Mizzou Tigers men’s basketball loses sixth straight game, this one at South Carolina
The Missouri Tigers men’s basketball season continues to reach new lows. In fact, you can now qualify it as one of the worst in program history.
Mizzou suffered its 20th loss of the season on Tuesday night, when it was defeated by South Carolina, 73-69, at Colonial Life Arena in Columbia, South Carolina.
The Tigers showed fight and nearly overcame a 14-point deficit in the second half, but ultimately couldn’t close things out — as has often been the case this season. They have lost each of their last six contests.
Only five other Missouri teams all time have lost this many games in a season. Three of those came over the last decade, but this is the first such occurrence under head coach Cuonzo Martin.
“My approach doesn’t change,” Martin said. “You continue to get better, you continue to move forward and you’ll certainly see better days, that’s how I look at it. But no struggles, no sufferings — I’ve never used those type of words, those aren’t my kind of words. It’s just you learn from those lessons, you keep pushing.”
Through 115 prior seasons of Tiger basketball, only nine teams finished with a worse win percentage than the current one of 33.3%, while two others had the same percentage. It’s worth noting that five of those came before the conclusion of World War II, at which point there were less than 20 games on the schedule.
There are still at least two games left on the slate for the Tigers (10-20, 4-13 SEC): a regular-season finale against Georgia on Saturday at Mizzou Arena, followed by the SEC tournament.
Here are some key takeaways from the game.
Ugly basketball galore
Much of this game was downright ugly. The two teams combined for 10 turnovers — six of which were committed by Mizzou — and 10 fouls through the first eight minutes. That’s compared to just seven combined made shots on 26 attempts from the field.
The Tigers continued to have trouble taking care of the ball and making shots the rest of the night.
That sounds familiar, right? Those have been two glaring issues all season that haven’t really improved much.
Missouri only made eight field goals while committing nine turnovers in the first half, and as a result was down 30-24 to South Carolina at halftime. The Tigers have been held under 25 points in the first half a dozen times this season — good for 40% of their games.
Kobe Brown only played seven minutes in the period after picking up his second foul.
“I got off to a slow start, Brown said. “I gotta come in and do more, help the team more, contribute to the team. I feel like I was one of the missing pieces out there.”
On the night, Mizzou shot 23 of 57 (40.4%) from the field and 4 of 18 (22.2%) from three-point range. It was the Tigers’ sixth consecutive game they made less than 41% of their shots. They also committed 15 turnovers, which led to eight points for the Gamecocks.
“I thought between (Trevon Brazile) putting pressure, Kobe (Brown) and Javon (Pickett) putting pressure on the defense, getting in the paint, we had a lot of opportunities to make threes,” Martin said. “They just didn’t go for us. I thought that was the biggest key.”
Tigers cut it close
Missouri trailed by as many as 14 points in the second half.
The Tigers made a push with their defense late in the second half and managed to cut the deficit to 60-59 with less than two minutes left on free throws from Javon Pickett.
But then Brown turned the ball over on a key possession and the Tigers couldn’t defend when it mattered most as South Carolina went on a 5-0 run to take a 65-59 lead with 38 seconds left.
“Guys can’t knock the ball out of your hand, man,” Martin said. “They knocking the ball out of your hand, there should be blood somewhere. ... Those sorts of things can’t happen. Especially when you’ve had over 70 plus starts at this level. It just can’t happen. I mean, it’s not about making mistakes or missing shots, it’s about all tough stuff that (Brown’s) supposed to have at all times.”
Missouri got back within three points, but the Tigers had another costly turnover and couldn’t catch South Carolina.
“To win, I feel like we got to lock in on the defensive end a lot more,” Pickett said. “That’s what we do all the time is defense, and then we get to the game and we don’t do what we’re supposed to do.”
Trevon Brazile shows potential
For all of the issues Mizzou has had this season, the flashes of potential from Trevon Brazile have been a bright spot.
The 6-foot-9 freshman scored a career-high 11 points last game against LSU, and he followed that performance up on Tuesday night with a solid showing.
Brazile finished the night with nine points on 4-of-6 shooting, along with nine rebounds, a block and a steal. He was third on the team in scoring behind Javon Pickett, who finished with 23 points, and Kobe Brown, who had 19 points.
“He had great plays today,” Pickett said. “He can block shots, rebound, he can score the ball. So the main thing is really just continuing to get stronger. Once (Trevon) gets stronger, the sky’s the limit.”
On one sequence in the second half, Brazile blocked Brandon Martin’s three-point attempt on the wing and then put away an emphatic slam dunk on the other end. On another, he fell down on defense but popped back up in an instant to intercept a pass, which led to a fast-break bucket on the other end that trimmed Missouri’s deficit to four points.
Plays like that are why it’s vital for Missouri to do whatever it can to keep Brazile in the program next season amid a college basketball landscape fueled by the transfer portal.
This story was originally published March 1, 2022 at 8:41 PM.
