AMES, IA--Jeremiah Tilmon called for the ball in the low post. As the pass came, Iowa State defender Michael Jacobson fell to the ground. Tilmon stood a few feet from the basket, no one in his way, and attempted just his fourth shot in about 17 minutes of game action — and what should have been the easiest. He leapt into the air and brought the ball down to the rim for a two-handed dunk.
The ball rattled against the iron, then popped up and out of the basket.
The play summed up Tilmon’s performance Friday night. Missouri’s big man, frustrated by constant double teams from the Cyclone defense, attempted four shots and scored five points in the loss. Missouri’s entire offense struggled as a result, committing 25 turnovers and mustering just 59 points.
With Jontay Porter out for the season due to a knee injury, Tilmon is one of the Tigers’ only proven scorers. After the team’s season-opening win against Central Arkansas, players agreed that its formula for success is to establish Tilmon as a post threat and let him either shoot over a single defender or, if he’s double-teamed, dish the ball to one of the Tigers’ shooters on the perimeter. Iowa State guard Nick Weiler-Babb said the Cyclones’ game-plan was to take Tilmon out of the game and put pressure on Missouri’s inexperienced wing players to provide points. It worked.
“We limited one of their main scorers, put the ball in other guys’ hands, and luckily they missed some shots,” Weiler-Babb said. “He’s one of their main guys on offense, and we just tried to get it out of his hands.”
The first two games of Missouri’s season have served as a microcosm of Tilmon’s college career. They’ve also illustrated his importance to the Tiger offense. At times during his 35 games in a Missouri uniform, Tilmon has been dominant down low, like when he scored 16 points against Central Arkansas on Tuesday. Other games, he’s been invisible. Usually, when that happens, the culprit is foul trouble. Tilmon committed 121 fouls as a freshman, which tied for seventh-most nationally.
But fouls weren’t an issue Friday; Tilmon committed only two. Head coach Cuonzo Martin said that, because he didn’t see the ball go in the basket early in the game, Tilmon failed to establish an offensive rhythm. Martin has spoken in the past about working to keep Tilmon engaged even when he isn’t getting steady post touches. He laid part of the blame for Tilmon’s struggles Friday on himself for not calling for Tilmon to get the ball more, but he also acknowledged that Tilmon let his focus slip as he fought the Cyclones’ frequent double-teams.
“It’s just a matter of us settling him in, because there was a lot of activity going on,” Martin said. “Just keeping him locked in the game and not taking it outside of the basketball game.”
That Missouri’s perimeter players weren’t able to consistently generate offense Friday can be seen both as a symptom of Tilmon’s struggles, and a cause. The two facets of the Tiger offense are symbiotic — the perimeter players need Tilmon to draw double-teams in the post to give them more open looks, but Tilmon also needs those players to knock down outside shots so he isn’t double-teamed on every possession and can establish a rhythm. Martin said simply making more outside shots against Iowa State likely would have alleviated Tilmon’s struggles.
“I just thought the way they defended him, blitzing him in the post, was one of those deals where we had to make shots from the perimeter, so all of a sudden you could play one-on-one,” Martin said.
Entering Friday’s game, Iowa State appeared to be a favorable matchup to get the ball to Tilmon early and often, as the Cyclone lineup featured just one player 6-foot-9 or taller, and last season, Tilmon scored 14 points against Iowa State in his college debut. But Iowa State coach Steve Prohm said his team emphasized pushing Tilmon out of the paint, then brought double teams at varying times once he caught the ball. Sometimes, a second defender would swarm him as soon as he caught a pass. At other times, the defender would wait until Tilmon began dribbling to crash down and try to strip the ball away.
“It’s really just if you can get him off his sweet spot,” Prohm said. “Because if he can get a paint touch, he’s really hard to guard because of his size.”
Even with Tilmon struggling, Missouri’s best offense came when it was able to work the ball into the post. For a stretch early in the second half, the team fed senior forward Kevin Puryear on nearly every possession, and Puryear scored nine points in a two-and-a-half minute span. Fellow forward Mitchell Smith scored on all three of his shots, each of which came around the rim.
But neither of those players can consistently command a double team like Tilmon. And Friday made clear that, given the lack of scoring experience around Missouri’s post presence, the Tigers are going to need Tilmon to have more nights like he did against Central Arkansas than like he did against Iowa State moving forward.
