On March 11, 2020, the Missouri men’s basketball team sat in Nashville, Tennessee preparing for its second-round SEC Tournament game against Texas A&M. The Tigers were seeking revenge after being swept in the regular-season series.
Just a day before their game, Missouri coach Cuonzo Martin received a call that the game — and the rest of the season — was canceled the same day the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 was a pandemic.
This year, the Tigers set up shop in Music City, USA under much different circumstances than the last time they were there. Sports have resumed, but the atmosphere of the tournament has changed with Bridgestone Arena’s seating capacity set at 25% for the weekend.
Since the NCAA Tournament immediately follows the conference championship weekend, teams need to take extra precautions when it comes to COVID-19 safety protocols. The NCAA announced on Feb. 25, “Once the bracket is finalized and released, teams will not be reseeded, nor will the bracket change.”
As a result, if Missouri or any tournament team contracts COVID-19 over championship weekend, their season is over.
“We get tested every day and we gotta have our mask on 24/7,” senior forward Jeremiah Tilmon said. “This is the important part of the year and if anybody fails testing, you’re out. We’re not trying to risk anything and we’re trying to say stay as safe as possible.”
Missouri returns to Nashville and has climbed from No. 10 to No. 7 in the conference standings. Team spirits have lifted, knowing that the season has reached the precipice of March Madness without any major stoppages of play.
“I feel like the energy’s high just knowing that we get to play,” redshirt senior forward Mitchell Smith said. “Everybody’s locked in and, you know, we’re ready to go.”
Tilmon said last year’s premature exit put a chip on his team’s shoulder, which applies to the team’s mindset going against Georgia, who defeated the Tigers 80-70 in Athens, Georgia during Missouri’s fall from the AP Top 10. Tilmon missed the February 16 matchup after a death in his family.
“It just sucked to be at home watching and knowing I could’ve been there to help the team,” Tilmon said. “They did a pretty good job without me being there, so I feel me being there will help everything flow better.”
While Missouri’s roster skews toward the taller side of the SEC, it could not fully take advantage of the mismatch with Georgia’s smaller bigs without Tilmon in the lineup. Even with sophomore forward Kobe Brown’s best game at Missouri, his post presence didn’t pose a major threat to the Bulldogs on the offensive end.
Brown, Mitchell Smith and redshirt sophomore forward Parker Braun didn’t draw double-teams in the post like Tilmon could, meaning Georgia defenders stayed at bay on the perimeter, resulting in a 6-26 3-point shooting effort for the Tigers.
Martin has preached aggressiveness all season and the SEC tournament doesn’t change his mentality one bit. With Tilmon in, he wants to continue focusing on attacking inside while taking advantage of open shots from deep.
“We want to play how we play,” Martin said. “You want to be aggressive pounding the glass and getting the ball inside, but you don’t want to neglect your perimeter game. You gotta take [open shots] and you still have to be aggressive.”
While Tilmon’s absence stood out the most in Missouri’s loss, Georgia also put together one of its better offensive performances of the year behind sophomore guard Sahvir Wheeler and redshirt senior guard Justin Kier, who combined to shoot 10-16 from the floor for 28 points.
Wheeler, a second-team All-SEC selection this season, led the conference in assists per game by a wide margin. His ability to draw defenders and kick the ball makes him one of the best guards in the conference, which Missouri witnessed when he dropped 12 points, added seven rebounds and six assists.
“He always has his eyes up and he’s always looking up the floor and he’s looking to make a play for someone else,” redshirt senior Dru Smith said. “He’s always looking to see that open man and they have some guys that can knock down shots.”
The Tigers have a lot of ground to cover this weekend if they want to surge into an improved NCAA Tournament seed, but the team is focused on putting the last month behind them and making a case for why the selection committee should seed them favorably.
“We don’t have time for mistakes,” Tilmon said. “We made all the mistakes that we needed to during the regular season and this is win or go home. Nobody wants to go home right now, so we just gotta focus on what’s in front of us.”
_Edited by Jack Soble | jsoble@themaneater.com_
