Post-Game Report: Sharife Cooper, Auburn snap Mizzou's win streak
When Missouri assistant coach Chris Hollender and a couple players spoke to the media Monday, the majority of the questions centered around stopping Auburn freshman sensation Sharife Cooper. In just his first five college games, Cooper had taken the SEC by storm, averaging 21.1 points and 9.0 assists per contest.
Tuesday, he performed above even his lofty standards. Cooper stuffed the stat sheet with 28 points, 8 rebounds and 7 assists against Missouri. Cooper left the game for about eight minutes due to foul trouble, and during that time, Missouri out-scored Auburn by 12, making up for a slow start and taking a seven-point lead. But once Cooper returned, Auburn regained control and ultimately pulled out an 88-82 victory, snapping Missouri's winning streak at three games.
Below is our full report on the loss, starting with five things we learned.
* Missouri's strength for much of this season has been its defense, particularly on the perimeter. Last week, the Tigers shut down both South Carolina's high-scoring backcourt duo of AJ Lawson and Jermaine Couisnard as well as Tennessee's Keon Johnson and Santiago Vescovi. But Cooper represented a whole different challenge, one Missouri couldn't stop.
Missouri started the game with junior Xavier Pinson guarding Cooper. Dru Smith then got a shot, as did reserve guard Drew Buggs, for a bit. Even wing Javon Pickett spent some time guarding Cooper. Pickett might have had the most success of the group, but no one could consistently stay in front of Cooper, which coach Cuonzo Martin said is key to slowing him down. Auburn sent a steady diet of ball screens Cooper's way, and once he was able to use them to get past a defender, he had his choice of either scoring or finding an open teammate.
"The key is to try to keep him in front of you," Martin said. "It’s easier said than done because he’s shifty, he’s fast and he’s got multiple screens coming at you. But I think where he made his moves — and I don’t think so much he beat Dru Smith and those guys one on one — but when you beat the ball screens and they would maneuver through those ball screens, then he would have your bigs on their heels, attacking downhill. So I think that was it more than anything."
Cooper scored or assisted on 47 of Auburn's 88 points. His contributions helped Auburn score the most of any Missouri opponent this season. In fact, it's the first time an opponent has put up 80 points against the Tigers since Feb. 11 of last season.
The most telling number: During the 12 minutes Cooper spent on the bench during the course of the game, Missouri out-scored Auburn by 14 points. During the 28 minutes Cooper played, Auburn had a 20-point advantage. While a tight whistle played a big role in both Cooper's and Auburn's offensive output (more on that shortly), Martin certainly would have liked to see more from his defense.
"We gotta take ownership of things," he said. "You gotta keep (Cooper) in front of you, make him work, make him go over the top of you. He did a great job of, again, getting downhill.”
* A big part of Cooper's success: He shot a whopping 21 free throws, making 18. That wasn't an entirely new phenomenon — Cooper entered Tuesday averaging nine free throw attempts per game — but he hadn't gotten foul calls to this extreme. Prior to Tuesday, he had yet to attempt more than 15 shots from the line in a game during his young college career.
He wasn't the only Auburn player to draw fouls consistently, either. As a team, Missouri got whistled for 31 total fouls, including 20 in the second half. Auburn shot 44 free throws on the game. Only once during Martin's tenure at Missouri has an opponent attempted that many shots from the line — Auburn, last year. Missouri, meanwhile, shot 27 free throws as a result of 21 Auburn fouls.
Martin was diplomatic when asked about the officiating after the game.
"I’m not saying the officials didn’t do a good job, but man, 44 free throws, that’s a lot to beat any team on the road," he said.
Martin did point out that, once the fouls started mounting, Missouri had no choice but to play a bit less aggressive on the defensive end, which runs counter to the team's nature. Pinson, Dru Smith and Mark Smith all ended up fouling out of the game. Ultimately, Dru Smith said, it's up the players to adjust to the way the game is being called without losing their edge.
"That’s kind of who we are, we want to be kind of intense on the defensive end, kind of up in you," he said. "But, I mean, we have to adjust now to how the game is being called. We have to do better especially there in the second half of trying to make those adjustments, keeping our hands out and just making straight-up plays at the rim.”
* Early on, Missouri looked like a team playing its second road game in four nights. Auburn flustered Missouri with its speed and athleticism, forcing it to start just three of 16 from the field. However, when Cooper left the game with just over five minutes left in the first half after picking up his third foul, a charge drawn by Pickett, the visiting Tigers took advantage. Missouri out-scored Auburn 11-7 to pull within four at halftime. Then, with Cooper still out to start the second half, Missouri carried the momentum over and out-scored Auburn 10-2 in the first three-and-a-half minutes. Missouri led by as many as seven points with 15:24 to play.
Auburn then went on a 7-0 run to reclaim the momentum, which it would never relinquish. Freshman JT Thor hit a three-pointer after Cooper rebounded his own miss, then Mark Smith got called for an offensive foul. Cooper knifed into the lane and scored, then Jeremiah Tilmon lost a ball out of bounds for another turnover. Tilmon then picked up a foul on the other end, and Dylan Cardwell hit both free throws to tie the game.
