Missouri Tigers basketball holds on for win, completes season sweep of Mississippi
Wins have been few and far between for the Missouri Tigers this season, but they did manage to secure their first series sweep.
The Mizzou men’s basketball team escaped with a 74-68 victory over Mississippi on Saturday night at Mizzou Arena.
The Tigers led by as many as 20 points with 15 minutes left but fell apart late in the second half. It wasn’t pretty, but Mizzou (10-14, 4-7 SEC) managed to hold things together late and come out with a win.
“It’s always tough to beat a team twice,” Missouri head coach Cuonzo Martin said. “The thing about Ole Miss, they play a physical brand, so you know you have to win that battle. ... To get that win and two games against those guys is a great feeling.”
Missouri won the first matchup with Mississippi 78-53 on Jan. 18 in Oxford.
Five Mizzou players — Javon Pickett, Ronnie DeGray III, Kobe Brown, Amari Davis and DaJuan Gordon — scored in double figures this time around. Picket and DeGray had 14 points a piece, while Brown, Davis and Gordon each scored 13 points. Brown also added six rebounds and five assists.
“I think whenever the scoring is balanced with us,” Gordon said, “we win. We play good. I think our biggest thing is just playing together. Sometimes we hunt shots or just want to shoot, you know, just because we haven’t touched it in a minute. But that’s something that we gotta all accept and play together and know that it’s a bigger goal than just us.”
The Tigers shot 28 of 52 (53.8%) from the field and made 7 of 14 (50%) three-point attempts.
The Tigers opened up the game with a run late in the first half. They outscored Mississippi 12-2 over the last four minutes and entered halftime with a 43-32 lead.
Mizzou carried that momentum into the second half. The Tigers came out of the break and scored on each of their first five possessions to extend their advantage to 20 points. Across a seven-minute span over the two halves, Missorui had pieced together a 21-2 run.
“The ball was moving. We were sharing the ball. we were active,” Martin said. “And then when you get those leads, it’s always tough to maintain those leads because you lose a level of focus, in my opinion. And there’s a level of comfort that’s set in and it’s almost as if — not in a selfish way — but my turn to get a shot up, and you’re not in attack mode.”
Far too often this season, Mizzou has given up significant leads late in games. It had lost contests to Texas A&M, Auburn and Alabama after holding an eight-point advantage in each. So when Ole Miss trimmed the lead to six points with around four-and-a-half minutes left, it was cause for concern. Even more so when it became just four points in the final minute.
The Tigers committed six turnovers in the final 10 minutes of the game, including three shot-clock violations, and were outscored 24-12 during that stretch.
But Davis and Gordon managed to close things out at the free-throw line, hitting two clutch shots apiece to avoid another breakdown.
“We just gotta continue to go out there and compete for 40 minutes,” Pickett said. “We’ve seen today we kind of took our foot off the gas. ... It’s always gonna be a battle every night, so it’s just upon us to keep going out there every night, competing.
“And we’ll get it rolling. We’re really growing though as a team, as a unit.”
Here are some key takeaways from the game.
Injuries pile up for Missouri
The Tigers only had eight players available against Ole Miss.
Freshman guard Anton Brookshire, freshman forward Yaya Keita and center Jordan Wilmore were all out.
Brookshire has an injured right wrist, and Keita has hurt his left knee. Keita has a history with knee injuries, as he tore his right ACL in high school, but it remains unclear how severe this current injury is. Wilmore, meanwhile, continues to deal with a back injury that has kept him out for nearly a month — though he wasn’t seeing much playing time this season.
“I stay in my lane when it comes to injuries,” Martin said when asked about the status of Brookshire and Keita after the game. “Whatever the trainer and doctor says, that’s it. ... I don’t think they’re out for the season, without a doubt. I don’t. But we keep pushing forward.”
By the first media timeout on Saturday, Martin had already put all eight available Tigers into the game.
Martin said that Brown was dealing with cramps towards the end of the game as well. The junior forward subbed out with a little under three minutes left and came back in with a minute left. He then subbed back out with 14 seconds remaining.
Tigers score off turnovers
The Tigers generated a lot of their offense from defense.
Missouri forced Mississippi to turn the ball over 12 times and went on to score 20 points off those mistakes.
“When we trap the ball screen, that’s when we’re aggressive, we get steals that way,” Martin said. “But other than that, we want to extend you, we want to make you play one on one.
“... We’re not where I’d like us to be, but we’re getting better at that. Because that’s not easy. As we get stronger and we continue to get better, we’ll be great at it. But get in the passing lanes and make those guys make tough decisions.”
Pickett and Jarron “Boogie” Coleman led Mizzou with three steals a piece. The team had eight steals total.
Play in the paint
Mizzou outscored Ole Miss 40-34 in the paint.
The Tigers’ 40 points in the paint marked their most all season against an SEC opponent.
“I feel like with every game we try to just go out there and be aggressive,” Pickett said. “During the film and stuff, the coaches told us what drives we were going to be able to get, the open passes were gonna be there. Just get downhill, make the layup, jump-stop, find the open man.”
Most of that production came in the first half, though, as Missouri struggled to play with the same cohesion and aggressiveness in the final frame.
This story was originally published February 12, 2022 at 9:49 PM.
