Post-Game Report: Dru Smith's late layup lifts Mizzou to win at Florida
After Mitchell Smith buried a three-pointer from the top of the key with 2:27 to play, it looked as if Missouri was going to cruise to a much-needed road victory. The Tigers had led for the entire second half, and the bucket put them up eight points.
Then, the type of second-half woes that had become common during Missouri's recent skid, in which it lost four out of five games, started to surface. Jeremiah Tilmon missed a layup on one end and then didn't get back on defense, leading to an open dunk for Florida's Colin Castleton. Mark Smith gave up an offensive rebound to Tyree Appleby and then fouled him. Then, what looked like it could be the back-breaking mistake: Tilmon got whistled for his fifth foul while wrestling with Castleton for an offensive rebound. The call not only sent Tilmon to the bench, it gave Castleton two free throws with 19.2 seconds to play. Castleton made both, tying the game at 70 points apiece.
Missouri got the ball across half-court and called a timeout. Martin opted to put the ball in the hands of Smith, who had led the way for the Tigers all night, on both ends of the floor. Smith got the ball on the right wing, refused a ball screen and drove around Florida's Tre Mann. Two help defenders, Castleton and Anthony Duruji, crashed down the lane to try to block Smith's shot, but Smith deftly ducked under the rim, using it for protection. His reverse layup spun around the cylinder and dropped with less than a second remaining, giving Missouri a 72-70 win.
The victory improves Missouri to 15-7 overall and 8-7 in SEC play. It's the seventh Quadrant I victory of the season for the Tigers and virtually guarantees the team will make just its second NCAA Tournament appearance in the past eight years. Here's our full report from the win, including what we learned.
* As the game wound down, Dru Smith said he wasn't sure Cuonzo Martin would put the ball in his hands again in a late-clock situation. Smith struggled down the stretch of Missouri's loss to Ole Miss last week, missing two shots and turning the ball over during as the Rebels pulled away during the final few minutes. Martin also noted that Smith passed up a shot he likely should have taken on the Tigers' second-to-last offensive possession against Florida.
Still, with the team taking the ball out of bounds with about 15 seconds to play in a tie game, Martin didn't hesitate. He knew he wanted Smith to decide the outcome.
"He’s a guy one that can make free throws, a guy that I trust (if) he needs to make the pull-up, he needs to make the pass," Martin said of Smith. "He’s tough enough, physical enough. ... So we were winning or losing with him making that decision, whatever it was. I thought he passed up a shot the previous play down, and then we fouled them, and I just said, 'Hey, come on now. Be the guy you’re supposed to be.'"
One of Missouri's areas of emphasis during its eight-day layoff between games, Smith said, was late-clock execution. Forty-five second games had become more prevalent during the Tigers' practices. So with Missouri needing a bucket to avoid the prospect of overtime on the road without Tilmon, Smith felt confident.
Martin called for Missouri's post players to roll to the top of the key, clearing room for Smith to drive. After Smith received a pass from Xavier Pinson on the right wing, he refused a ball screen (by design) and drove to the basket. If the shot was there, Martin had instructed him, take it. If not, he had Mark Smith set up for a shot on one side of the floor and Pinson on the other.
Once Smith got around Mann with ease, he knew he would take the shot himself. When he saw Florida's shot-blockers charging at him, he used his craftiness to keep them from getting a hand on the ball.
“I just thought if I would have went up on that first side that Castleton or Duruji would have got it," Smith, ever even-keeled, explained. "So they were definitely coming down the lane quick, and I just kind of went up to the other side.”
The shot rolled through the rim before the final buzzer sounded, but a few Missouri players on the floor started celebrating, anyway.
“Shoot, that’s Dru Smith," Mitchell Smith said of the play. "At the end of the day, I’ve got the most confidence in Dru. So he ran the play exactly like coach wanted him to, and then he put a little flair on it with the up-and-under. "
"He made a play at the rim," Martin said, "and it was a great one."
