Belleville East grad Javon Pickett makes sure the Braggin’ Rights stays with Mizzou
Javon Pickett continued to haunt his home state at the Enterprise Center on Saturday.
One year after his near perfect shooting night in a 16-point performance helped key Missouri past Illinois 79-63 win, the former Belleville East standout was at it again as he tallied 17 points to help the Tigers win the annual Braggin Rights game 63-56.
The win lifts Missouri to 6-4 for the season and marks the first time since 2011 and 2012 that the Tigers have won the annual college basketball border war in consecutive seasons.
“It’s always good to help my team come out and play well,” Pickett said. “We did it today on the defensive end of the court. Almost everything we worked on worked today.”
Averaging 7.1 points in his sophomore season, Pickett made his first appearance of the game following the first media timeout.
The 6-foot-4 sharpshooter connected on a 3-point shot just 56 seconds later and added a second 3-point basket a short time later to spark what had been a struggling Tigers’ offense.
Pickett, who finished the day 7 of 13 from the field, including those two 3-point baskets, added six rebounds. Three of those boards resulted in offensive tap ins, all in the second half. Missouri, which out-rebounded Illinois 36-32, had 13 offensive rebounds, resulting in 16 second-chance points.
“The things I’ve always talked about: Defend, rebound and play as hard as you can play,” Missouri coach and East St. Louis native Cuonzo Martin said. “It’s a great win for our guys.
“Nobody ever talks about playing defense. If you can do that then you can hang your hat on it. If my shot doesn’t fall, I know we can rely on this. We can hold a team to 50 points, we have this. All we have to do is get 52.”
One of three former metro-east standouts playing key roles for the Tigers — including Mark Smith, of Edwardsville, and Jeremiah Tilmon, of East St. Louis — Pickett shined against an Illinois team which shot just 36% (18 of 50) from the field.
Smith went 0 for 4 from the field and did not score a point while adding five rebounds. Tilmon, the 6-11 junior, had four points and spent much of the day on the bench in foul trouble before fouling out late in the second half.
Tilmon did have the play of the game, a left-handed, one-hand tomahawk dunk off a missed shot, which brought the Tigers faithful to its feet.
“We just wanted to prove that were the tougher team,” Pickett said. “We knew we were the tougher team.”
An icy reception
The Fighting Illini fans didn’t wait until tip-off to let Tilmon and Smith know they still harbored hard feelings by booing loudly during the player introductions.
Both were non-factors in the first half.
Smith, chosen as Illinois “Mr. Basketball’ as a senior at Edwardsville High School, played at Illinois as a freshman before transferring to Missouri. He was held scoreless in the first 20 minutes by the swarming Illinois defense. Smith entered the game as the Tigers top scorer at 12.9 ppg.
Smith was booed by Illinois fans nearly every time he touched the basketball.
Tilmon was even more of a no-show in the first half. The former East St. Louis standout played just seven minutes, sitting out the final 12:59 of the opening half after picking up his second foul. He, too, initially committed to play for the Illini before making an 11th-hour switch to Mizzou.
It didn’t matter though as Dru Smith picked up the slack. Smith’s two free throws at the 2:59 mark gave Missouri its second lead of the game at 22-21. He then added a short jumper in the final minute as the Tigers took a 3-point lead in to the locker room.
Dru Smith led Missouri with 19 points.
This story was originally published December 21, 2019 at 4:54 PM.
