Mizzou memories: 2009 Sweet Sixteen
It has now been more than a week since college athletics shuttered in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. No games will be played, by Missouri or anyone else, until at least next fall. But that doesn’t mean we can’t find sports to cover. In this series, Mitchell Forde is going to bring a fresh perspective to iconic Missouri games. Each week, Mitchell will watch a Mizzou football or basketball game that occurred before he enrolled in college (fall of 2013) and write a story about the contest. Since it’s March and the NCAA Tournament would normally be unfolding this week, we had to start on the hardwood. Here is a look back at the last time Missouri made it to the second weekend of the Big Dance: a 102-91 Sweet Sixteen victory over Memphis from 11 years ago tomorrow.
Setting the stage: Three-seed Missouri and two-seed Memphis met in Glendale, Arizona with a trip to the Elite Eight on the line. The winner would face No. 1 seed Connecticut. Memphis had come a few missed free throws shy of winning the national title the year prior, and John Calipari’s team had won 27 games in a row entering this matchup. Mike Anderson’s Missouri team was not only back in the NCAA Tournament for the first time in six years, but seeded better than a No. 6 for the first time since 1994.
Fourteen-year-old me actually did watch this game, or at least part of it. This was back in the dark days when CBS was the only channel that aired the NCAA Tournament, so even though multiple games would be playing at once, the coverage map drawn up by some executive somewhere determined which one your local affiliate showed, and that was all you got. I believe I was stuck with Duke-Villanova for the majority of this particular night. (Side note: even one NCAA Tournament on TV game sounds pretty nice right now.)
Anyway, if you had asked me to describe anything that happened in this Sweet Sixteen matchup aside from the result, Marcus Denmon’s 65-foot swish to beat the halftime buzzer would have been the only play I could come up with. That’s the enduring highlight of the game — it’s still part of the pregame video montage at Mizzou Arena today. Denmon, then a freshman who averaged just six points per game, scored five points in the matchup. All five came in the final 21 seconds of the first half, and came on buzzer-beaters. His first field goal, which was ruled a long two-pointer but should have been a three, banked in just before the shot clock buzzer.
Turns out, that wasn’t the most impactful 5-0 spurt for one player in the first half. Missouri and Memphis traded baskets for about the first 10 minutes. Memphis knifed through Missouri’s zone defense almost at will — 18 of their first 22 points came in the paint. Roburt Sallie hit Memphis’ first three-pointer with 9:29 remaining in the first half to give his team a 26-21 lead.
Missouri point guard J.T. Tiller, better known (by me at least) for his defense and hustle, answered with a three-pointer on the other end. Then Tiller drove to the basket and muscled in a layup on the following possession to give Missouri a one-point lead. The two scores would ignite a scintillating stretch for the Missouri offense.
Sallie answered Tiller’s layup with another three-pointer, but DeMarre Carroll, the do-everything star of that Missouri team, scored on the other. Then, on the ensuing inbounds pass, Anderson’s trademark full-court press came up with a steal. Tiller scored his 16th point of the first half, already eclipsing his season-high, to give Missouri a lead that it would never relinquish.
Missouri finished the first half on a 28-11 run, capped by Denmon’s three-quarter-court heave. It did so not by turning Memphis over and scoring in transition — Missouri only forced five turnovers in the first 20 minutes — but with beautiful ball movement in the halfcourt. The quick passing, patience and, especially, movement without the ball struck me as something you don’t see as often 11 years later.
Missouri made 11 of its final 17 field goals in the first half. The Tigers kept it up after the break, too. When Matt Lawrence sunk a three just over four minutes into the second half, Missouri had taken a commanding 64-40 lead. Memphis would make the game interesting, but the spurt provided enough cushion for Missouri to hang on. In all, it was a 38-12 run stretching across 12:10. The Tigers shot 16 of 24 during that stretch. Continuing a season-long theme, 10 of those baskets were assisted — Missouri led the nation in assists per game with 18.4.
