Sometimes, for whatever reason, a team just doesn’t have it in a particular game.
That game was Saturday for Missouri men’s basketball.
The Tigers couldn’t buy a bucket close to the rim on the road in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, as poor layup and free-throw shooting doomed the team in a 64-63 loss to the Louisiana State University Tigers.
Both head coach Cuonzo Martin and graduate transfer Kassius Robertson reflected their frustrations postgame.
“Tough loss,” Martin said in a postgame radio interview.
“It was tough,” Robertson said, his voice trailing off.
Missouri entered the contest shooting 75.3 percent from the free-throw line on the season, but the team’s shooting from the charity stripe was a far cry from that number Saturday. Missouri shot 7-of-17 from the free-throw line, good for a 41.2 percent clip.
The team was arguably worse from the low post. Missouri finished the game 5-of-12 on layups and dunks and 10-of-22 overall in the paint. Freshman Jeremiah Tilmon especially struggled, finishing with 1 point on 0-of-6 shooting and three turnovers in 22 minutes of play.
Tilmon had been feeling ill before the game, and Robertson said he noticed how much his teammate was struggling. But he emphasized that it was a team effort that sunk Missouri.
“[We] missed at least 15 points today on layups,” Robertson said in a postgame interview. “Just layups.”
While Missouri’s two-point shooting was poor, its 3-point shooting was not. The Tigers shot 57.1 percent from beyond the arc and were led by senior Jordan Barnett, who finished with 18 points and finished 6-of-8 from the 3-point line. His five 3s in the second half kept the game close when Missouri couldn’t sink a layup.
Barnett gave himself no pats on the back, however.
“Ultimately we couldn’t get it done, so I’m always gonna look at that and say, ‘I didn’t do enough; we didn’t do enough,” Barnett said.
Despite Missouri’s poor offensive effort, the team still had a chance to win the game in the closing seconds. After Robertson was called for a charge with 5.2 seconds left in the game and Missouri trailing by one, it appeared all LSU had to do to seal a victory was get the ball in on an inbounds play. But Porter tipped the pass, and the ball ended up in Robertson’s hands. Robertson couldn’t convert a contested layup with lots of contact, however, and LSU escaped with the victory.
Robertson said after the game his defender “bear-hugged” him and that he was fouled.
“They were scared to blow the whistle,” Robertson said. “They weren’t trying to call that.”
Missouri will go for redemption Tuesday night when the team takes on the Ole Miss Rebels in Columbia at 8 p.m.
_Edited by Bennett Durando | bdurando@themaneater.com_