When Auburn guard Bryce Brown found his three-point shooting stroke, it felt like Missouri would finally succumb, ending its SEC tournament and its season. Missouri had fought valiantly to hang in Thursday’s game against an Auburn team that beat it by 34 points on Jan. 30, overcoming a nine-point deficit in the first half to take the lead early in the second. But when Brown hit three three-pointers in as many possessions, giving his team a 10-point lead with 14:44 left, it felt like Missouri had finally been hit by a punch from which it would not recover.
Instead, Jordan Geist continued his stellar SEC tournament by rising up and knocking down a three-pointer with a hand in his face on Missouri’s following possession. Geist then picked off an errant Auburn pass and drained another three. After Auburn answered with a three, Geist spun and pivoted his way into the lane and banked in a five-footer, closing Missouri’s deficit to four points. The Tigers tied the game a couple possessions later, when Torrence Watson hit one of his six three-pointers. The Auburn fans that comprised the majority of the crowd in Bridgestone Arena fell silent.
The death blow did arrive eventually. Auburn scored the next nine points after Watson’s game-tying three, and even though Missouri cut its deficit to as few as five points, Auburn never trailed again. The 81-71 loss ended Missouri’s season and Geist’s college career.
But even though the loss, like all season-ending defeats, stung for the Missouri players, the fact that Missouri was able to answer adversity and keep the game competitive into the final two minutes felt like tangible progress from six weeks ago, when Auburn outscored it 58-27 in the second half. In ways both good and bad, the loss epitomized the season for Missouri. It also illustrated the reasons players expressed optimism for the future. Missouri didn’t have as much talent or experience as its opponent, and the end result reflected that, but the team never quit.
“I think that a lot of teams would have quit after they got punched, but my thing is we gotta punch back every time we get punched,” said Geist, who finished the game with 25 points. “And that’s what we’ve been growing with this whole year, finishing games. Once you get punched, you gotta get back up and punch them again.”
Seemingly every time Missouri needed to answer an Auburn punch, it was Geist who did so. Geist scored Missouri’s first eight points of the game and 13 of its 30 in the first half. He finished with a game-high 25, an impressive encore to his 30-point performance against Georgia on Wednesday. The strong end to a college career that began at Ranger junior college elicited praise from both coaches after the game.
“Geist proves that it doesn't matter how high you jump, how fast, what your physique looks like,” Missouri coach Cuonzo Martin said. “Geist has done a tremendous job with his will to compete, with his will to win.”
“I didn't start off caring for Jordan Geist very much when he first started competing,” said Auburn coach Bruce Pearl. “He was sort of one of those players that if he was on your team, you'd love him. If he was on the other team, he bothered you. I want to congratulate him on a great career.”
The younger players on Missouri’s roster showed signs of taking on the toughness and resilience embodied by Geist. Pearl said he saw this game as a passing of the baton from Geist to Watson, who has exploded onto the scene in the past month. Watson scored 20 points Thursday and topped 12 in five of the team’s last six games of the season.
“I think that me personally, at the beginning of the year, I was almost a little lost on the court,” Watson said. “Now things have slowed down for me.”
Martin pointed to the progress displayed by fellow freshman Xavier Pinson, too. Even though Pinson struggled against Auburn’s pressure Thursday, committing eight turnovers in 24 minutes, Martin said his recent performances have given him hope. Martin believes the playing time Pinson and Watson have been forced into this season will benefit them in the future.
“They grew up,” Martin said. “I know I had the luxury as a freshman not to play a lot early. Older guys in front of me I could learn from. When I had my opportunity, I learned from those guys. Those guys learned some tough lessons but became better because of it.”
Eventually, Auburn’s offensive rebounding and three-point shooting wore Missouri down. Auburn shot nine-of-17 in the second half after making just three-of-17 shots from deep in the first half. Several of those makes in the final 20 minutes came off offensive rebounds, including a three-pointer from Brown that extended Auburn’s lead to nine points with 8:16 to play.
From the 11:22 mark in the second half until 47 seconds remained, when the result was all but decided, Auburn scored on 10 of 11 offensive possessions. Ten of its 26 points during that span came as a result of offensive rebounds.
“Four of those threes were long rebounds, ball tip, we didn't get the rebound,” Martin said. “Bam, bam, three-point shot. … I didn't think we did anything less defensively. I thought (Auburn got) loose balls.”
In the locker room after the game, Geist appeared significantly more subdued than he had been Wednesday night. Despite his heroic efforts in the conference tournament, his days in a Missouri uniform had ended. Several other players looked pained as well. Jeremiah Tilmon sat in one corner and rested his head on his arms, and Javon Pickett sat in another corner and stared blankly ahead as he talked on his cell phone.
But the players also acknowledged that, while this season’s losing record may be a disappointment, they believe the program is trending in the right direction. The resilience displayed Thursday is a major reason why. If Missouri is able to couple that level of fight with a healthy, more experienced roster, Martin said, it can be “as good as anybody in the league.”
“That’s the expectation,” senior Kevin Puryear said. “If you play for Missouri, you’re going to fight ‘til the end, you’re going to play hard. That’s our standard, and I think that we’ve created that.
"Our season wasn’t ideal. … We wanted to do a lot better than what we did. But one thing remained consistent: We always played hard, we always defended and we were always tough. That’s something the younger guys can pass on to the guys coming in next year.”
TURNING POINT: Auburn finally took the lead for good when Horace Spencer scored, drew a foul and made his free throw to cap off the play. Auburn then hit two back-breaking three-pointers after long offensive possessions. Danjel Purifoy hit a three at the end of the shot clock, and the following possession, Brown hit another three after two offensive rebounds to go up nine points.
IT WAS OVER WHEN: Watson hit a three-pointer to cut Auburn’s lead to five points with just under two minutes to play, but Brown answered with a corner three on the following possession. Pickett then missed a three and Chuma Okeke scored on a putback to put Auburn up 10 points with 47 seconds to play.
CAUSE FOR OPTIMISM: As described above, a Missouri team lacking the talent of Auburn managed to answer several Auburn runs and keep the game competitive throughout. As the young members of the roster gain experience and the team adds more talent, that fight will be invaluable.
CAUSE FOR CONCERN: It’s difficult to survive eight turnovers from an individual, particularly a point guard. Auburn’s Jordan Harper is one of the better defenders in the SEC, but Pinson will have to work on taking better care of the ball during the offseason.
STOCK UP: Mitchell Smith. Smith showed off another weapon in his arsenal Thursday by knocking down two important three-pointers in the first half. He finished the game with eight points in 27 minutes. Entering the SEC tournament, Smith had only scored six or more points four times all season and had not done so since Dec. 12. He scored six and eight, respectively, in the two games in Nashville, inspiring hope that he could help fill the void at power forward with another offseason of development.
STOCK DOWN: Javon Pickett. A day after missing all five of his shots against Georgia, Pickett failed to score once again and shot 0-for-7 against Auburn. It is worth nothing that, after the game, Martin said Pickett “hasn’t been healthy in the last month” due to a lingering back injury.
UP NEXT: Next season.
