Mizzou Basketball: Tigers make early exit in SEC tournament

The Mizzou basketball program lost to the 12th seeded Georgia Bulldogs on Thursday 62-60. I dare you to find one Tiger fan who is surprised by this.

The phrase “good things never last” had to of being coined in Columbia, Missouri. The Missouri Tigers were on a high as big as they’ve had in years with the return of Michael Porter Jr. That lasted until about ten minutes left in the first half as Mizzou saw their early 10-0 disappear.

As the Bulldogs heated up, the Tigers went ice cold in the first half. At one point the Tigers were shooting 20% from the field while the Bulldogs were shooting 50%. This shooting differential led to the TIgers being down by nine at halftime.

The shooting equaled out in the second half, but the Bulldogs seemed to always have answer anytime the Tigers made a run. At one point Mizzou tied the game only to see the Dogs score on three straight possession to build their lead back up to seven in less than a minute.

The Tigers are a virtual lock to make the NCAA Tournament when the brackets are announced on Sunday.

A big factor in the loss was MU’s depleted bench mixed with a tightly officiated game. The refs weren’t bad, they just called a tight game against both teams. This meant the TIgers got into foul trouble, including Jeremiah Tilmon and Kevin Puryear fouling out. With a team playing with only eight scholarship players, they can’t afford to play in a tightly called game.

However, despite a bad shooting day and spending the entire game in foul trouble Mizzou basketball still played tough. They never quit and despite getting knocked down multiple times, they kept coming back. They played some tight defense and got the game down to one possession game with the ball and 7.4 seconds left.

Head coach Cuonzo Martin called a timeout and drew up a beautiful play. The team executed the play to perfection setting up the teams best shooter with a wide open look at a game winning three. Unfortunately Kassius Robertson three clanged off the iron as the clock went to zero and Georgia’s celebration began.

I’ve seen a lot of people on social media upset that the Tigers went for the win instead of trying to go for an easier two and the tie. While I understand this sentiment, I don’t agree with it, I think Martin made the right choice in playing for the win. The reason being that this game didn’t mean much for Mizzou and they would have been unlikely to win in overtime.

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The Tigers are a virtual lock to make the NCAA Tournament when the brackets are announced on Sunday. Winning or losing this game wouldn’t have effected the Tiger fate, even in terms of seeding.

The only way the Tigers would have improved their seeding would have been to beat Kentucky on Friday and that isn’t likely. So the only real importance of this game to Mizzou was to knock the rust off Porter Jr.

Anyone who watched the game saw him struggle early but come into his own as the game progressed. That part of the plan worked out perfectly as he played 23 minutes, scored 12 points and grabbed eight rebounds.

He had a poor shooting night going 5-17, but at one point he was 1-10 meaning he closed the game going 4-7. He showed more bounce in his jumps and confidence in his back as he played harder and faster as the game went on. Fans should be excited to see what he can do next week.

Porter Jr being set meant the major goal of the game had been completed as they took that last three. Had they simply settled for a two pointer and made it the game would have gone into overtime and Porter Jr would have had to play over the 20 to 25 minutes Martin wanted him to.

That is because the team only had six players left and likely at least one more would have fouled out. The odds of Missouri winning in overtime with a bench that short was unlikely. Their best chance to win was that wide open three by their best shooter.

As a Mizzou fan I’m angry that they lost to a 12th seed and a team they’d beaten by double digits earlier in the year. Losing a game like that the same day the fans finally got to see the best recruit in program history is a very Mizzou thing to do, but this is not a Norfolk State type of anger and disappointment. For the first time in three years Mizzou will be playing in the NCAA Tournament and with that to look forward to I just can’t be that upset.

Mizzou basketball can now take a full week off to rest and gameplan. Now that Porter Jr has played and gotten the confidence in his back he can practice at 100%. The team can rally around him and go into the big dance confident that they are as complete a team as they’ve been all season.

This loss was bad, but it wasn’t the end of the season, and with MPJ back, plenty to look forward to for Mizzou fans! M-I-Z!