With less than 40 seconds left in Missouri's matinee matchup against Florida, the Tigers went inside to Kobe Brown. The team's leading scorer felt a Florida defender help across the lane, so he dished a perfect wrap-around pass to a cutting Ronnie DeGray III for a layup. The bucket gave the Tigers a three-point lead with 36 seconds to play, and for a moment, it looked like Missouri would be able to do what it couldn't in several recent games: score enough down the stretch to win a close game.
Instead, seconds after DeGray's layup went in, things once again fell apart.
Out of a Missouri timeout, Florida inbounded the ball to point guard Tyree Appleby, who was immediately fouled by DaJuan Gordon, roughly 80 feet from the basket. The foul, which Cuonzo Martin called a "mental error" after the game, gave Appleby a pair of free throws, which he made. Trailing by a point, Florida fouled Missouri's Boogie Coleman with 21 seconds to play. Coleman missed the front end of a one-and-one, giving the ball right back to the Gators.
Missouri nearly came up with a turnover, but Florida dove on a loose ball and called its final timeout with 11 seconds left. Out of the break, the Gators went to Appleby, who scored all 17 of his points in the second half. Appleby got to his right and drew a foul on Amari Davis. He made both free throws to put Florida back in the lead for the first time since 17:12 remained in the game.
Missouri would have one last shot to win the game, which was moved six hours earlier than origially scheduled due to snow. A baseline out of bounds play with 2.2 seconds left went to Coleman in the corner, but his contested three-pointer missed everything, giving Florida a 66-65 win.
The loss marked Missouri's fourth in a row and sixth in its past seven games. In four of those six losses, the Tigers have led by more than three points with less than eight minutes to play.
Asked after the game what needs to change for his team to better finish out close games, Martin called for better focus.
“Just the attention to detail on both sides," he said. "You have to take the scouting report down the stretch of games, and I don’t think we did a good job of that on defense.
"You gotta finish these games. You gotta finish them.”
Here are five things we learned from the latest loss.
1. Change one of several different breakdowns in the final 40 seconds and Missouri likely wins that game.
Let's first simply rehash how the Tigers' late collapse unfolded. The first mistake was Gordon fouling Appleby in the backcourt less than two seconds after the ball was inbounded. Martin assured that was not instructed during the preceding timeout.
"It’s as if you’re aggressively trying to foul him," he said of Gordon. "You don’t want to do that. You want him to try to make a play. Set your defense, come down and score. But you don’t want that to happen.”
Still, following Appleby's made free throws, the Tigers still led. Missouri actually almost turned the ball back over to Florida, which might explain why the ball ended up in the hands of Coleman, a 65.5 percent free throw shooter, instead of Davis (80 percent) or Brown (75.6 percent), but given the circumstances, the outcome could have been worse. Martin chalked up Coleman missing his first free throw as an example of something the team works on regularly that it failed to execute down the stretch Wednesday.
Another example was allowing Appleby to get to his right on Florida's final possession. Martin said that was the scouting report on Appleby, who has emerged as the Gators' leading scorer since starting center Colin Castleton went down with a shoulder injury. Still, Davis allowed Appleby to drive toward the basket with his right hand. Once he initiated contact with Davis, he pulled up, perhaps sold the contact, and shot, drawing a whistle.
"You’re looking at some of them from the sideline, at least from my angle, when Appleby went in there a couple times," Martin paused. "It’s part of the game."
Following Appleby's second made free throw, Missouri called timeout. The Tigers put the ball in Davis' hands. He penetrated into the mid-range area and pirouetted around a mid-range defender, but Tuongthatch Gatkek helped off Trevon Brazile. Instead of dishing it to Brazile, who Martin pointed out after the game was open for a dunk, Davis took an off-balance shot that Gatkek swatted out of bounds.
That left the Tigers with one last chance: a baseline out of bounds play. Martin said the play he drew up gave inbounder Kaleb Brown three options: Davis cutting toward the rim, Coleman in the corner or Kobe Brown at the top of the key. Davis may have flashed open for a moment, but Kaleb Brown opted to give the ball to Coleman. The Florida defense was ready for the shot, and forced a wild heave at the buzzer.
2. The sting from this one might have been worse because of the parallels to Missouri's loss to Auburn eight days prior.
Following that game, Martin drew quite a bit of heat for not fouling with his team down by one point with a little more than five seconds difference between the shot and game clocks. Well, Florida found itself in a nearly identical position, trailing Missouri by a point with 34 seconds left. After failing to come up with a steal (something the Tigers didn't try to do against Auburn), the Gators committed a foul with 21 seconds to play. The strategy, obviously, worked.
The two situations weren't perfectly analogous. Missouri hadn't yet reached the double bonus Wednesday, like Auburn. Missouri also likely would have had to foul a better free throw shooter, percentage-wise, than Coleman in Auburn's Wendell Green Jr. But for the Tigers to find themselves in nearly the exact opposite situation as two games ago and wind up losing by one point both times is tough to swallow.
