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Tepid Missouri throttled by Florida

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On Saturday, Missouri men’s basketball picked up a potentially season-defining win over No. 11 Auburn. It was a signature win for the Tigers and the latest indicator of a midseason turnaround.

Missouri women’s basketball couldn’t quite capture that same magic less than 24 hours later at Mizzou Arena. Instead, the women suffering the same sort of loss the Tigers have suffered over and over this season.

Missouri (6-19, 3-9 SEC) fell for eighth time in 10 games Sunday, dropping its ninth conference contest of the season, 75-67, at the hands of the Florida Gators (14-11, 5-7 SEC). The Tigers trimmed the deficit with a 29-point fourth quarter, coming to life far too late with the help of a smothering press after a listless third period, but the late run served only to mask what was another paltry showing for Robin Pingeton’s squad. With four regular season games remaining before the SEC Tournament, Missouri sits 12th in the conference and poised for its worst finish under the 10th year head coach.

Aijha Blackwell continued her scoring ways, dropping 20 points in the losing effort, and Amber Smith did her part with 13 of her own. Otherwise, Missouri’s offense was largely nowhere to be found and the Gators took full advantage on both ends, forcing 19 Missouri turnovers while converting 12 three-pointers on the afternoon, six of which were scored by Florida freshman Brylee Bartram, who torched the Tigers from deep.

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Robin Pingeton saw her Missouri team lose its eighth game in its last 10 tries Sunday.
Robin Pingeton saw her Missouri team lose its eighth game in its last 10 tries Sunday. (Jordan Kodner)

The Tigers were missing starting point guard and leading 3-point shooter Jordan Chavis Sunday. The senior sat with a concussion which she suffered against LSU on Feb. 10. Pingeton said postgame that Chavis is day-to-day. Haley Troup started in her place and finished with six-points in 19 minutes.

Sitting at the podium following her team's ninth home loss of the season, Pingeton refused to use Chavis’ absence or the performance of any of her players as an excuse.

The blame, she said, was on her.

“This game is 100% on me,” Pingeton said. “I didn’t have our girls ready to go.”

“I’ve got to look myself in the mirror and figure out what I did or didn’t do to get them ready to go,” she continued. “I think a team is a direct reflection of their coach. I don’t have an answer, but I’ll continue to try to figure it out.”

Persistent offensive lulls have been one of Missouri's ugliest characteristics in 2019-20 and Sunday’s performance offered no reprieve. After Hannah Schuchts (six points, three rebounds) drained a 3-pointer after the opening tip, the Tigers hit just two field goals in the ensuing eight minutes. Over that same span, Florida scored 14 straight points to open up a 19-7 lead, tormenting the Tigers with ball-screens leading to open shots in the paint and on the perimeter.

A late quarter barrage from Smith and Troup cut the deficit to 19-15, but a similar offensive let-up at the start of the second period put the Tigers right back in the hole.

Missouri’s meek offense and strong starts from Bartram and fellow freshman Lavender Briggs, who together lit the Tigers up for 19 first half points, spotted the Gators healthy early leads while the Tigers struggled for even a semblance of offensive flow. Missouri clawed back, cutting the gap again and even leading for a moment in the second quarter, but could never quite overcome the Gators and entered halftime trailing, 36-29.

All afternoon, when the Tigers pushed back, Florida always seemed to have an answer.

“We were always focused on the next play and kept getting good possessions for ourselves,” said Florida coach Cam Newbauer. “Really, we just knew when to clamp down defensively. Missouri had 41 points with 6:30 left in the game. That was the game for me. 41 points through 34 minutes is a really good day.”

The game got away from the Tigers entirely in a familiar place: the third quarter.

For a second straight game, Missouri scored fewer than 10 points out of the half, mustering just nine points on 20% shooting in Sunday’s third quarter. As Florida’s offense picked up steam — the Gators shot 60% from three-point range in the quarter – the Tigers fell apart. Six turnovers. Four missed free throws. Only two made field goals. By the end of it, Missouri trailed 54-38.

Sluggish third quarters have become a trend for the Tigers, and in the same way Pingeton had no answer for the team’s overall performance, the players struggled to pinpoint the cause of their recent problems after halftime. Smith, who now has just two home games remaining in her college career, offered up the closest thing to an explanation.

“We’re coming out of the locker room lackadaisical,” she said. “We have to be on our A-game for 40 minutes. When we’re in the locker room we always talk about how we’ll come out in the second half. We just aren’t doing it.”

By the time the Tigers finally figured things out midway through the fourth quarter, the game had already been sealed.

The full-court press Pingeton deployed, which came 25 minutes too late, proved effective as the Tigers forced six turnovers and scored 26 points over the game’s final seven minutes. Blackwell and Smith, along with Hayley Frank (10 points, six rebounds), padded their stat lines on fast breaks against the Florida bench and cut the deficit to single-digits while waking up the dreary crowd inside Mizzou Arena.

The late run showed life and heart that hadn’t been on display over the first three quarters Sunday. Against a quality SEC opponent, the likes of which they’ll face in Greenville, South Carolina a few weeks from now, they had been momentarily dominant. It simply wasn’t enough.

Ultimately, the outburst did nothing more but leave Pingeton and the Tigers frustrated, lamenting yet another losing performance.

“We finally figured it out in the fourth quarter,” Pingeton said. “I felt like we really got after it and played with a sense of urgency. Grittiness. Toughness. had that killer instinct. But you can’t get it done in 10 minutes. Not in the SEC.”

Sunday was just another day when the Tigers couldn’t get in done this season, in the SEC and everywhere else.

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