Mizzou's most unbreakable records: Basketball

With no live sports played for more than two months now, we at PowerMizzou have been spending a lot of time looking back at some of the most memorable games and players in Missouri history. As part of that, last week, we examined the most impressive feats in the history of Missouri football. This week, we shift our attention to the hardwood. The following is a list of the 15 most unbreakable achievements in the Tiger record books, broken down into three categories: single game, single season and career.

1. Three-point field goals made: Clarence Gilbert, 12 (Jan. 13, 2001 vs. Iowa State)

On Jan. 13, 2001, Missouri pulled out a wild four-overtime win over No. 18 Iowa State to win its fifth game in a row. Gilbert’s stat line from the game is still all over the school record book. He attempted 18 three-pointers and 36 field goals while playing 56 of 60 possible minutes — all marks that still stand. But most impressive was his making 12 of those 18 attempts from behind the arc. No other Missouri player has ever made more than nine triples in one game. Yes, he had a lot of extra minutes to do so, but Gilbert’s final stat line of 43 points and nine assists puts his performance on the short list of the best single games by a Missouri player.

2. Rebounds: Bob Reiter, 27 (Jan. 15, 1955 at Kansas State)

For whatever reason, it appears college basketball players don’t rebound like they used to. The two oldest records in Missouri history both involve rebounding (we’ll get to the other one shortly). Even crazier: 17 Missouri players have recorded at least 20 rebounds in a game before. None of those performances has come in the last 40 years, with the most recent being Curtis Berry’s 20-rebound game in January of 1979. For that reason, it’s almost impossible to envision one player getting to 27 in this day and age.

3. Assists: Phill Pressey, 19 (Dec. 28, 2012 at UCLA)

Pressey has every assist record at Missouri — single game, single season and career. But his 19-assist outing during the Tigers’ overtime loss at UCLA during his junior season might be the most enduring. The performance tied an SEC record at the time. No other Missouri player has dished more than 13 assists in a game.

4. Team field goals attempted: 99 (Dec. 28, 1962 vs. Oklahoma)

To me, this might be the most unbelievable record on the list. Long before the shot clock and the three-point line were introduced to the college game, Missouri shot the ball 99 times? I looked back, and all I could find about the contest was that Missouri beat Oklahoma 104-82. It doesn’t appear the game went into overtime. For reference, since the 2010-11 season (as far back as the game logs go on Basketball Reference), Missouri has only topped 80 field goal attempts in a game three times, and never more than 82. The performance might have been an anomaly even for the 1962-63 season, as the Tigers never scored more than 86 points in any other game that season and scored fewer than 70 in 19 of 24 contests.

5. Free throws attempted: Sammie Haley, 25 (March 13, 1996 vs. Murray State)

Even during a time when a lot of fans feel like college basketball officials are calling more fouls than ever, it’s relatively uncommon for an entire team to attempt 25 free throws in one game, much less one player. Haley shot pretty well from the line that day, too, making 17 of his 25 attempts in a 31-point performance. Also, I have to give a quick shoutout to Don Tomlinson, whose single-game record Haley broke. Only six times ever has a Missouri player attempted more than 20 free throws in a game, and Tomlinson accounted for three of those performances.

Bonus — One record that we could see fall: Team three-point field goals made: 20 (Feb. 23, 2002 vs. Colorado)

The three-point shot becomes more popular seemingly every season. Missouri has averaged well over 20 three-point attempts per game during each of the past three seasons and has made 15 triples in a game on three occasions during that span. Given the shooting struggles of last year’s squad, it may not happen this year, but it feels inevitable that at some point the team is going to get hot and break this mark.

1. Team field goal percentage: 57.3 (1979-80)

Considering this still stands as an NCAA record 40 years later, it’s probably the most unbreakable feat on this list. Led by Steve Stipanovich, Ricky Frazier and Curtis Berry, all of whom shot 59.8 percent or better from the field, Missouri made 936 of its 1,635 field goal attempts during the 1979-80 season.

2. Team consecutive free throws made: 54 (2019-20)

Once again, any time one of your team records is also an NCAA record, it’s safe to say it deserves a spot on this list. This past January, Missouri made all 31 of its free throw attempts against Alabama and then knocked down 23 in a row to start the game three days later against Texas A&M. Nine players contributed to the 54 straight makes, which broke Wake Forest’s record of 50 straight from 2005. Ironically, the streak ended when Mitchell Smith missed what would have been a game-tying free throw late in what turned out to be a loss against Texas A&M.

