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PrintLINCOLN, Neb. – Kevin Young put it in the top-10 list of Missouri’s best dunks of the year.
Jason Conley said it showed some confidence.
After two scoreless games in a row, Missouri’s Marshall Brown came to life in the second half of Missouri’s 56-53 win at Devaney Sports Center.
Brown hit consecutive 3-pointers early in the second half and provided a highlight-reel dunk late in the same half.
The dunk came with 3:48 left and the Tigers leading by one.
Brown gave a simple head fake, drove around his defender and threw down a one-handed dunk in the face of Nebraska’s Aleks Maric.
“He can do some things that not a lot of people can do,” Conley said. “That dunk just shows confidence, because we were only up one, and that was a big part of the game. He made a drive and he got the dunk, and as a freshman, that’s a huge play.”
Brown said the decision to drive instead of taking the jumper came from watching film with Snyder.
“Coach (Snyder) kept telling me when we were watching film that I was thinking 3s,” Brown said. “He told me that if I give one hard pump fake that a lot of times the man running out on me will go flying by.”
Snyder applauded Brown’s wise decision.
“I don’t think he was thinking about (his shot) tonight,” Snyder said. “I think he was competing, and he made some big plays because of it.
As a result of Brown’s competitiveness, Snyder kept him near his side.
Midway through the second half, Snyder walked down to the end of the Missouri bench and gave Brown an encouraging pat on the back.
Soon thereafter, Snyder had Brown sit in his seat on the bench between assistant coaches Melvin Watkins and Jeff Meyer.
Earlier in the first half, Snyder kept Brown close for a different reason.
“I kept him real close to me in the first half, too,” Snyder said. “I took him out of the game after 30 seconds because he let his man get a rebound, and that’s something we’ve really been driving home with him.”
The freshman forward scored all eight of his points in the second half and had three big rebounds as well.
Young valued Brown’s effort because he brought a contagious energy to the court on the defensive end, citing a play late in the second half when Brown dove on the floor for a loose ball and tossed it ahead to Conley.
“I thought his defense was the biggest thing to me,” Young said. “He was just giving us energy and he was like, ‘Yeah, we’re not going to lose this game. We’re not going to lose this game.’ He was just determined and everybody fed off his energy.”
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