team this season, actively asserting himself is crucial to Mizzou’s success.
“You have to understand the element that you’re in at this moment,” McCarty recalled telling him on a recent phone call.
The pair have also talked about improving at the free-throw line — he’s shooting 71.9% there right now — and staying out of foul trouble as the next steps in Brown’s development. In each of the last two games, the forward picked up his second foul with around eight minutes left in the first half.
“It’s going to be hard [for Missouri] to continue to win games if Kobe is on the bench with two or three fouls in the first half,” McCarty said.
Especially as the schedule gets tougher for the Tigers, who are only one game above .500. The next test for Brown and Missouri is the annual Braggin’ Rights Game against Illinois on Wednesday night in St. Louis. Tipoff is 8 p.m.
