COLUMBIA, Mo. — Laurence Bowers missed Missouri’s ugliest loss of the season, a 31-point blowout at Florida last month. He certainly made his presence felt in the rematch.
Bowers played his best game of the season with 17 points and 10 rebounds, plus the go-ahead shot with 1:15 to play, helping the Tigers erase a 13-point deficit midway through the second half and rally past No. 5 Florida 63-60 to stay unbeaten at home Tuesday night.
“Well, it’s a huge win, especially coming off a loss,” Bowers said. “This is very big for our team.”
Phil Pressey added 10 assists, 7 points, 6 rebounds and 3 steals for Missouri (19-7, 8-5 SEC).
Pressey, whose wild play has contributed to the Tigers 1-5 road record, was conscious about distributing the ball instead of doing it all himself and didn’t take a shot in the first half.
“I feel like I can affect the game without shooting as much,” Pressey said. “They haven’t been harping on me about not shooting.”
Pressey had 10 turnovers and 2 points with 6 assists in the first meeting.
“The guy I was really impressed with was Pressey, because I thought he was, at our place, crazy,” Florida Coach Billy Donovan said. “I really thought he did a terrific job of running his team.”
Bowers missed five games with a strained right knee at the start of conference play. Before Tuesday, he hadn’t been quite the same player in six games back and missed 9 of 10 shots in a two-point loss at Arkansas on Saturday.
He played most of the final five minutes with four fouls.
“I just needed to play with nothing on my mind, just worrying about defense and rebounding,” Bowers said. “I shot a few shots, but I promise you my approach was on the defensive end. And it just paid off.”
Mike Rosario had 14 points for Florida (21-4, 11-2) but missed a three-point try from the corner at the buzzer. Donovan thought it was a good look, unlike Boynton’s three-point attempt with Florida down a point and about a minute to go.
“No, did not want that at all,” Donovan said. “I would have liked to have had some action driven to the basket. When you’re down one, you at least want to create some penetration.”
The Gators had won 13 of 14 and led 49-36 with 10:51 left, then hurt themselves at the free-throw line.
Florida missed five consecutive free throws in the second half, three times on the front end of 1-and-1s.
The slump ended when Rosario hit the second of two with 5:10 to go for a 54-50 lead.
The Gators made 6 of 12 free throws overall. Missouri was 12 of 15.
“I haven’t seen it in a while from my team, but you know, you have games likethis,” Boynton said. “Honestly, we had possessions where we could have overcome it.”
The Tigers improved to 15-0 at home this season. They are 30-1 the past two seasons under Coach Frank Haith and beat their first ranked opponent while out of The Associated Press Top 25 since knocking off No. 15 Texas in 2010.
“The thing we did, we took it one possession at a time,” Haith said.
“When you get down 13, there’s not a 13-point shot and I thought our guys did a great job of understanding that.” TENNESSEE 82, LSU 72
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. - Jordan McRae scored a career-high 34 points and led Tennessee’s torrid three-point attack as the Volunteers defeated LSU for their fourth consecutive victory.
McRae made all six of his three-point attempts and shot 13 of 18 overall. Tennessee (15-10, 7-6 SEC) shot 10 of 15 from three-point range as a team against an LSU squad that entered the night with the SEC’s best three-point percentage defense (.290).
Tennessee has made 75 percent (15 of 20) of its three-point attempts over its last two games. The Vols had shot just 28.6 percent (102 of 357) from three-point range through their first 23 games.
Trae Golden added 20 points and eight assists for Tennessee. Jarnell Stokes had 13 points and 11 rebounds.
Johnny O’Bryant had 24 points and eight rebounds for LSU (15-9, 6-7) before fouling out. Anthony Hickey had 14 points and Malik Morgan added 12 points.
Sports, Pages 24 on 02/20/2013