The good news for Missouri during its loss to Alabama Wednesday night was that sophomore center Jeremiah Tilmon didn’t foul out. Tilmon had recorded five fouls in each of the team’s past three games, averaging just over a foul per three minutes he was on the court in that span. Against the Crimson Tide, Tilmon picked up two fouls in the first eight minutes but finished with just three.
The bad news for the Tigers was that fouls were clearly still on Tilmon’s mind, and his presence on the floor didn’t keep Missouri from being dominated around the basket. Alabama outscored the Tigers by 10 points, 40-30, in the paint — and won the game by 10 points. It’s the fourth straight game Missouri has allowed more than 30 points in the paint, and the third straight in which it has been outscored there. Alabama led for more than 35 minutes and eventually beat Missouri 70-60, dropping the Tigers to 0-3 in SEC play.
Tilmon’s recent foul trouble had been the main storyline surrounding Missouri since the calendar flipped to 2019, and early in the first half Wednesday, it appeared Tilmon was destined for another short outing. He picked up his second foul when he got called for a reach roughly 18 feet away from the basket with 12 minutes remaining in the first half. That sent him to the bench, but head coach Cuonzo Martin deviated from his usual strategy of keeping a player with two fouls off the court until the second half. Tilmon played three more minutes in the half, and he ended up playing 27 in the game, more than he logged in the past two games combined.
“I just told our staff, it doesn’t do us any good him sitting on the bench,” Martin said of Tilmon. “He has to learn. He has to go through it.”
Tilmon eventually found his offensive game in the second half. He finished with eight points and seven rebounds. But on the defensive end, he appeared passive, and Martin said that resulted from a fear of fouling. At one point, Martin said, Tilmon even asked to come off the floor because he felt he wasn’t playing well.
“I just said, ‘No, you gotta stay out there and go through it and help your team find a way to win the game,’” Martin said. “Now he has to get to a point where that’s not in the back of his mind, and he’s a part of the game and impacting the game and not playing a game where I don’t want to make a mistake. .... I think he has to let loose.”
Alabama took advantage of Tilmon’s passive defensive play and the lack of depth around him by pounding the offensive glass and continually driving the ball to the basket. Martin said Missouri needed to do a better job keeping the Crimson Tide guards from penetrating as well as improve its defensive rebounding.
“Their guards are big and physical, especially (Dazon) Ingram, he gets downhill and he makes plays,” Martin said. “And then they got putbacks. … They got a couple key putbacks that just kind of changed the game for them.”
On the other end of the floor, Missouri continued its season-long trend of struggling to score from two-point range, especially in the first half. The Tigers made just four of 21 two-points shots during the first 20 minutes, and they also didn’t attempt a free throw during the half. Six made three pointers helped keep the score close, but Martin said he made a point of asking his guards to attack more frequently at halftime.
“I think at a certain point in the game, I don’t think we shot a free throw, coach was like, ‘let’s get to the line,’” said sophomore guard Mark Smith, who finished with 13 points.
Missouri ended up scoring half of its points in the paint, which isn’t bad, but considering Alabama gave up 48 points in the paint to its last opponent, Texas A&M, the Tigers likely entered the contest thinking they could get more scoring down low. Johnson said the Crimson Tide made a point of denying Missouri’s guards driving opportunities — Alabama guarded point guard Jordan Geist with 6-foot-7 Herbert Jones all game, and it worked, as Geist didn’t score in the first half — but Martin came away wanting more from his post players.
“I just think it’s the comfort of our big guys at the rim, getting offensive rebounds, but also the one-on-one play in the post with our big guys,” Martin said. “Jeremiah’s the only big that really kind of sees a double. The other guys just have to be comfortable around the rim.”
A lack of interior depth has hurt Missouri all season. Tilmon’s foul troubles have made matters worse, and Wednesday showed that, even on a night when he didn’t foul out, the fear of fouling impacted his and the Tigers’ performance. As the past three games have illustrated, the Tigers simply don’t have the firepower to overcome being outscored in the paint.
“Our margin for error is so slim," Martin said, "we have to be sound in a lot of areas.”
TURNING POINT: With 11:02 left in the first half, Mark Smith hit his third three-pointer of the game to give Missouri a one-point lead. The Tigers then went on a scoring drought that spanned nearly six minutes. During that time, Alabama’s Alex Reese hit a three, then gathered his own miss and got an easy dunk on the following possession. Donta Hall scored two of his 12 points, then Riley Norris hit two free throws, then Hall scored again. The 11-point run gave the Crimson Tide a 10-point lead, and they never trailed thereafter.
IT WAS OVER WHEN: The Tigers hung around for much of the second half but couldn’t seem to string together stops in the final five minutes or so. The dagger for Alabama came when Kira Lewis Jr. hit a corner three to give the Crimson Tide a nine-point lead with 2:24 remaining.
CAUSE FOR OPTIMISM: Missouri got offensive contributions from a lot of sources. Smith and Pickett finished with 13 points apiece. Geist contributed nine, Tilmon had eight, and Torrance Watson had five, and all three players’ points all came in the second half. In all, 10 of the 11 Missouri players who saw the floor scored at least two points. The problem was that the Tigers couldn’t string together baskets and stops at the same time in the second half.
CAUSE FOR CONCERN: Missouri addressed several of its recent problems. The Tigers only turned the ball over 11 times (compared to 10 for Alabama), didn’t have a player foul out and gave up just 15 free throw attempts. Yet they led for just two minutes against a team that has lost to Northeastern and Georgia State this season. Missouri simply looked overmatched down low, and it doesn’t have the firepower to overcome it.
STOCK UP: Javon Pickett. The freshman followed up his 21-point outburst at South Carolina with 13 more points Wednesday. Late in the game, when the Tigers desperately needed buckets, he scored on two straight possessions and got the ball again on a third. Pickett earned his starting spot with his steady effort and defensive play, but he has shown impressive improvement on the offensive end over the past month.
STOCK DOWN: Kevin Puryear. Puryear recorded four fouls before he scored his first point Wednesday. Missouri’s lack of post depth has forced Puryear into some tough matchups this season, and against Alabama he at times had to defend Hall while playing the center position, but the Tigers clearly need more from their big guys, Puryear included..
UP NEXT: Missouri (9-6, KenPom No. 102) will travel to Texas A&M (7-8, KenPom No. 99) on Saturday. Tipoff is set for 2:30 p.m.
