This fall will mark 10 years since Missouri announced a seismic change: The athletics department would leave the Big 12 conference and join the SEC. Missouri’s new home has brought the department increased revenue, which has helped bankroll improvements like the South Endzone football facility and new softball stadium. But for virtually every sport, the move has brought new challenges, as well — better competition and more pressure to spend to keep pace.
Over the next 10 weeks, we will be counting down Missouri’s top 10 athletics moments from its first decade as a member of the SEC (which is actually nine years of competition because it took a year for the change to take effect). Note that wrestling, which has spent the past nine years as a member of the Mid-American Conference and will rejoin the Big 12 next fall, wasn’t considered for inclusion since it didn’t compete in the SEC.
For our next entry, we look back to February 3, 2018, as the revitalized Missouri basketball team hosted No. 21 Kentucky.
Previous Entries:
No. 10: Thomas' one-hitter clinches regional title
No. 9: Cunningham’s ‘flu game’ keys historic upset
No. 8: Mizzou opens Martin era with win over Iowa St
Earlier in our countdown, we revisited Missouri’s magical season-opening night of the 2017-18 basketball season. In the weeks that followed, the promise that drew a sellout crowd to Mizzou Arena for the first time since 2013 never quite materialized as off-court drama took center stage.
Missouri fans know the story by now. The injury that sidelined the nation’s No. 1 recruit, Michael Porter Jr., less than two minutes into the Iowa State game turned out to be more sinister than a sore leg. His back injury required a microdiscectomy surgery. Missouri announced in late November that Porter would miss the remainder of the season. Less than a week later, Porter took to Instagram and posted “Just letting y’all know whoever said it was going to take 3-4 months to recover lied.” At every press conference and interview for the next three months, head coach Cuonzo Martin and his players faced constant questions about Porter possibly returning to the lineup, despite the fact that no one seemed to have an answer.
While Porter’s injury stole the headlines, that wasn’t the only adversity faced by the Tigers that winter. By the end of December, two other members of the highly-touted freshman class, guards Blake Harris and CJ Roberts, had announced their intention to transfer and left the roster. Then, in January, junior point guard Terrence Phillips was suspended indefinitely while Missouri’s Title IX office investigated allegations of sexual misconduct. Phillips would never play another game for Missouri.
Yet despite the circus surrounding the shorthanded roster, Missouri did just enough to remain in the NCAA Tournament conversation. The Tigers went 12-3 in non-conference play, including wins St. John’s and Central Florida. On Jan. 17, Missouri knocked off Tennessee for the program’s first win over a ranked opponent in more than four years. That victory was followed by three straight losses, however. When No. 21 Kentucky came to town on Feb. 3, Missouri sat at 4-5 in SEC play, in need of a needle-moving win to put wind back in the team’s NCAA Tournament sails.
John Calipari’s Wildcats virtually always bring the biggest spotlight and the most talent to town of any opponent in the SEC, and the 2017-18 version of the Wildcats was no different. Kentucky had signed the nation’s No. 1 recruiting class prior to the season, which included five five-star prospects. Adding to the stakes for Missouri: The Tigers had never beaten the Wildcats in program history. In fact, no one on the roster at the time had ever even gotten close; the previous four matchups between the two teams had been decided by an average of 27.3 points.
Martin didn’t bring that up in the days leading up to the game or in the locker room beforehand, saying he didn’t want it to be something that added pressure if the matchup wound up being close late. But then-junior Kevin Puryear said all the players were well aware of Missouri’s lack of success against Kentucky.
“That was something that was kind of left unsaid,” said Puryear. “... We knew we hadn’t knocked off Kentucky. I definitely knew that, because I had never beat them in my time playing them. But overall, I think we really just approached it the same way we would approach any other game.”
Even before the 1 p.m. tipoff, it was clear this wouldn’t be any other game. A capacity crowd filled Mizzou Arena, and the Tiger fans made themselves heard in a unique way.
