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And One: Tigers keep it rolling in win over the Rebels

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Braun comes up big

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After he threw down two impressive dunks in the closing minutes of Missouri’s win over No. 11 Auburn on Saturday, some fans started to clamor for more playing time for redshirt freshman Parker Braun. Coach Cuonzo Martin obliged, playing Braun for 24 minutes against Ole Miss Tuesday.

Braun didn’t disappoint. The Overland Park, Kansas native scored six points, grabbed seven rebounds, dished two assists and blocked four shots in Missouri's 71-68 victory. All of those figures represented career highs.

Even though Braun played twice as many minutes as his previous high, Martin said he wasn’t surprised by his contribution.

“I’m not surprised, because he’s a talented player. Parker is one of those guys, he’ll be as good as the time and the focus that he puts into it, because he’s gifted in a lot of areas, he’s an intelligent player. And I think with added strength, he’ll go to another level.”

Braun never appeared fazed by the moment Tuesday, and he showed off his athleticism and skillset. His passing ability helped Missouri beat Ole Miss’ halfcourt press on several occasions. The one time he turned the ball over, he raced back and swatted a layup attempt off the backboard. But perhaps his most impressive play didn’t count. In the final minute of the first half, Torrence Watson missed a three-pointer, and Braun soared over Ole Miss’ Khadim Sy, grabbed the ball with two hands and slammed it home. The officials whistled him for an offensive foul, however, and waved the basket off.

Later in the game, Martin said official Pat Adams approached Braun and apologized, saying the dunk should have counted.

“In the moment it kind of looks like I’m climbing over people’s backs, but he kind of walked over and he was like, yeah, that’s my bad,” Braun said. “It might have been a bad one, but you can’t really expect that, you just gotta keep playing.”

Redshirt freshman Parker Braun set new career highs in minutes, points, rebounds and blocks against Ole Miss.
Redshirt freshman Parker Braun set new career highs in minutes, points, rebounds and blocks against Ole Miss. (Jessi Dodge)

Backcourt continues to carry the load

The biggest key to Missouri’s past four games, in which the Tigers have won three times and pushed LSU to the brink, has been its starting backcourt’s ability to get to the rim. Xavier Pinson and Dru Smith continued that trend Tuesday. Pinson scored 32 points, eclipsing his career high in scoring for the third time in 10 days, on 9-13 shooting. Smith wasn’t quite as efficient, making just four of his 14 shots, but he added 17 points, five rebounds and four assists. Perhaps most important, the two players combined to shoot 19 of 21 from the free throw line, including 8-8 in the final minute.

During the past four games, Pinson and Smith have combined to average 41.8 points per contest. That amounts to just over 52 percent of Missouri’s scoring. After each of Missouri’s past two wins, the duo has talked about how their differing styles complement one another well and make life harder on opposing defenses.

“He’s a great guard,” Pinson said of Smith. “... He knows the one spot and I know the one spot, and he knows the two and I know the two, so I feel like we can just alternate that every time or any time we feel like it.”

Martin reflects on improvement

During Missouri's struggles this season, such as when the Tigers won just one of their first six SEC games, Martin constantly talked about staying the course, focusing on one day at a time. Now that his team has won three of its last four and climbed back to .500, Martin's approach isn't any different — asked if he talks to his team at all about big-picture, end-of-season goals, Martin said his sole focus is on the trip to Arkansas this weekend.

But Martin did take a moment to praise his team for rallying when it would have been easy to simply play out the string. He pointed out that the Tigers have played every Tuesday and Saturday for the past seven weeks. As a result, their only day off of practice has been Wednesdays, when players have to attend class. Plus, from Jan. 14 through Feb. 11, six of the team's nine games came on the road.

"I’m really proud of our guys, and I said it to them, because they’re young and they’re just going," Martin said. "That is a hard thing to do, when you go seven straight, just going and going. And we had a stretch of six of nine on the road against good teams. That is a hard thing to do. So they don’t know how proud I am of them, just to fight through all that stuff, because we won’t spend a lot of time making excuses or complaining. We just keep plugging along and we find our way.”

Each of the three players available for interviews after the game said Missouri is currently playing its best basketball of the season. Smith said, after seeing a lot of bounces and results not go their way during the first half of the conference schedule, the Tigers have taken confidence from the past few games, and that was the key to executing down the stretch against Ole Miss.

"I definitely think that we’re playing the best basketball of the year," said Smith. "I think everybody kind of sees that, and if you’ve been watching us throughout the year I think everybody would agree with that. I’m not sure exactly what changed, I just feel like guys are playing with confidence, we’re playing aggressive and we’re playing good team basketball and team defense.”

Game at a Glance

CAUSE FOR OPTIMISM: A week-and-a-half ago, before Missouri left to play LSU, Cuonzo Martin was reminded that his team had had trouble stringing together back-to-back good games. "Thank you," the coach said with a wry smile. At that point, it was true. But now, Missouri has stacked four straight strong efforts together. In the last four games, Missouri has played 165 minutes. The Tigers have had the lead for 134 minutes and 45 seconds while trailing for just 18:57. Unfortunately five of those minutes were the last five against LSU, but Mizzou is still 3-1 and climbing the SEC standings day by day.

CAUSE FOR CONCERN: You have to assume at some point Xavier Pinson is going to quit posting career-highs every time out. Tuesday wasn't that day as Pinson bested the career-high 28 he scored on Saturday with 32 against the Rebels. But a day will come when the shot isn't falling. Who picks up the slack and becomes the second scoring option with Dru Smith? It's not really fair to call it a concern, but there's not much to complain about after this one.

STOCK UP: Late game execution. Missouri has had its share of struggles in tight games. Even in the win over Arkansas, the Tigers failed to get a shot off on their final possession of regulation and gave Arkansas a chance to win the game. They recovered and won in overtime, but lost another second half lead against LSU. After keeping Auburn at arm's length all game, Missouri had to fight a little harder for this one. Ole Miss went on a 10-0 run to tie the game at 55 with a little less than nine minutes left, but Mizzou steadied itself and outscored the Rebels 8-5 in the final 60 seconds to ice the victory.

STOCK DOWN: Freshman forwards. Tray Jackson and Kobe Brown combined to play just 16 minutes against the Rebels. They were 0-4 from the floor, 0-3 from three-point range and didn't score a point. Jackson was minus-2 in five minutes and Brown was minus-12 in 11. Parker Braun picked them up on this day, but Mizzou will need more from at least one of them in most games going forward.

UP NEXT: Missouri (13-13, 5-8) will travel to Arkansas (16-10, 4-9) on Saturday. Tipoff is set for noon in Bud Walton Arena.

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