* Dru wasn't the only Smith to come up clutch down the stretch for Missouri. With Kobe Brown neutralized by foul trouble, senior big man Mitchell Smith had to take on a larger role, playing a season-high 33 minutes. Smith scored 12 of his 14 points in the second half. Prior to Dru Smith's game-winner, Mitchell Smith had scored seven of Missouri's past 16 points.
Martin said it wasn't just Mitchell Smith's scoring that stood, out, either. He grabbed six rebounds and helped anchor Missouri's defense. Martin, who has likened Mitchell Smith to a credit card this season because "you can't leave home without him," said he got back to being that type of versatile contributor against Florida.
"He stepped up big tonight," Martin said. "And again, I just talked to him a day or two ago and said, Mitch, we need the old Mitch, man. And that’s the guy that plays hard, competes. And it isn’t so much how many shots go into the basket, it’s not that, it’s how hard he plays and competes. I mean, the guy’s 6-11 and can make a shot. When he’s engaged and his shot’s falling, now he’s defending, he’s as good as any small forward, power forward in our conference because of all the other stuff."
Mitchell Smith said he took Martin's message to heart. He took the floor more concerned about his defense and rebounding, and the scoring "just came to me." For just the second time this season, he hit two three-pointers in a game with the second one looking, at the time, like it might be the dagger. Just as important, four of his rebounds came on the offensive end and led to seven of Missouri's nine second-chance points.
“I think winning the offensive boards was huge," Mitchell Smith said. "That’s kind of like a demoralizer for a team when a guy or a team just goes in there and kind of takes offensive boards from you. That kind of makes the other team tired, and it showed tonight. I feel like we just gotta keep going to the boards strong, and like coach says every night, we win the rebounding war, we usually win the game.”
* Missouri also got good games from the other members of its starting backcourt not named Dru Smith. Martin has been fairly open about wanting better play from Pinson during the team's recent struggles — in particular, more downhill attacking. While Pinson didn't find the scoring easy around the basket against Florida, he did hit four three-pointers and scored 14 points overall. Martin was pleased with Pinson's willingness to push the tempo and the fact that he avoided moving sideline-to-sideline.
"You might as well call (Pinson) 'North and South,'" Martin said. "First name North, last name South. And that’s when he’s at his best, because if anything else, he’s not very effective. He needs to be downhill, attacking and aggressive, and when he does that, he gets shots, other guys get shots, the ball moves and everything flows. But if he’s a guy that’s going from sideline to sideline, he might as well not play that night, because he’s not the same guy.”
Pinson only scored twice in the second half, but both shots came at pivotal moments when Florida threatened to seize the momentum. The first came after the Gators cut Missouri's lead to a single point with about six minutes to play. A thunderous, one-handed dunk by Duruji a couple possessions before had Florida buzzing, but Pinson ended the run by drilling a three-pointer from the top of the key. Florida answered with four straight points to cut the lead back to two, then Pinson blew by his defender and made his only shot of the night from inside the three-point arc. That started a 7-1 run for Missouri, which culminated in Mitchell Smith's made three.
Mark Smith also came up with some big buckets. He scored the first five points of the game for the Tigers and finished with 11. It marked the fourth game in a row Mark Smith has scored at least 11 points after he went through a prolonged slump that spanned much of the conference season.
"The last four games, Mark has been great," Martin said. "It’s the film study, it’s the execution, it’s the mental preparation in practice, and it’s great to see, because when guys work as hard as he works — I said it when he was struggling, all he had to do was focus on the things we were talking about, he’ll be okay, because he already worked hard."
* The primary reason Missouri was able to build a seven-point lead during the first half was because Florida turned the ball over at a dizzying rate. The Gators gave the ball away a whopping 15 times during the first 20 minutes. On the game, Missouri scored 25 points off 18 Florida turnovers.
Some of those giveaways were simply the result of sloppy play on Florida's part, but Martin was pleased with the role his defense played. Missouri finished the game with nine steals, six of them from Dru Smith. Martin attributed that to his team getting back on defense, which had been a problem area at times over the past month.
"When our defense is set, we’re as good as any in America," Martin said. "So set the defense, make guys work, tighten the screws up in your middle ball screen, and now Dru Smith can be Dru Smith, Mitchell can get in the passing lane, Jeremiah blocking shots, (Pinson) can get in the lanes. So now everything flows. But we have to be set in order to do that."
