As he was being ushered from the losing locker room to a stage surrounded by reporters, the most exhaustively-covered freshman in the history of Missouri basketball stopped.
Michael Porter Jr. turned to face the wall that lined his path. He rested his forehead against the cool, white cement. He needed a moment.
Same for the Tigers.
Cuonzo Martin’s players have one week to decide if they are content. One week to decide if they will go down as a team that turned out to be better off without the team’s most talented player. One week to determine if their one-and-done disappointment at the SEC Tournament here Thursday was foreshadowing their NCAA tournament fate, or a wake-up call that convinced them to fix what became hard to hide in Porter Jr.