Late in Missouri’s 79-78 win over Arkansas on Feb. 12, freshman guard Xavier Pinson beat his defender off the dribble and found himself staring down Razorback center Daniel Gafford. The 6-foot-11 Gafford, a projected first-round pick in this summer’s NBA Draft, had not only been the best player on the floor all game — he finished with 32 points and eight rebounds — he stood about nine inches taller than Pinson.
But Pinson, characteristically, wasn’t intimidated. He knifed past Gafford, exploding toward the backboard and laying the ball off the glass just beyond the reach of Gafford’s hand. A couple possessions later, Pinson found himself defended by Gafford again. This time, he hesitated before pushing off the ground with his right foot to leap backward, toward the three-point line, and create space between himself and Gafford. He cooly sank a jumper to extend Missouri’s lead to four points.
After the game, senior forward Kevin Puryear described Pinson as “fearless.” Missouri head coach Cuonzo Martin said he’s “growing up.” After all, just a few weeks prior, Pinson didn’t play in the second half of a loss at South Carolina and then didn’t see the court at all two games later, in a win over Texas A&M. The freshman still has some growing to do, as his five fouls in 22 minutes during Saturday’s loss to Florida illustrated, but his performance against Arkansas provided an example of the progress he has made and the potential he has flashed, which has many around the program excited for the future.
“He’s got heart,” sophomore center Jeremiah Tilmon said of Pinson following the win over Arkansas. “I know he going to always go hard and play, regardless of who’s guarding him. … He’s going to always go out there and fight, and if we feel like we’re down, he feels like he can put the team on his back and go do what he do, and I trust him.”
Pinson, a three-star product out of basketball powerhouse Simeon high school in Chicago, showed the first glimpses of his athletic ability and dramatic flair before playing a game for Missouri, winning the slam dunk contest at the team’s Mizzou Madness fan event. Early in the season, he seemed to make at least one play a game that made fans drool, often by hitting a teammate with a deceptive or difficult pass. However, his flair got him into trouble at least as often as it created a bucket for a teammate. Pinson committed 14 turnovers in the first six games of the season. Later, he committed 10 in a four-game span, which led in part to a dramatic dip in his playing time. Pinson played just 15 total minutes in the following three games, which included the aforementioned contests against Alabama and Texas A&M.
Pinson’s confidence and flair, the same traits that allowed him to make highlight-reel plays and, eventually, score two huge buckets in the win over Arkansas, seemed to be working against him more than for him. Martin said he hasn’t tried to remove those aspects from Pinson’s game, but teach him to reign them in and recognize when a no-look pass will lead to an open basket as opposed to a turnover.
“His style is his style,” Martin said. “You don’t want to take away from him. You want to enhance him, you want to give him balance, you want to slowly say, well, let’s pull this out of him.”
Martin tried to teach Pinson that lesson by taking away playing time. In an ideal world, Martin said, a freshman like Pinson would learn by watching more experienced players at his position and battling to take time away from them. But with Evansville transfer Dru Smith sitting out this season and sophomore guard Mark Smith battling an injury for much of conference play, Missouri’s options in the backcourt have been limited. Some fans have bristled watching former walk-on Ronnie Suggs play more minutes than the exciting Pinson in certain games, but Martin said he takes Pinson out of games to make sure he is learning from his mistakes.
“He has to go through it,” Martin said. “When I went to college, there were always older guys. I was always playing behind somebody. So in those painful lessons I learned just because I was sitting. … But in his case, there’s not a lot of older guys to say, ‘Ok man, hey, slow down with this.’ So yeah, you go out there and learn it, you take your lumps, and you become a better player for it. But just really him, is he understanding what’s being taught? Is he understanding the mistakes? Then he’ll grow from it.”
During the three-game stretch in which he played 15 total minutes, Pinson said he focused on “just working hard, not even on the court, just working hard off the court to be a better person and then earning my minutes on the court.”
Mark Smith's injury gave Pinson the opportunity for increased playing time, and he's taken advantage. He’s averaging 22.9 minutes per game during the past 10 games, and he’s found a variety of ways to contribute while on the floor. He’s averaging 8.3 points per game while shooting 42.1 percent from the field and 45.8 percent from three-point range during that span. His ball-handling ability has taken some pressure off senior point guard Jordan Geist and helped Missouri limit its turnovers against pressing teams like Arkansas (at least in the Feb. 12 matchup) and Florida. His rebounding has been perhaps the biggest revelation. Pinson is averaging 5.2 boards during the last 10 games and recorded eight or more rebounds in three of those contests. Pinson said he’s always had a natural rebounding ability thanks to his athleticism, but his recent production has stemmed from a change in mindset.
“That’s just 50-50 balls, and coach said we have to get all of them, as much as we could,” Pinson said after recording nine rebounds against Arkansas. “So I was just working hard to get as much as I could.”
Martin has also challenged Pinson to improve on the defensive end of the floor. The main hurdle for Pinson, who is listed on the team roster at 170 pounds, has been his size mismatch compared to most of the players he’s been guarding, but Martin said since he benched Pinson for the entire game at Texas A&M, his fight on the defensive end has improved.
“He’s making strides,” Martin said of Pinson’s defense. “We talk about him giving resistance defensively. It’s one thing to get stronger, but there’s also things that you can control when you lack strength.”
Pinson’s progress hasn’t been totally linear. He had five turnovers versus two assists in a recent loss at Ole Miss, for instance, and Martin benched him for all but three minutes of the second half against Kentucky on Tuesday. Even in the win over Arkansas, following his two clutch buckets, Pinson committed an offensive foul that gave the Razorbacks the ball, down a point, with 10 seconds to play.
But Geist has noticed that Pinson has gotten better at handling criticism and viewing his mistakes as opportunities for growth. As a result, Pinson is learning how to harness his fearlessness and his flair, and the mouth-watering plays are beginning to balance out the bone-headed.
“When people were criticizing him, as far as us players or coaches or anyone on the staff, it’s not really for him to feel singled out, it’s for him to get better,” Geist said. “He has a lot of potential with how athletic he is, the way he reads the floor, good jump shot, smart offensively and defensively. When you’ve got someone like that that could be here for three or four years, I just see him being a really good point guard for this team.”