3. Of all the late-game errors, Martin harped most on his defense continually allowing Appleby to go right.
Florida survived without much from Appleby in the first half thanks to some lights-out shooting. Appleby played just five minutes before picking up his second foul and going to the bench until after the break, but Florida knocked down eight of 14 attempts from behind the arc to take a two-point lead into halftime. In the second half, however, the shots stopped falling, and the Gators leaned on Appleby for offense.
The senior, who has now scored more than 10 points in seven straight games, continually found his way around Missouri defenders, which either resulted in layups or free throws. Appleby went to the line 10 times, all in the second half, and made all 10 attempts.
Multiple times during his postgame press conference, Martin bemoaned the fact that, despite a pregame emphasis to make Appleby go left, "99 percent of his production was going right."
"Make him beat you going the other way," Martin said. "That’s what the scouting report says. And simply put, if he beats us going left, that’s on me. But you can’t allow him to do what he does best."
4. Missouri lost a game in which it outscored Florida 32-14 from the paint. You don't see that often.
Playing without Castleton or his backup, Jason Jitoboh, Florida spent most of the game with a small lineup on the floor. In the first half, the Gators beat the Tigers from the three-point arc. In the second, they did so from the free throw line.
Florida, which entered Wednesday having averaged 32 three-point attempts across its past four games, opened the game on fire from deep. The Gators knocked down four of their first five three-point attempts and seven of their first 10. Myreon Jones, in particular, was on fire. The Penn State transfer made five of seven threes in the first half.
At halftime, Brown said, Missouri made it an emphasis to beat Jones and the other Florida shooters to their spots. That paid off, as the Gators made just two of nine three-pointers during the second half.
But Florida made up for it by getting to the line at will. The Gators got to the line 21 times during the second half, making 19 of those attempts. On the game, Florida attempted 26 free throws to 17 for Missouri. The Gators made just seven two-point field goals all game. They only made two shots in the final seven minutes of regulation, yet outscored the Tigers by six points during that span.
Martin didn't take issue with the way the game was called, but with his team's defense. Brown agreed, saying Missouri's players need to do a better job of not even putting themselves in position where a foul might be called.
“I just think we can’t even give them a reason to think about making a call," Brown said. "... These other guys are going to try and make you foul them, I would say, so we just gotta be aware of that and not give them the chance to get a foul.”
5. The Tigers still haven't won a game in which Kobe Brown fails to score 10 points. They are now 0-9 in such contests on the season.
Prior to Wednesday's game, Martin said he wanted to see Brown be more decisive and assertive. While Brown only took six shots against Florida, making three of them, Martin thought he played better in that regard. He noted that Brown, who logged three assists, helped create scoring opportunities for others, and he would have liked to see more players flash open when Brown faced two defenders.
However, playing against an opponent that featured just one healthy player taller than 6-foot-7, Missouri would have like to have gotten more out of Brown, particularly around the basket. Whether it's by getting him more touches or Brown making more of his opportunities, this season has shown that the Tigers need more than they've been getting from their leading scorer in the past four games.
“I thought he did a good job with establishing position, especially in the second half," Martin said of Brown. "Just making quick moves. But again, it’s one of those cases, they’re hovering around him, other guys gotta be ready to make plays. Like Ronnie dove late and got a basket. So that will happen, and you just gotta be quick and be aggressive. And I think one of the biggest things, just really trying to work with him on sometimes if he’s able to post deep, so now the double can’t get there in time.”
Star of the Game: DeGray served as a bright spot. The UMASS transfer led Missouri with 13 points on 6-7 shooting. He also logged three rebounds, an assist, a block and a steal.
Room for Improvement: Missouri simply has to find a way to close out tight games. The cause of the loss never seems to be quite the same, but in four of the past seven games, the result has been. This team simply has to find a way to make the one or two more plays — or avoid the one or two gaffes — it takes to wind up on the right side of a close contest.
“Got to minimize the mental errors,” said Brown. "Just make smart plays. Can’t have any slip-ups. When it’s coming down the wire, every little thing matters and every little thing counts.”
What it means: Missouri missed another opportunity to win a game it probably should have won. While this result on its own doesn't mean a ton for the Tigers, who have long since been eliminated from realistic NCAA Tournament contention, the accumulation of losses adds more and more warmth to Martin's seat.
Next up: Missouri will travel to Texas A&M on Saturday. The Aggies beat the Tigers 67-64 in the first meeting between the two teams this season on Jan. 15. Since that game, Texas A&M has dropped five in a row. Tipoff is set for 3 p.m.
Quotable: “We’re shooting the ball better than we have all season offensively, but we’ve got to be able to get those consistent stops. I think our issues more than anything, though the numbers might look productive, holding teams to 39 percent, but we’ve got to be consistent with getting stops, and now this is a 10 or 12-point game.” -- Cuonzo Martin
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