UConn too strong for Tigers

Missouri to play a near-perfect game Saturday in Glendale to beat an excellent Connecticut team. The Tigers came close and even had the Huskies rattled before faltering down the stretch in 82-75 loss. While Missouri struggled to hit jump shots in the second half (they hit just 6 of 20 shots outside the pain), UConn regained its composure in time to hit some huge shots and all 10 of its free throws in the second half.

Leo Lyons and DeMarre Carroll held up fairly well against the Connecticut big men, but freshmen Marcus Denmon and Kim English made just 1 of 7 field goals on the night. Justin Safford and Keith Ramsey almost made up for the lack of production from the youngsters with inspired offensive performances (9 for Safford, 8 for Ramsey), but it wasn’t quite enough. A lackadaisical start may have doomed the Tigers, who looked like they might get blown out in the game’s first 3 minutes. As they have all season, though, this team never quit, all the way up until Zaire Taylors’ 3-pointer with 9 seconds left.

Missouri did what they wanted to in terms of containing Thabeet and forcing turnovers (17 of them), but they couldn’t quite get the breaks like they did Thursday night against Memphis. The worst part about the NCAA tournament is that 64 out of 65 teams have to end their season with a loss, which always seems to stick out more than the wins, no matter how impressive they were.

It’s going to be a long trip back to Columbia for this team and the impressive number of fans that made the trip all the way out West, but upon further reflection, it should be clear that Missouri excelled this year in a way that seemed impossible at the beginning of the season. Plenty of credit goes to Coach Anderson and the seniors who led this team every step of the way, and before you start thinking about next season, Missouri fans should take the time to reflect on the incredible year that was. Regardless of what happens with Anderson and the team in the next few seasons, this year was one to savor.

Of Huskies and History

The upstart Missouri Tigers will take the court once again Saturday night to face a team who has been one of the most dominant in the entire tournament thus far. If they survive, they’ll head to Detroit next weekend for the first Final Four in school history. A loss would end the career of three beloved seniors who also happen to be Missouri’s leading scorers (Leo Lyons, DeMarre Carroll and Matt Lawrence).

Tiger fans can breathe a little easier

Mike Anderson will not be coaching at the University of Alabama next season.

The Adventure Continues

Everyone who had Missouri in the Elite 8 at the beginning of the season, or even the beginning of 2009, raise your hand. If your hand is up, put it down. You’re lying. Even Coach Anderson, when asked what he would have said to someone who told him he would be here at the beginning of the season, had this to say: “I would be asking you what are you smoking and drinking, man?”

Tigers gear up for toughest challenge yet

Missouri has had an impressive season, going 30-6 to this point when most people didn’t even expect them to win 20 games. The Tigers beat Kansas and Oklahoma — two teams with superior individual talent — with the help of raucous crowds at Mizzou Arena. The Tigers take care of the ball and play team basketball better than perhaps any team in NCAA tournament. DeMarre Carroll and Leo Lyons are top-tier collegiate players, and might even be able to find a spot as role players in the NBA with the right opportunity. Coach Anderson’s depth and uptempo style have helped and will continue to help Missouri blow out lesser opponents and remain competitive with more talented teams.

But tomorrow at the massive University of Phoenix Stadium, Missouri will face a challenge unlike any they have seen this season.

James to make stunning return

After being declared out for the season with a broken foot, the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reported Marquette point guard Dominic James practiced Friday and has actually been cleared to play for today’s 2nd round game against Missouri.

Tigers take care of business against Cornell

Even though the first half was rather slow and hard to watch, Missouri won its first round game in Boise, Idaho, with a 78-59 win over an athletically inferior Cornell team. As usual, Leo Lyons and DeMarre Carroll led the Tigers, and Cornell coach Steve Donahue called the two seniors “really special”, and his team certainly had no answer for them. Lyons scored 23 points, grabbed 10 rebounds, and showed that when’s he’s giving his best effort and making shots, he can be nearly impossible to stop.

The Tigers get Marquette next, who barely beat Utah St. in front of a surprisingly loud pro-Utah St. crowd at Taco Bell Arena. The game will be at 12:20 or approximately 2:50, depending on what the TV execs decide sometime in the next 24 hours. It’s hard to imagine Marquette’s senior guards having too much trouble against Missouri’s pressure, so the Tigers will have to make sure they don’t allow too many baskets in transition. Although they’re certainly better than Cornell, Marquette’s forwards will have a hard time matching up with Lyons and Carroll. As long as those two stay aggressive and the Golden Eagles’ guards don’t get hot from the outside, the Tigers should be able to advance.