As Kentucky’s starting lineup was introduced, the announcement of freshman wing Kevin Knox drew a hearty chorus of boos. Knox, a former five-star recruit out of Florida, had taken an official visit to Missouri alongside Harris a couple weeks after Porter committed to the Tigers. The Mizzou Arena crowd evidently felt spurned when Knox ultimately signed with Kentucky, because the jeers carried over into the game. Every time Knox touched the ball, he heard boos, which only got louder as the game progressed and more fans joined in.
Looking back, Puryear chuckles about the fervor with which the crowd heckled Knox. The Missouri players didn’t have any sort of hard feelings toward him, he said.
“I think that in the mind of Mizzou fans, they were really sold that we were going to get Kevin Knox,” said Puryear. “I’m not going to speak on that, but I would definitely say that they got very emotionally interested in Kevin Knox committing to Mizzou. It wasn’t personal for us, like it wasn’t a personal thing.”
But regardless of whether Knox’s reception was warranted, it may have benefitted Missouri. Knox, who averaged 15.6 points per game that season, scored just five points on 2-6 shooting.
“Especially a young guy like that, haven’t necessarily played in an atmosphere where the crowd isn’t on his side, I think that can play a factor and when you get that,” Jordan Geist said of Knox. “It does really affect your game.”
A far larger factor in Knox’s struggles, however, was Martin’s defensive game plan and his players’ execution. Martin came to Missouri with a reputation as a sharp defensive mind, and his team’s performance against Kentucky represented a masterpiece.
Kentucky shot just 6-30 from the floor during the first half. The Wildcats missed all 10 three-point attempts. During the final 5:58 of the half, they didn’t score. During that time, Missouri scored eight straight points to take a 28-18 lead into the locker room. The Wildcats finished the game shooting 31.3 percent from the field and 10 percent (2-20) from long range, while Missouri blocked eight shots.
Puryear remembers the key to the Tigers’ defensive game plan being disrupting Kentucky leading scorer Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, keeping him from penetrating into the lane where he could score and make plays for others, and not allowing Knox any open looks. Gilgeous-Alexander and Knox combined to score just three points during the first 20 minutes. Martin said the defensive performance represented a team effort, but oft-criticized senior Cullen VanLeer served as the star. VanLeer drew the assignment of guarding Knox, and despite giving up about five inches in height and quite a bit of athleticism, he never allowed Knox, who now plays for the New York Knicks, to get into a rhythm.
“We knew Cullen would do his job, keep him in front of him, play defense that way, but don’t allow him to get angles where he can get to the rim, making plays, or he’s getting to his spots and shooting clean pull-ups,” Martin explained. “You had to make him work for his catches, or maybe if he wanted to get on the three-point line, get him a foot off the three-point line, make it harder so he has to put the ball on the floor so your help pockets can do a great job of helping him.”
Despite the sluggish first half, Kentucky, of course, wouldn’t just surrender. The Wildcats started the second half on a 14-5 run, cutting Missouri’s lead to a point before the first media timeout. The Tigers needed to find some more offense in order to regain control. They did so the way they would all season: with the two seniors leading the way, but just about everybody contributing a clutch bucket or two.
Jontay Porter answered the Kentucky run by knocking down a three-pointer. The younger brother of Michael Porter Jr. had settled into a role as Missouri’s sixth-man and continued to improve as the season went on. The following possession, he scored on a fastbreak layup. A couple minutes later, his blocked shot led to another run-out and Jordan Barnett knocked down a three. Porter finished the game with 13 points (on just 4-7 shooting), eight rebounds and three blocks.
“He was a guy that could care less if he had five shots, 10 shots,” Martin said of Porter. “Because he was going to do other things. He was going to get assists, get rebounds, going to play the game, play defense, block a shot.”