3 Scoring average: Willie Smith, 25.3 (1975-76)

I went into this exercise knowing that Smith was one of Missouri’s all-time greats. But I had no idea he was this prolific a scorer. Averaging more than 25 points per game for an entire season is exceedingly rare. In the past 10 seasons, only two high-major players in the entire country have done so: Trae Young in 2016-17 and Markus Howard last season.

4 Rebound average: Bill Stauffer: 16.5 (1951-52)

As mentioned above, Missouri’s oldest record comes on the glass. Stauffer set the program record by averaging 14.9 rebounds per game during the 1950-51 season, then blew that mark out of the water the following year. Since Al Eberhard’s career ended in 1974, no Missouri player has averaged even 10 rebounds per game during the course of a full season.

5. Consecutive field goals made: Jeff Warren, 24 (1991-92)

Surprisingly, this record doesn’t come from the 1979-80 season. Warren, who was never more than a role player during his Missouri career, made 24 straight shots across four games during his junior season. As post players are increasingly asked to step out and shoot from mid-range or behind the three-point line today, it seems unlikely that streak will ever be matched.

One that could be broken: Team personal fouls: 742 (1988-89)

This record almost went down last season. The 1988-89 Tigers, one of Norm Stewart’s most talented teams, actually averaged fewer fouls per game than the 2019-20 team. They simply played more games, 36 versus the 31 last season. If Missouri continues to foul at the rate it did last season (21.2 per game), it would need 35 games to eclipse that number.

1. Points scored: Derrick Chievous, 2,580 (1985-88)

Chievous still has several scoring records that could have made this list, but this is the granddaddy of them all. Chievous is just one of two players to score more than 2,000 points in his Missouri career and he’s nearly 400 points clear of Doug Smith, who’s second on that list. The Band-Aid Man averaged nearly 20 points per game across his four-year career. Scorers that prolific simply don’t stay in school for four seasons any more.

2. Minutes played: Jon Sundvold, 4,289 (1980-83)

Sundvold came off the bench as a freshman but still averaged nearly 26 minutes per game, then he started all 97 games during his final three seasons. He also holds the record for most minutes played in a season at 1,303 during his senior year. While there may be a chance someone could top that single-season mark if Missouri ever has a year where it plays something like 38 games, his career minutes mark, which averages out to about 32.5 minutes per game across a 132 game career (four seasons of 33 games) is likely untouchable.

3. Rebounds: Arthur Johnson: 1,083 (2000-04)

Not only is Johnson the only Missouri player from the 21st century to hold one of the school’s rebounding records, he’s the only one who has even come close, which illustrates how impressive this number is. Among the nine Missouri players who have logged 800 or more rebounds in their careers, Johnson is the only one who has taken the floor more recently than 1994.

4. Three-point field goals made (332) and attempted (906): Clarence Gilbert (1999-02)

No one in Missouri history has had a green light from three-point range like Gilbert. Gilbert attempted 201 more three-pointers than Marcus Denmon, the next-closest player in school history. He wasn’t quite as accurate as Denmon or some of the other sharp-shooters that have come through Missouri (though at 36.6 percent for his career he certainly wasn’t bad), but the sheer volume of three-pointers he shot across his four-year career means neither of those records are likely to be matched.

5. Field goal percentage (min. 500 attempts): Ricardo Ratliffe, 63.5 (2010-12)

Ratliffe actually led the NCAA in field goal percentage and set a Big 12 record that stood until this season when he shot 69.3 percent from the field during the 2011-12 season. However, in my mind, shooting 63.5 percent across a larger sample size is actually more impressive. Ratliffe made 366 of his 576 field goal attempts during his career. I was surprised to learn he did actually attempt a few three-pointers during his college career, shooting four of 15 from behind the arc, though none of those came during the 2011-12 season.

One that could fall: Free throw percentage (min. 250 att.): Michael Dixon, 87.9 (2011-12)

I actually think this mark will be eclipsed this season, assuming Dru Smith plays the full year. Smith shot 89.9 percent on 138 attempts from the line during his first year in a Missouri uniform. It’s not like that percentage was an anomaly for him, either, as he’s an 87.6 percent free throw shooter for his college career.