Tigers’ season ends

The Texas Longhorns defeated the Missouri Tigers 62-59 in the first round of the Big 12 Tournament.

Alyssa Hollins led the Tigers with 16 points.

Tigers lead Texas at halftime

The Missouri women’s basketball team leads the No. 23-ranked Texas Longhorns 31-24 at halftime of the opening round of the Big 12 Tournament.

Alyssa Hollins leads the Tigers with 13 points. Earnesia Williams leads Texas with eight points.

The Tigers are the No. 11 seed in the tournament while Texas is the No. 6 seed.

Hollins named All-Big 12 Honorable Mention

Missouri senior guard Alyssa Hollins earned All-Big 12 Honorable Mention honors on Monday. 

Hollins averaged 13 points on 33 percent shooting for the season. Missouri’s all-time leader in made 3-pointers also only shot 27 percent from behind the arc this season. 

The fact that Hollins was able to even earn honorable mention honors despite these seemingly pedestrian statistics should tell you a lot about the reputation she’s earned in the Big 12 over the last four years. Hollins is a decent but unspectacular defender and rebounder and she fell into a shooting slump early in the season and never seemed to break out of it. 

But all season long she demanded constant attention from opposing defenses. Even when she was going three-for-17 defenses treated her like a lethal scoring threat. And even though Hollins 15 shot attempts per game she rarely took a shot that didn’t come within the flow of the offense. Unfortunately for her, she was just never able to find her rhythm in her final season for whatever reason. 

She also averaged 34.2 minutes per game this season (the only Missouri player to average more than 29 minutes) and was one of only two Tigers (Shakara Jones)to start every game.

I was somewhat surprised to see that sophomore guard RaeShara Brown didn’t make the Big 12 All-Defensive Team. She’s the Big 12 leader in steal with 2.69 per game and has regularly drawn opposing team’s top scorer. I would guess that she was a player that just missed the cut. Once again that just goes to show the overall strength of the conference.

Missouri women’s game changed

The scheduled start time of the Missouri women’s basketball team’s opening round game in the Big 12 Tournament against the Texas Longhorns has been changed to 5 pm on Thursday, March 12. The game was originally scheduled to tip at 7 pm but was moved so that no Big 12 teams will have both its men’s and women’s teams playing at the same time.

The Missouri men’s team is scheduled to play the winner of the Texas A&M-Texas Tech game at 8:30 pm on Thursday.

Tigers’ loss hurts Big 12 Tournament chances

The Missouri women’s basketball team’s 63-56 loss to Texas Tech yesterday afternoon had considerable ramifications involving the Tigers’ chances of advancing past the first day of the Big 12 Tournament. 

Had the Tigers defeated the Red Raiders they would have moved up to eighth place in the Big 12 Conference standings. That would have meant a first round game against a Nebraska Cornhuskers team (15-14, 6-10) that the Tigers beat earlier this season at Mizzou Arena. 

But instead the Tigers find themselves in eleventh place and will have an extremely difficult first round game against the No. 15-ranked Texas Longhorns. The Longhorns defeated the Tigers 66-56 in Columbia two weeks ago.

The Longhorns stifled Missouri in Columbia by utilizing a 2-3 zone defense that had the Tigers firing errant jumpers for most of the night. It’s not surprising that the Tigers struggled against a packed in zone. Missouri has the lowest field goal percentage in the Big 12 this season (38.7 percent).

If the Tigers hope to have any chance they are going to need senior Alyssa Hollins to shoot well above the 32 percent that she has shot from the field this season. Hollins is the Tigers’ best outside threat but she has struggled to handle the increased attention she has received from opposing defenses this season. 

Missouri and Texas will play at 7:30 pm on Thursday.

Cyclones defeat Tigers

The Missouri women’s basketball team fell to Iowa State 62-47.

Heather Ezell led the Cyclones with 17 points. Jessra Johnson was the Tigers’ leading scorer with 10 points.

The victory improves the Cyclones’ record to 22-7 and 10-5 in the Big 12. The Tigers fall to 13-15 and 4-11.

Iowa State leads Tigers at half

The No. 24-ranked Iowa State Cyclones lead the Missouri women’s basketball team 24-16 at halftime.

Amanda Nisleit leads the Cyclones with 10 points. Iowa State attempted 19 three-pointers in the first half while only hitting four.

Shakara Jones leads the Tigers with five points.