Better late than never, Tigers are starting to come around
Cuonzo Martin rarely lets a chance to teach a life lesson pass. More often than not, he’ll remind you that basketball is just a game and what he’s really teaching is things about how to navigate the years that lie ahead of the college-aged players he leads. His current Missouri basketball team might be trying to teach all of us one about instant gratification.
The first three months of this Missouri basketball season certainly didn’t satisfy anyone. The Tigers lost an overtime heartbreaker at Xavier, dropped games in Kansas City to Butler and Oklahoma and then hit rock bottom (at least in the non-conference) with a 68-60 loss to Charleston Southern.
Wins over Temple and Illinois were wiped away as the calendar flipped to 2020 and the Tigers lost five of their first six in SEC play then no-showed for the second half in a blowout loss at West Virginia. At that point, Missouri sat 9-10 and all pre-season delusions of grandeur were gone. The Tigers lost two of their next three, the lone win a miraculous 20-point comeback against conference bottom-feeder Georgia.
At 10-12, there were more questions about why Martin should get to coach another game than who the next game was against or if anyone would bother to watch it. Oh, by the way, two of Missouri’s starting five got sidelined somewhere along the way with injuries and hope was in short supply among the Tiger faithful.
But then something strange happened: Missouri started winning. An overtime victory against Arkansas was followed with a tough but not enough effort in a four-point loss at LSU. The Tigers came home and whipped No. 11 Auburn on Saturday. They still sat a game under .500, but there were signs. There was hope. Not that any of it would mean anything if the Tigers couldn’t back it up with a win over Ole Miss.
Missouri did that on Tuesday night, outlasting the Rebels 71-68 to win for the third time in four games. The win pushed the Tigers to .500 on the season and 5-8 in SEC play, out of the dreaded bottom four who will have to play on Wednesday night at the SEC Tournament. It’s a long way from where they want to be, but a lot closer than they were two weeks ago.
Something must have changed. There must have been a fiery, impassioned speech; a lightbulb moment.
“We can say a lot of things as a coaching staff, but they have to believe they’re good enough,” Martin said. “You have to trust you and what you’re good at and your preparation. That’s what this is about. It wasn’t the Arkansas game. I didn’t think we played great against Arkansas.”
Martin said after the win over Auburn on Saturday, “They’re a good team. But we’re a good team too.” In the locker room afterward, he told his players “You’re good enough.” He just had to get them to believe it. They’re starting to.
“I think it’s just confidence,” Dru Smith said. “The games that we’ve won and unfortunately the loss at LSU, guys are starting to see what we’re capable of. If a team throws a punch, we’re not really backing down.”
“I think it’s a lot of confidence,” Parker Braun said. “We got a big win over Auburn, big win over Arkansas and I think ever since then guys have been playing their game.”
The win over Ole Miss on Tuesday night seemed fitting for who the stars were.
Xavier Pinson showed flashes as a freshman last season, but for every high-flying highlight there was a no-look pass into the third row that would earn him a seat next to Martin. As a freshman, the Chicago native played in 31 of Missouri’s 32 games. But he logged more than 20 minutes in less than half of them and played ten or fewer seven times. He stuck it out and came back for his sophomore season. Pinson has played at least ten minutes in every game this year, starting the last seven with Mark Smith on the shelf with back trouble. He has set a new career-high in scoring in three of his last four games, pouring in 32 in the win over the Rebels Tuesday night.
“Just watching him out there and just seeing the confidence he’s playing with is very impressive,” Dru Smith said. “We’re all very proud of him. We all knew he had this in him. We really did. It’s just great to see it come out.”
The other star on Tuesday was Braun, a Kansas City native who walked on in Columbia instead of taking scholarship offers that were available from other high-major programs. He redshirted in his first year and has logged a DNP-Coach’s Decision six times so far this season. His career-high in minutes prior to Tuesday night was 11. He surpassed that in the first half against Ole Miss and played 24 minutes for the game. He responded with six points, seven rebounds, two assists and four blocked shots, none of which included a rim-rattling putback dunk that was wiped away on an offensive foul the official later told Braun he may have gotten wrong.
“I’m not surprised,” Martin said. “Parker’s a talented player. He’ll be as good as the time he puts into it because he’s gifted in a lot of areas and a talented player. I think with added strength, he’ll go to another level.”
It didn’t happen right away for Braun or Pinson, but both were showered in applause from the Mizzou Arena crowd throughout Tuesday’s win.
“I don’t think it’s been hard,” Braun said of his wait for a breakout night. “I think it’s just trusting the work, keep doing what you’re doing, being ready for your opportunity.”
Maybe there’s something larger to be taken from that.
Martin’s first season was a push-all-the-chips-to-the-middle resurrection for Missouri basketball. It got the Tigers, coming off a 27-68 three-year death spiral, back into the NCAA Tournament. But once Jontay Porter tore his knee up in a pre-season scrimmage in October of 2018 all it really netted Mizzou was Javon Pickett and Jeremiah Tilmon. The Tigers suffered through a 15-17 second season under Martin that was, for all intents and purposes, year one of a massive rebuild.
The hopeful targeted this season as the one where that rebuild would be completed. This was a team some thought was equipped to make March basketball meaningful again at Mizzou even as the league media picked the Tigers to finish 13th. It hasn’t happened, obviously. But unlike many who follow them, this team didn’t mail it in in the midst of its struggles. It kept fighting and has seen that mettle pay off in the last two weeks.
“I think they’ve grown,” Martin said. “And it’s a beautiful thing when you can grow in the midst of struggles. That says a lot about them and their character as young guys because you can easy give up. When you don’t really value or cherish something you say, ‘Okay, no big deal.’ But they value this, they appreciate it. Why not get better?
“They’re not built like that.”
What it really means remains to be seen. Not only over the course of the next three weeks, where Mizzou could be doing anything from playing out the string to chasing 20 wins, but also over the course of the next 12 months. Because Mizzou now has to target next year as the one where it sees the true fruits of the rebuild. It may not be exactly on the schedule some had hoped, but the last four games have offered plenty of signs that fans can at least hold out hope it is coming. Everyone would love for it to have happened quickly. But at a place like Missouri, digging out of the depths it had been in, maybe that was never realistic. Maybe it was always going to take a little longer.
“I’m really proud of our guys,” Martin said. “They don’t know how proud I am of them just to fight through all the stuff. We don’t spend a lot of time making excuses and playing. We’ll find our way.”
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