The Auburn run coincided with the start of a cold stretch for Missouri's offense. From the 12-minute mark in the second half until 2:09 remained, Missouri made just five of 19 field goal attempts. During the same stretch, Auburn scored 15 points at the free throw line. By the time Missouri broke out of its shooting slump, it trailed by nine points with just over two minutes to play.
"I think in the second half, playing with good pace, getting the ball inside to Tilmon, forcing those guys to make plays, ... and I’m not sure what happened after that," Martin said. "I’ll have to watch. I thought maybe a quick shot here and there, a breakdown defensively, and we just kind of spiraled.”
* Missouri's shot selection wasn't always ideal, particularly early in the game, when Dru Smith said the team played into Auburn's hands by forcing a lot of three-pointers early in the shot clock. However, for most of the contest, the chief issue that led to the Tigers shooting 38.2 percent from the floor was not shot selection, but converting opportunities close to the basket.
Missouri finished the game just 18-of-38 on layup and dunk attempts. Part of that certainly had to do with Auburn's defense. The home Tigers finished the game with a whopping 14 blocks. But Martin and Dru Smith both said Missouri needed to do a better job of finishing around the basket.
"I’d say we probably just need to take one more dribble when we get in there," said Smith. "A lot of times we ended up jumping out more than we are up to finish at the rim, kind of going away from the contact, and that’s kind of what they wanted you to do."
Martin pointed to one series in particular in the second half that helped swing the momentum. Dru Smith got a steal but missed a contested layup on the ensuing fast break. Pickett ran the floor behind him and tried to tap the ball in but missed as well. Auburn drew a foul on the other end of the floor.
"You gotta give credit, there were probably a couple they made good blocks," Martin said. "But I think more than anything, the ones I watched from the sideline, we didn’t go up strong, we didn’t go up finishing the ball, we didn’t make contact and keep our heads up, finishing. Like the one Dru Smith had in the second half could have put us up three, with Sharife Cooper on him, missed it and then Javon tipped it. I mean, those are tough ones. You gotta have those.”
* Missed layup aside, Dru Smith was one bright spot for Missouri. The reigning SEC player of the week continued his strong play, leading the team with 21 points. He also had four rebounds and three assists in 21 minutes.
Smith has been noticeably more assertive on the offensive end of the floor since Missouri returned from its COVID-induced layoff, which Martin said has been at the direction of the coaching staff. During Missouri's last four games, he has averaged 17.5 points per game. He's become the team's most reliable three-point shooter, too. Smith made three-of-four triples against Auburn to bring his percentage to 45.4 in the past four games and 41.3 on the season.
“He’s a good basketball player," Martin said of Smith. "I thought he did some good stuff in guarding Sharife. I mean, it’s not an easy assignment."
ROOM FOR IMPROVEMENT: Missouri didn't just miss a lot of easy scoring opportunities around the basket. The team, and particularly Tilmon, struggled at the free throw line.
Tilmon was largely solid in the contest, racking up 19 points and 10 rebounds, his fourth double-double in his last six games. But he struggled mightily from the free throw line, making just three of 11 attempts. He missed six of his final seven shots from the line, including the front end of a one-and-one. As a team, Missouri made 18 of its 27 free throws.
Tilmon entered the matchup shooting 55.0 percent from the line this season, but 62.5 percent during SEC play. Martin said the amount of time the team has spent on the road of late could have played a role, as Tilmon and his teammates don't have the same regular access to a gym, but the issue was clearly exacerbated by a lack of confidence.
“I think it’s reps and his routine," Martin said. "Of course he’s more efficient in working on them at home because you have access to facilities, and not to say that’s the reason why he missed shots. I mean, three of 11, I think he’s a better free throw shooter than that. They just didn’t go for him."
STAR OF THE GAME: While Cooper was the clear overall MVP, Dru Smith gets the honors for Missouri. Smith scored 21 points, grabbed four rebounds and dished three assists on the offensive end while spending quite a bit of time matched up against Cooper on defense.
WHAT IT MEANS: Ultimately, given that Missouri was coming off a big win late Saturday night and didn't get a chance to return to Columbia between games, this loss shouldn't be major cause for concern, provided Missouri can eliminate some of its defensive breakdowns and shoot better around the rim going forward. A Saturday home matchup against TCU, which hasn't played a game since Jan. 12, as part of the SEC-Big 12 Challenge should provide an opportunity to get back in the win column. Tip-off is set for 1 p.m.
QUOTABLE: “I think we were up seven or eight in the second half, moving the ball inside, moving the ball, then all of a sudden, quick shot here, turnover, missed layup. I think more than anything momentum killers were, I think we had a lot at the rim that I think should have gone down, and we didn’t make them, and it turned the game.”” -- Cuonzo Martin
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