April 16, 2014

Columbia, Mo. - Missouri Basketball hosted its annual team dinner and social on Wednesday evening, with Head Coach Frank Haith and his staff handing out end-of-season awards.

The 2014 Mizzou Basketball Awards event was held on the floor of Mizzou Arena and the staff passed out 10 awards, including the Most Valuable Player and Most Improved Player honors, which were voted on by the team.

Missouri's Most Valuable Player Award was won by junior guard Jabari Brown. Brown was the Southeastern Conference's leading scorer this season, averaging 19.9 points in 35 total games. He also paced the league with 20.7 points in 18 league contests. The Oakland, Calif., native topped 20 points in scoring 19 times overall, the most by a Tiger since Anthony Peeler in 1992 and failed to reach double figures in scoring just once. Brown scored 20-plus points in 12-of-18 league contests, the most since Derrick Chievous in 1988 and topped 30 points twice, scoring 33 points against Kentucky and 30 points vs. Davidson.

"It's an honor to receive this recognition, especially since it comes from your teammates," Brown said. "I feel like we had some nice moments as a team this year and we had some great memories here on this court, but we did fall short of our goal of making the NCAA Tournament. No question you are going to see this group of guys be very hungry this offseason and work to get us back into the Tournament, where we belong."

Players make some of their biggest strides between their freshman and sophomore campaigns and that was the case for sophomore forward Ryan Rosburg. Rosburg made 32 starts as a second-year player, averaging 4.8 points and 4.1 rebounds while shooting and incredibly efficient 71.6 percent from the floor. That shooting percentage from the 6-foot-10 sophomore would have broken Ricardo Ratliffe's single-season field goal percentage record (.693) with enough attempts and he finished the year hitting 68-of-95 shots from the floor overall. That number elevated to 80 percent shooting (36-of-45) over his final 16 games and he missed more than one field goal attempt in a game just once during that stretch, a 5-of-7 shooting afternoon at Ole Miss.

"Just to echo what Jabari said, it's really meaningful to receive an honor from your teammates because you know how hard those guys are working as well," Rosburg said. "Obviously we have a lot more we want to accomplish next season and that process begins now."

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