Missouri has gotten blown out plenty of times this season, particularly during SEC play. The Tigers have also pushed quite a few conference opponents to the wire, as they did Tuesday at South Carolina. Missouri trailed for nearly 35 minutes, but cut the Gamecock lead to one point with 1:34 to play.
Regardless of how the game has unfolded, the result has generally been the same. Missouri lost again Tuesday, its sixth defeat in a row and 11th in its past 13 games. The defeat drops the Tigers to 10-20 on the season with one game to play before the SEC tournament, marking the first 20-loss season for Cuonzo Martin since his first year as a head coach, 2008-09 at Missouri State.
Missouri battled back from a 14-point deficit in the second half but could never regain the lead. The key issues down the stretch were the same ones that have plagued the Tigers all season: namely, turnovers and missed three-point shots. The team turned the ball over 15 times and shot 4-18 from behind the arc. A late scoring spree from Kobe Brown gave Missouri a chance, but it ultimately fell to 1-5 on the season in games decided by four points or fewer.
Here are five things we learned from the loss.
1. Missouri simply never could string together enough plays to sustain a run and take the lead.
After falling behind by 14 points, the Tigers put together a 7-0 run to cut their deficit in half. Later, they had another 7-0 surge as well as a 5-0 run. But whether it was due to a missed shot or an untimely turnover or a South Carolina score, the Gamecocks never lost control.
Martin pointed to two issues that kept Missouri from completing the comeback: fouls on the defensive end of the floor and missed three-pointers on offense. The Tigers got whistled for 12 fouls during the second half, 10 of which came during the final 8:38. Those led to 16 South Carolina free throws. The Gamecocks made 14. Eleven of South Carolina's final 15 points came from the charity stripe.
"Just thought some key fouls down the stretch, meaning us fouling, got those guys to the free throw line, kind of turned the game a bit," Martin said.
While a few of those fouls came when Missouri was trying to extend the lead in the final few minutes, Javon Pickett called most of them "unnecessary." He chalked those mistakes up to a lack of focus and execution, which have become buzzwords after the Tigers' close losses this season.
"Once we started to play defense, that led to some offense," Pickett said. "But at the end we was fouling, unnecessary fouls. So just really being focused and smart in that aspect.”
2. The three-point shooting woes were nothing new.
Missouri shot 4-18 from behind the arc Tuesday — and that's including a meaningless shot at the buzzer from Brown that cut the final margin from seven points to four. Prior to that point, the Tigers had missed eight consecutive three-pointers.
That marked the fifth game in a row that Missouri has failed to top 23 percent from behind the three-point line. That is not exactly a lofty benchmark. The Tigers, who have spent virtually the entire season as the worst-ranked three-point shooting team in the country among high-major programs, now rank No. 354 out of 358 Division I teams overall.
As Martin noted after the game, a good number of the team's looks from deep were uncontested, as South Carolina prioritized stopping the Tigers around the basket. But as has been the case for much of the season, Missouri failed to make an opponent pay for employing that defensive strategy.
"Between (Trevon Brazile) and Kobe and Javon putting pressure on the defense, getting in the paint, they had a lot of opportunities to make threes," Martin said. "It just didn’t go for us. ... We just couldn’t get the three-ball to go like we needed to. Especially with those ones with Ronnie (DeGray) up top. You get those to go, it really changes the game.”
3. Kobe Brown finally broke out of his mini slump, but it came too late.
Brown played his worst game of the season at LSU on Saturday, failing to make a field goal and scoring just two points. It looked like that trend would continue at South Carolina, as Brown failed to score during the first half. He played just seven minutes prior to the break due to being called for two fouls.
But Martin said he challenged Brown to be stronger with the ball and assert himself around the basket. Brown responded, scoring 19 points and grabbing eight rebounds. Fourteen of those points came in the game's final 4:21.
“I just challenged him just from the standpoint, come on, man, you’re a high level talent," Martin said. "Guys can’t knock the ball out of your hand. If they knock the ball out of your hand, there should be blood somewhere."
The late surge gave Brown his highest point total in a game since Feb. 5 and nearly allowed Missouri to retake the lead. But Brown came away from the game wishing he had asserted himself sooner.
“I didn’t play a lot the first half," Brown said. "That was on me. I got two fouls. ... I gotta come in, do more, help the team more, contribute to the team. I feel like I’m the missing piece, or I was one of the missing pieces out there."
4. It was not a banner day for the Missouri point guards.
That position has been a source of consternation for Tiger fans all season, and that trend continued at South Carolina. Boogie Coleman and his backup, Kaleb Brown, both went scoreless. The two combined to record three assists, three turnovers and eight fouls. Coleman fouled out of the game in the final minute.
But the Tigers' turnover woes extended well beyond the point guards. South Carolina's swarming defense forced 15 giveaways, the ninth time this season Missouri has hit that number. Kobe Brown accounted for four of those turnovers, while Pickett and DaJuan Gordon had three apiece.
"They’re going to hurt everyone, every team," Kobe Brown said of turnovers. "They’re never a good thing.”
5. It's hard to feel good about much of anything at this point in the season, but Javon Pickett deserves a shoutout.
Pickett not only extended his streak of scoring in double-figures when healthy to 14 games, he recorded a career-high 23 points. His previous best had also come at South Carolina, way back in 2019, his sophomore season.
Pickett, Missouri's lone senior, has also been the team's only consistent source of offense for a while now, and he almost single-handedly kept the score from getting out of hand. Martin chalked up his recent hot streak to his experience.
“If you watched him the last however many games, he’s been at that level," Martin said of Pickett. "When you have that level of experience, you’re battle-tested, you understand, like, as they say, the game kind of slows down. You have a different feel because you’re experienced. You know angles, you know opponents, you know how they defend, you know how to get your basket."
Pickett wasn't the only Missouri player to log a career-high. Freshman Trevon Brazile grabbed a season-best nine rebounds to go along with nine points. He also showed off his defensive ability by blocking a shot and making perhaps the most athletic play of the night when he fell down on the defensive end but promptly sprang back to his feet in time to steal a pass. Martin said he "wanted to give him a hug" upon seeing that.
After missing the first eight games of the season due to an undisclosed medical issue, Brazile has emerged as a bright spot for the Tigers, and he keeps getting better. Brazile scored 11 points and grabbed five rebounds Saturday at LSU.
"He had a career-high," Pickett said of Brazile. "He made great plays. He had an unbelievable block. He can block shots, rebound, he can score the ball. So the main thing for him, just continuing to get stronger. Once Trev gets stronger, sky’s the limit.”
Star of the Game: Pickett continued to play the best basketball of his career as it winds to a close. He's now averaging 13.5 points per game against SEC opponents this season. In addition to serving as Missouri's emotional leader, he's become the team's lead offensive option.
Room for Improvement: As far as Missouri feels from relevance with a 10-20 record and having lost six games in a row, this season could have a completely different feel if the Tigers could find a way to better finish out close games. As noted above, the team is 1-5 in games decided by four points or fewer. The issues that have led to the close losses haven't always been the same, but the final results certainly constitute a trend.
What it means: We're one game closer to the end of this season, and possibly the end of Martin's tenure at Missouri.
Next up: Missouri will close the regular season at home against Georgia on Saturday. The Bulldogs are the lone SEC team with fewer conference wins than the Tigers this season. Tipoff is set for 2:30 p.m.
Quotable: “I gotta be out there helping (Pickett) getting rebounds and helping him get to his shots. Just helping the team as much as I can. But I can’t do that if I’m not on the court.” -- Kobe Brown
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