Missouri Basketball: Takeaways from down-to-the-wire loss against Florida

Missouri (has finally) found points beyond Kobe Brown

I imagine that if you were to look at every team’s scouting report, one name would be consistently at the top.

Many of my fellow writers have identified throughout this season that Missouri lives or dies by its best player, junior forward Kobe Brown. Because of this, coaches have consistently double-teamed Brown to remove him as a threat. With every game that passes by, however, he seems to be less of a vital factor of how closely the game is played.

Despite spending the most minutes on the floor, Brown only put together an eight-point performance with three rebounds and three assists. Missouri still seemed to do pretty well for itself under Brown’s increased coverage.

That’s in large part because other guys are becoming comfortable in the system, and putting up impressive numbers of their own. Wednesday, that came in the form of bench forward Ronnie DeGray III.

DeGray has spent most of the season as the Tigers’ sixth man. However, watching the game, you’d never be able to tell he wasn’t a starter.

After some initial starting lineup uncertainties and Jordan Willmore’s being seemingly absent, the question left for coach Martin was whether to start freshman Trevon Brazile or sophomore DeGray. He chose the freshman.

Since then, Brazile has had one of the hardest times adjusting to the system, often playing fewer minutes than DeGray despite starting over him. However, Brazile certainly has a bright future in the program, and Martin wants to ensure he is giving him time to adjust to SEC play.

In contrast, DeGray puts together solid performances every night. Wednesday afternoon, that was an 85.7% field goal performance to make him the team’s scoring leader.

Every night, it seems to be a different player for the Tigers, but when these players can begin to have good nights simultaneously, that’s when Missouri will start to attach some wins to the noise that they have been making.