‘California love’: Kobe Brown helps Missouri open NCAA Tournament with win over Utah State

He is a remarkable combination of skill and bulk, a four-year starter and a scholar for the Missouri Tigers who assures that his broad shoulders are sturdy enough for the heavy lifting.

Kobe Brown put on a second-half display on Thursday with dunks, 3-point shots, ball handling and leadership that sent a buzz through Golden 1 Center and, maybe, placed him even more on the NBA draft radar.

The 6-foot-8, 250-pound Brown scored 19 points, yanked down eight rebounds and energized with the typical all-out effort that has made him a fan favorite in Columbia, lifting Missouri past Utah State 76-65 in an NCAA Tournament opener in Sacramento.

Brown had six points in the first half and then took over, hitting three 3-pointers and delivering a thunder dunk in a three-minute span to spark a 13-2 run as the seventh-seeded Tigers took a 62-53 lead over the 10th-seeded Aggies. The Tigers won their first tournament game since 2010 and their first under coach Dennis Gates, a four-year starter at Cal who had friends from Sacramento in attendance.

Missouri moved to 25-9 on the season and 23-0 when scoring 70 or more.

The best 3-point shooting team in this field, Utah State missed its first 11 3s and finished 4 of 24. The Aggies ended the season with a 26-9 record while falling to 18-109 all-time against Top 25 teams.

Brown stayed at Missouri despite concerns he might jump into the NCAA Transfer Portal. His loyalty has been paramount to this team’s run to the NCAA Tournament.

“He’s our MVP,” Gates said of Brown. “When he started making shots in the second half, he immediately made eye contact. He said he’s here. I said, ‘Yes, you are. We can see!’”

Entering the game, Brown was the only Tigers player to have competed in an NCAA Tournament game. Now he can share that joy.

Brown is a load, to be sure, but he’s hardly a one-man gang. The Tigers are the only team in the NCAA Tournament to feature six players who have scored 1,000 points in their careers, including D’Moi Hodge, who led all scorers with 23. But Brown is the engine, a diesel. Born on New Year’s Day, 2000, Brown is a native of Alabama, where he was coached in high school by his father, Greg.

“What he means to us is this: He’s our SEC Player of the Year, not just our Student-Athlete of the Year,” Gates said. “He’s our All-American. He’s a kid that is humble, a kid that is very unselfish, a kid that has a high-level of empathy, but also a young man who knows what he wants in life. He plays the game the right way. Hopefully, what I know that teams in the NBA will know, is they’ll understand how impactful he is.”

Brown was named after the first basketball Kobe of note, former Los Angeles Lakers great Kobe Bryant, who delivered many a great moment against the Kings in Sacramento. Brown saw Bryant play in his NBA finale, a 60-point effort against the Utah Jazz in 2016. Brown was left awestruck, and then he broke down three years ago when Bryant died in a helicopter crash.

Said Brown, simply, “We didn’t blink.”

Neither did Gates, but the first-year Tigers coach did tear up. The Chicago native has raved about how much he enjoyed his Cal playing days, and he coaches with a cool, calm demeanor, despite the intensity unfolding in front of him.

“For me, I played the game a certain way,” Gates said. “I was wired tight. I played as hard as I could. I would never coach how I played.”

Gates said the postgame locker room scene will be one to remember.

“It’s emotional for me,” he said. “I actually cried. My college coach, some of my teammates were here. My family’s here. I think the first thing I said was, ‘Where’s the radio? Put the song on.’ The song was ‘California Love’ by Tupac. That’s what we were listening to.”

Taylor Funk scored 16 to lead Utah State, which has now lost 10 consecutive tournament games.