The impact of Jeremiah Tilmon’s return to the Missouri basketball team was impossible to miss Saturday at South Carolina: The senior center didn’t miss a single shot from the field or the foul line, led the Tigers in scoring, supplied the inside presence few teams in the country can match and didn’t commit any fouls in the much-needed 93-78 victory.
The impact of Tilmon’s return to a locker room full of coaches and teammates who care deeply about the program’s longest tenured player was impossible to miss, too.
Tilmon had been away from the team for a week after the death of his grandmother — the second grandmother he’s lost in the last eight months — and it’s no coincidence his return brought out the best of the No.