Missouri Tigers Season Ends With Loss To South Carolina

The Missouri Tigers’ basketball season (finally) ended Wednesday night with a 63-54 defeat in the opening round of the SEC Tournament to South Carolina. Kim Anderson ends his first year at helm with a record of 9-23.

The Gamecocks took advantage of a very long Tiger scoring drought, which happened to be in the final minutes of the game conveniently, to bury Missouri with an 11-3 run over the final six minutes.

Mar 11, 2015; Nashville, TN, USA; Missouri Tigers forward Johnathan Williams III (3) shoots over South Carolina Gamecocks forward Mindaugas Kacinas (25) during the second half of the first round of the SEC Conference Tournament at Bridgestone Arena. Mandatory Credit: Joshua Lindsey-USA TODAY Sports

It was announced that Missouri’s only true stability in a season with great turmoil, Keith Shamburger, would not start the game due to “disciplinary reasons”. As a result, freshman Tramaine Isabell, the only other active point guard, got the start.

The late scoring collapse wasn’t the only one the Missouri Tigers had in the game. The Tigers were held scoreless from 19:50 to 16:52. Carolina couldn’t do too much with the lack of scoring as they only led 7-3 after that mark. Junior Michael Carrera had five of those seven Gamecock points.

Carolina went on a 20-7 run to give them commanding 13 point lead, the run was attributed to the Tigers’ poor shot selection (mostly heavily contested jump shots with plenty of time left on the shot clock) and four turnovers in that span.

Just when it looked like South Carolina would run away with the game, Tramaine Isabell led a furious surge. He dished a nice pass to Namon Wright for three, made a jumper, and found a cutting Keanau Post for a layup with seconds remaining to end the half with a 7-0 Missouri run. Carolina led 30-24 at the half.

The Tigers came out much more aggressive at the start of the second half and cut the led to just three after Wright was fouled and completed the three-point play. Missouri went on another scoring drought after Ryan Rosburg’s layup with 18:13 left. They failed to have another basket until Jakeenan Gant laid one in at 12:46.

After Carrera picked up his third and fourth foul in a span of 16 seconds he was forced to sit by head coach Frank Martin. Sindarius Thornwell picked up the slack however. Thornwell had 12 of his game-high 18 points in the second half, and put the kibosh on every Mizzou attempt at a comeback.

Sandwiched in between that was a pair of 1-for-2’s at the foul line from Rosburg and Jonathan Williams III. Shamburger made his biggest shot of the night when he was fouled on a three pointer that he made, again cutting the lead from nine to five. Teki Gill-Casear then made a nice cut to the basket bringing the Tigers within three.

Missouri Tigers /

Missouri Tigers

Gill-Casear got to the foul line in back-to-back possession and hit 3-of-4 free throws to make it 52-50, but that was the closest Missouri would ever get.

There were two bad scoring droughts before, but this one took the cake and South Carolina enjoyed every bite. Williams made 1-of-2 free throws at 5:58 remaining and there were no more points until 10 seconds left when Williams hit a three. In fact, before Williams’ three pointer, the last field goal for Mizzou was Gant’s layup with 8:52 remaining.

Carolina didn’t shoot particularly well down the stretch either; they one had one field goal in the last five minutes of the game. Their nine point cushion at the time combined with Missouri’s terrible shooting down the stretch; made Carolina’s five made free throws the season-ending dagger.

Missouri had 15 offensive rebounds to South Carolina’s seven, but the Tigers’ 16 turnovers are what really dug their hole. Carolina had 26 points off those turnovers while Mizzou only had nine off 11 Gamecock turnovers.

Gill-Casear was the Tigers’ leading scorer with 10 points, and Williams and Ryan Rosburg followed with nine apiece. Shamburger and Post end their college basketball careers with six and four points, respectively.

With that, a long, downer of a season comes to an end for Missouri Tigers basketball. As the program looks forward to the 2015-16 campaign, there’s a lot of work to do; that’s for sure.

South Carolina moves on to the second round of the NCAA Tournament, where they will play Ole Miss.

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