Dru Smith said the Tigers' ability to take the ball away from Florida on the defensive end helped spark the team's offense to life. For much of this season, Missouri had feasted on transition opportunities, but had experienced dwindling success in that area during its recent slump. Dru Smith said that was a major area of emphasis during the eight-day layoff, and the ability to force live-ball turnovers allowed Missouri to get that facet of its game going.
"I think it helped us a lot there in the first half," Dru Smith said. "It’s easy to run when you can get live-ball turnovers, especially. So I thought we did a good job of getting those turnovers, getting those stops and getting out in transition, there, especially the first half.”
* Most of the time, if someone who didn't know Martin were to watch his postgame press conference, it would be difficult to decipher whether his team won or lost. Martin generally stays stoic in front of the camera. But he buzzed as he spoke to reporters on Zoom after Wednesday's game, cracking jokes and talking a mile a minute.
It wasn't because Wednesday marked Missouri's first victory in Gainesville in program history that the win meant a bit more to Martin, nor even that he felt the game clinched an NCAA Tournament at-large berth. He already viewed the Tigers as safely in the field, he said, and that's not something he talks about with the team. He was pleased because he felt this win represented Missouri getting back to what it did well early in the season, when it started the year 13-3 and rose as high as No. 10 in the national rankings.
“They’re all big," Martin said. "But is this a big one, yes. ... Let’s play the way we know how to play. So that part made it fun. Again, we didn’t finish like we needed to, we were up eight points, finish the game. But it just feels good to get a road win, man."
Martin made sure to acknowledge that his team's performance wasn't perfect, but he specifically pointed to Missouri's havoc-inducing defense, particularly in the first half, and flowing offense as things the Tigers had gotten away from during their recent skid. Dru Smith said the home loss to Ole Miss had been eating at the team over the past eight days, so to respond with a win should boost the players' confidence as they prepare for the SEC and NCAA Tournaments.
"It’s a great road win," said Smith. "It definitely meant a lot to us, just to get us back on track. I thought we played hard, I thought we did a good job pushing the ball in transition, some things that were a little questionable there for a few games. So I think that we were able to go out and execute and come out with a win.”
ROOM FOR IMPROVEMENT: Missouri, which has struggled during second halves for much of the past month, made this one a lot more suspenseful than it needed to with a series of errors in the final two minutes. Tilmon, in particular, had a couple lapses that looked more like his underclassman self than the steady player he's become this season. As a whole, Martin said he would like to see Tilmon demand the ball more than he did Wednesday, even when defended by two players. Given his body of work this season, though, Martin didn't seem too concerned about the issues lingering.
STAR OF THE GAME: This one is easy. Not only did Dru Smith score the game-winner (asked after the game, he said he couldn't recall ever scoring the winning basket at the buzzer before in his basketball career), but he led Missouri in points, assists, steals and minutes played. His final stat line: 17 points, 3 rebounds, 9 assists, 6 steals, 1 block, 1 turnover in 37 minutes. That'll do.
“Man, Dru’s our leader," Mitchell Smith said. "He’s the most calm guy you’ll meet. Nothing really flusters Dru. ... At the end of the day, I got the most trust in him, and that’s just how you define Dru, really. That’s what he does for our team. He’s a big-time player.”
WHAT IT MEANS: Missouri is now assured that it will return to the NCAA Tournament. The Tigers should also be in pretty good position to avoid drawing an eight or nine seed, which would set them up to play a one seed in the round of 32, as long as they can avoid being upset in their first game of the SEC Tournament. Speaking of the league championship, after Wednesday's win, the Tigers can now climb as high as fifth in the standings with a win over LSU on Saturday. Should the Tigers lose, they would enter the conference tournament seeded either seventh or eighth, depending on other results.
QUOTABLE: “(The players) were jumping, and when I got in the locker room, I just said, ‘Stack it up, guys. Let’s get out of here as fast as we can, we don’t want them taking it back from us. Let’s get out of here.’” -- Cuonzo Martin
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