Barnett had been quiet in the first half, missing all three of his field goal attempts and scoring just four points. But he caught fire in the second, knocking down consecutive threes during Missouri’s answer to Kentucky’s early run. When he finally missed his first three-pointer of the second half, he cut to the basket and Puryear found him for an emphatic, two-handed dunk that sent the crowd into a frenzy. A few minutes later, he drained a fadeaway jumper, drew a foul and sank the free throw to cap a 19-6 run and give Missouri a 14-point lead with less than 10 minutes to play.
Barnett finished the game with 16 points. Geist and freshman Jeremiah Tilmon also contributed key scores during the second half. In total, all eight Missouri players who saw the floor that day scored, while three finished with at least 13 points.
“It was just that kind of team,” Martin said. “It was an unselfish team. Guys that valued each other, didn’t care who scored the ball.”
Then there was Missouri’s closer, Kassius Robertson. The graduate transfer from Canisius had taken on the role of Missouri’s leading scorer and vocal leader after Porter Jr.’s injury. As a result, with their lead hovering between seven and 10 points for much of the final few minutes, the Tigers kept putting the ball in Robertson’s hands. He continually found ways to get fouled and coolly converted from the free throw line. In the game’s final 2:15, Robinson made all eight of his attempts from the stripe.
It wasn’t an accident that Missouri turned to Robertson during its most important moment of the season to date, nor that he delivered. His teammates raved about his work ethic. Asked what made that team special, they all pointed to how hard everyone worked and how that led to trust in one another, and that started with Robertson.
“Funny story about me and Kassius, I actually didn’t like Kassius when he first started here,” Puryear said. “He was very, very vocal — like if you were not performing up to par in practice, he would let you know about it in front of everybody, and he didn’t care. But over time, I really realized that Kassius is honestly a winner. He was by far the hardest-working player on our team. He was in the gym every single night. Like every night. I would always call, when I would call him during the season, I’d be like, ‘Kash, where you at?’ ‘I’m in the gym.’ It would be like 11 o’clock at night. So everything that he earned during his grad year at Mizzou was definitely deserved.”
“That man showed me, showed everyone, what it was like to work,” added Geist. “I think that when Cuonzo talks about building his culture, it really starts with our group, and Kash kind of led the way for that.”
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Robertson’s two biggest free throws came with 22 seconds to play, after Kentucky had cut the lead to five. Porter sealed the game on the other end by swatting a Jarred Vanderbilt shot off the backboard, getting the rebound and drawing a foul.
When the final buzzer sounded, Robertson turned to the fans seated behind the baseline, lifted both arms into the air and yelled. Puryear skipped toward the Missouri bench and extended his right fist. Even Martin offered a muted fist pump on his way to shake hands with Calipari. Geist said the win served as a confidence boost heading into the stretch run of the season.
“Everyone knows that you want to beat the Kentuckys, Dukes, North Carolinas, and it just re-solidified everything in our minds about how special we could make this season,” he said.
Ultimately, Missouri would indeed return to the NCAA Tournament that season for the first time in five years, with that win over the Wildcats serving as the centerpiece of the team’s resume. The postseason wouldn’t prove particularly memorable, however. Porter Jr. finally returned to the roster for the SEC Tournament, although clearly not at full strength. Missouri lost its conference tournament-opener to Georgia. Then, playing without VanLeer due to injury and without Barnett due to suspension, the Tigers fell flat against Florida State in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.
Still, in Puryear’s mind, that 2017-18 campaign breathed life into the Missouri program. It showed the fans that the school could still field a competitive team and the players and coaches that fans would still turn out to support it. In the two years since his college career has ended, Puryear has caught himself watching highlights from that season on YouTube. The program’s first ever win over Kentucky served as the zenith.
“When I look back on the 2018 year, I think that is a year of kind of revitalizing the program,” Puryear said. “I think for all the guys that I talk to, it was just a great, fun experience. Especially for the returning guys who definitely saw the valleys of Mizzou basketball. I mean, my freshman year I believe we won 10 games, and the second year, nine. So to come back from that, third year, new teammates, new coaches and everything like that, I honestly thought that season was a success and it was just an overall great experience.”
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