
A frenzied crowd forced uncharacteristic errors from a tidy kansas squad, giving the Tigers their first win over a No. 1 ranked opponent since 1997.
The 272nd installment of the Border War began with a raucous Mizzou crowd fueled by various chants and ended with the Missouri Tigers toppling the No. 1 kansas jayhawks 76-67 in a historic night. The win helps propel the Tiger program to heights unseen before in the Dennis Gates era.
With a restless crowd that has not seen the Tigers pull off a win in this rivarly for almost 13 years, it was paramount that head coach Dennis Gates’ group get off to a hot start. Through aggressive defense turning into offense, the Tigers did exactly that as they raced out to an early 22-11 lead just over 10 minutes into the game.
A noted statistic prior to the game was kansas’ fortitude when coming into a game off of a loss, as the jayhawks lost to Creighton in their previous outing. kansas under Bill Self was 119-20 after a loss, yet are 1-1 against Mizzou within that time frame and parameters.
The crowd’s introduction into the game by means of Mizzou offense incited poor possessions repeatedly for kansas’ offense. kU amassed a gargantuan 13 turnovers in the first 15 minutes of play, with the majority of them coming on jumped passes, mistakenly touching the out of bounds line, and passes to nobody.
Defensively, the Tigers were quick on switches and noticeably very keen to stay in close proximity of any kU ball handler. This hound the intruder style of defense led to the jayhawks shooting just 42% from the field in the first half.
Tamar Bates was a quintessential aspect to the Tigers’ hot start, as he picked up a couple early three pointers to get the crowd on its feet. In tandem with Bates was Mark Mitchell, as the two did an excellent job at driving to the hoop strong to absorb contact and pick up fouls. Bates picked up 29 points off of nine-for-15 shooting, while Mitchell picked up 17 points with eight of them being on free throws.
On the other end the assignment was clear, as kansas’ offense was slated to run through Wooden award hopeful Hunter Dickinson. The center stands at seven-foot-two and Missouri’s own seven-footer Josh Gray was tasked with that matchup for the majority of the game. Gray picked up six rebounds in his first eight minutes of play, already eclipsing his average of 5.3 per game heading into this one.
Missouri excelled in the paint early as 15 of their first 21 possessions featured touches of the ball in the paint, yielding 23 points off of them. Points in the paint later became a huge aspect of the outcome of this game, with the Tigers leading in that category 32-28.
The real catalyst to this game being in favor of Mizzou by 14 at the halftime whistle was the charity stripe. Getting to the line was one of our keys to the game and Mizzou shot 14-of-16 from the line while kU only shot five and made three. That’s an 11-point swing on fouls and this was really in no part to the refs and mostly due to the Tigers willingness to create contact.
The opportunism didn’t end in the first half, as the jayhawks were desperate for a spark to begin the second half were met with more defense-to-offense from Mizzou who raised the roof on a drive with a foul to make it a 21-point deficit. The lead got to as large as 24 before a 15-0 run from kU drew lots of restlessness from the Tiger faithful.
The run was finally curtailed by a turnover from Hunter Dickinson forced by Anthony Robinson which led to a second-chance layup from Tony Perkins. Robinson and Bates combined for 10 steals for the Tigers, the most two players have combined for in a single game all season.
Most teams will curtail opposition scoring runs with offense of their own, but Mizzou was unable to generate that offense and instead turned to their defense. After the Perkins layup, kU was held scoreless for almost four minutes thanks to tough contests.
The deficit was brought to its littlest in the latest stages of the game as a deep-two from Gray was met with a 6-0 run from the jayhawks to bring the score to 62-57 in favor of the Tigers. Self’s group was notably a lot quicker to get in transition off of rebounds in the second half than the first half, which allowed them to get easy buckets.
A three-point play from Harris brought the game to within two, but a kick out three from Mitchell made a loud night even louder. On the ensuing possession, a missed shot from Dickinson led to a foul on Gray which put him on the line for two key free throws. Gray sunk both, to the delight of the home fans.
That stretch of greatness was all the Tigers needed to pick up a court-storm worthy victory at Mizzou Arena. Inciting a day to remember in Columbia, as fans are slated to party like its 1997.
Our own Matt Harris via the forums on RockM+ tried to decipher what exactly Gates’ group was doing to incite such a calamitous response to pressure from the visitors. His explanation was that the Mizzou guards were very aggressive against Zeke Mayo and Dajuan Harris on pick-and-roll and designated handoff plays, which took away the formers ability to pull up in the mid-range and the latters ability to drive. This aggressiveness also made it hard for kU guards to make entry passes to Dickinson which is a key aspect of their offense.
Overall, Missouri shot 44% from the field and 31% from three-point land. Similarly, kU shot 40% from the field and 36% from beyond the arc. Missouri were out-rebounded by the jayhawks 40-28 while the visitors had 22 turnovers to the Tigers’ 11.
Missouri will now prepare themselves to host Long Island on Saturday, Dec. 14 at 11 AM CT on SECN/ESPN+.
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