Missouri men’s basketball started off on the right foot at the SEC Tournament with the tried-and-true 2020-21 Missouri Method.

Through 16 SEC games, cold shooting streaks, nail-biting finishes and random spurts of offensive firepower brought the Tigers to March. Missouri’s current status as a prospective NCAA tournament team is the result of a record that boasts quality wins when the formula works and questionable losses when it doesn’t.

The formula worked in Missouri’s favor on Thursday, as the Tigers outlasted Georgia 73-70 in Nashville, Tennessee.

“Twenty-four games and that’s just who we are,” Missouri coach Cuonzo Martin said. “You can look at my notes from two weeks ago and it’s probably the same but just by the way to win the game.”

The inevitable Missouri shooting slump hit earlier than the mid-second-half breakdown that came in Missouri and Georgia’s first meeting on February 16. After Missouri opened 5-7 from the field, the Tigers embarked on two separate cold streaks of seven and nine straight misses respectively in the first from the field to go on a 3-19 shooting stretch.

Georgia’s defense negated Missouri’s dependable inside threats despite the height advantage the Tigers had over Georgia. Open shots that are usually automatic — like redshirt senior guard Dru Smith’s crafty ball fake that led to an uncontested eight-footer — rattled out.

“I just couldn’t make a shot in the first half,” Smith said. “I was getting a little frustrated, but I just kept telling myself, ‘Just move onto the next play and shots will start eventually falling.’”

Junior guard Xavier Pinson was the lone bright spot in the first half, where both teams shot sub-30% from the field at one point. He capped off the half with a pull-up buzzer-beater from beyond the arc to finish the half with 12 points, most among all scorers.

Missouri’s offense converted on five of its last seven shots to end the first half. Shooting success carried over into the second half, where took pointers from Pinson’s shot that cut the lead to 34-33 at the break.

“Obviously it cut the lead down a little bit and we were able to come out only down one,” Smith said. “To get our momentum, get our spirits up going into that second half definitely gave us a good little burst of momentum there.”

Smith’s performance reached his usual All-SEC caliber of play with 12 second-half points on the offensive end while he, Pinson and the rest of the backcourt held Georgia sophomore guard Sahvir Wheeler and redshirt senior guard Justin Kier to just three points combined through a good portion of the second half.

“Dru had the bulk of Sahvir, and that’s not an easy assignment,” Martin said. “What we just said is if he beats us, make him beat us going right or make him beat us shooting pull-ups.”

Senior forward Jeremiah Tilmon’s presence on the court towering over Georgia opened up opportunities that were not there when he was absent from the Feb. 16 game because of a death in his family.

When sophomore forward Kobe Brown caught a ball at the top of the key, Georgia sophomore forward Toumani Camara sagged down into the lane, effectively denying an entry pass to Tilmon.

The only problem was no one wearing a black Georgia jersey was in a 10-foot radius of Brown, who took time to set before knocking down an uncontested three.

“He’s a big difference,” Brown said. “JT freed up a lot of people and they have to respect him and that got us open shots so it was a big deal.”

Smith and Brown combined for 24 of Missouri’s 41 second-half points as Missouri started the half shooting 11-16 and led by 12 with 7:31 remaining.

But this wouldn’t be a 2020-21 Missouri men’s basketball game without a little late-game drama.

While Wheeler and Kier were held in check, Camara and freshman guard KD Johnson got into a groove. Camara shouldered the Bulldogs scoring load in the second half with 11 points on 5-7 shooting and duked it out with Tilmon and redshirt senior forward Mitchell Smith in the post despite Missouri’s bigs having a two-inch height advantage.

His backcourt teammate, Johnson, played solid defense against Missouri’s guards and hit some much needed shots, including a 3-pointer to cut the lead to five.

While the Bulldogs capped off a 9-0 run with a Camara layup in transition with just over three minutes remaining, the Tigers dug themselves into a deep shooting hole. Over the final 6:24, Missouri did not make a field goal.

But the Tigers didn’t need any field goals to win. They got all the help they needed from two crucial breaks at Kier’s expense.

Clinging onto a one-point with under two minutes to play, Pinson pulled up on an off-balance three as the shot clock ticked down to zero. Kier barely grazed the junior guard’s arm, resulting in three made free throws from the fifth-best free-throw shooter in the SEC.

A Wheeler layup where he split past Tilmon and Dru Smith brought Georgia’s deficit back to two before Camara got fouled on the floor with 18 seconds left with a chance to tie the game.

With the one-and-one bonus, Kier noticed only one Bulldog stood in the hashes prepared to corral an offensive rebound. He tried to rectify the situation as Camara was about to shoot, but he was too late.

As Kier crossed the three-point arc to get in between the hashes, Pinson brought the official’s attention to Kier’s infraction. The referee called Kier on a lane violation, meaning Camara lost one of his free throws and would no longer be able to tie the game in his trip to the line.

Camara missed the second, as Dru Smith got the ball and was promptly fouled. He went to the free-throw line and hit both.

Kier tried to redeem himself with a deep three off a pump fake to cut Missouri’s deficit back to one, but the Bulldogs’ four-point swing on Camara’s trip to the charity stripe made Georgia’s comeback path more difficult.

Pinson hit two at the line before Georgia had a chance to send the game to overtime on a pull-up 3-pointer from senior forward PJ Horne, but the shot sailed wide left as Missouri lived up to the 2020-21 Missouri mantra and March Madness moniker: “Survive and advance.”

“Teams are gonna make runs and we’re gonna go back and forth,” Dru Smith said. “We just had that one more point at the end, and at the end of the day, that’s what we did.”

_Edited by Jack Soble | jsoble@themaneater.com_