Making the offensive display even more impressive was the fact that Memphis finished the 2009 season with the best defense in America, according to KenPom. Prior to this matchup, it had never allowed more than 79 points in a game, and more than 72 in regulation. Color analyst Jay Bilas (sporting a full head of hair!) continually expressed his shock that any team could do this to Memphis’ defense.
Missouri’s shooting would cool off, and Memphis made two runs to chip away at the lead. During the first, Calipari gave Anderson a taste of his own medicine and dialed up the full-court pressure. Memphis sped Missouri up and forced a series of bad shots and turnovers during a quick 11-0 run that cut the deficit to 13. Zaire Taylor, who scored 12 of his 14 points in the second half, made a clutch play to end the run when he stole the ball at the end of Memphis’ shot clock. Everyone around him seemed to think it would be a shot clock violation, so Taylor got an easy run-out layup.
Missouri’s lead hovered between 13 and 16 for a while, then the Tigers started to get a bit tight on offense. Carroll picking up his fourth foul and heading to the bench with 8:35 left didn’t help. Missouri stopped moving the ball and, as a result, took tougher shots. The team made just three field goals in the final 8:22, and one was a layup by Carroll in the final seconds when the game was out of reach.
On the other end, Missouri couldn’t stay in front of Memphis’ latest freshman phenom, Tyreke Evans. Evans, named the national freshman of the year that season, put up 33 points without making a three-pointer, a feat that seems impossible today. Missouri didn’t have an answer for Robert Dozier down low, either. Dozier finished with 19 points and 16 rebounds.
Memphis cut the Missouri lead to six points with less than three minutes left, but Taylor answered with two free throws. He then came up with a steal the following possession, but Carroll missed both of his attempts fro the line. (On one hand, Missouri could have put the game away much sooner had it shot better from the free throw line, but Memphis was actually much worse, shooting 18-32 from the line.)
Peak puckering for Missouri fans must have come with just over a minute left, when Leo Lyons missed a wide open layup and Shawn Taggart dunked home an Evans miss on the other end to again trim the lead to six. Knowing this message board like I do now, I can only imagine the number of posters who were already preparing for the groin kick of a blown 24-point lead. But Memphis’ lack of shooting caught up with it. Memphis settled for a series of threes on its final possessions instead of continuing to attack the rim. Memphis shot just 3-15 from behind the arc on the game, with Sallie making all three. Carroll and Taylor sealed the 102-91 win at the free throw line for Missouri.
While Missouri’s offense was likely the big story coming out of the game, I believe the Tigers’ depth was equally important. Memphis had just six players play more than six minutes. Evans, Dozier and Antonio Anderson combined for 80 of the Tigers’ 91 points. Missouri, meanwhile, played nine players for double-digit minutes. All five starters scored in double figures, and nine players cracked the scoreboard. After facing Anderson’s “fastest 40 minutes” style and trying to climb out of a 24-point hole, Evans and company looked visibly gassed during the final few minutes.
MVP honors have to go to Tiller, who finished with a career-high 23 points, four rebounds, three assists and three steals. Under the radar love goes to Matt Lawrence, who scored 13 points and made three of Missouri’s six three-pointers, and Justin Safford, who chipped in seven points on three-of-three shooting. Lyons finished with a double-double: 15 points and 12 rebounds.
Missouri would give Connecticut a competitive game in the following round — it was tied with less than 10 minutes to play — but the No. 1-seed Huskies would pull away down the stretch, denying the Tigers their first trip to the Final Four. Meanwhile, the loss to Missouri would be Calipari’s final game as the head coach at Memphis. He agreed to a deal with Kentucky less than a week later. Like Missouri, Memphis has not been back to the Sweet Sixteen since. I have to imagine, had the Missouri players known walking off the court that the program would win just one more NCAA Tournament game in the next 11 years, they might have celebrated a bit more walking off the court.