Tigers suffocate the Terriers

There are plenty of ways to force an opponent into submission. Cuonzo Martin’s teams prefer suffocation.

“Good or bad, I never really look at the offensive side of the ball outside of turnovers and rebounds,” Martin said. “You give yourself a chance to win games if you defend.”

That’s what the Tigers did to the Wofford Terriers in the second half of a 75-56 win at Mizzou Arena on Monday night. With just under 14 minutes to play, the game was tied at 45. Wofford didn’t score a point for the next six minutes and 16 seconds.

By that point, the Tigers were up 13 points at 58-45.

“I think we have a team that’s built to defend like that,” Martin said. “I think the biggest key is simply taking pride in what it takes to be an elite defensive team because that’s our goal."

“I think we did a wonderful job,” Xavier Pinson said. “I think our scout team did a good job at practice running their stuff and we just capitalized. We did everything all week to prepare and it showed.”

Missouri was efficient if not explosive on offense. The Tigers shot 55% and turned the ball over just ten times, half as many as their last game against Xavier. There was no huge spurt, just a steady trickle of points while the Terriers threw passes to their bench, missed layups and generally had no answer for the Tigers’ swarming second half defense.

Mizzou has now held all four of its opponents to 63 points or less on the season and Xavier needed overtime to get to that number. Nobody has scored more than 56 on the Tigers in regulation. It is the first time in 68 years Missouri has held four straight teams to 63 points or fewer.

“I feel like that’s due to our hard work,” Mark Smith said. “I feel like a lot of guys aren’t going to be surprised by that.”

While the defense was a roster-wide effort, the offensive spark plug for Missouri’s run was point guard Xavier Pinson. The Tigers’ most improved player early in the season, the sophomore broke the 45-45 tie with a shimmy and a jumper just inside the free throw line. A minute later, he found Mark Smith for an open three-pointer. Twenty-four seconds after that, Pinson got a steal near the three-point line and broke free for an open dunk that put the Tigers up 52-45 and forced a Wofford timeout. For the game, Pinson finished with ten points and four assists in 31 minutes.

“When he has the ball in his hands, a lot of good things happen,” Mark Smith said. “He’s just learned so much about the game, what he can and can’t do. He’s actually out there being a leader on the floor too. X’s game has really evolved a lot.”

The Tigers’ inside presence came—as it will on almost every night—from Jeremiah Tilmon. The Tiger center scored 16 points on 6-7 shooting with an array of post moves and rim-rattling dunks.

But Tilmon’s inside game wasn’t what anyone wanted to talk about. On Missouri’s third possession of the night, the 6-10 Tilmon found himself alone at the top of the key. For two years, Martin has insisted Tilmon is capable of making three-pointers and has the green light to shoot them. He never had until Monday. His first career attempt found the bottom of the net.

“I hear it so much from y’all, my teammates, they’re always making fun of me, they say I’ve got opportunities in a game, but I’ll pump fake and pass it and stuff like that,” Tilmon said. “But today, I don’t know, I was like, I’m shooting this. I didn’t think about it.”

“I was waiting to see the fans’ reaction,” Pinson said. “We work on it. I know he’s eventually going to show everybody he can shoot. He can shoot. I don’t know why people don’t think that.”

“I’m not never gonna take no bad threes,” Tilmon said. “I might take a different bad shot but I’m not gonna take no bad threes.”

But all the offensive output took a back seat to the thing that Martin has built his reputation on over a dozen years as a head coach. What won this game for Missouri is what the coach hopes will win many more: Defense. Wofford didn’t make a field goal for the final 14:35 of the game.

“For real?” Tilmon said. “We do so many defensive drills, it’s just coming second nature in a game. I didn’t even realize we had did that. But that’s good.”

“That’s impressive,” Martin said. “I always tell our guys I need to do a better job acknowledging when they’re doing great things.”

They did plenty of them on Monday night to get their third win of the season. The Tigers are back in action Wednesday against Morehead State.