Over the last decade, we’ve seen dwindling interest in Missouri men’s basketball. When you see highlights from a wild home game of the past, it’s from the distant past. You can tell by the hair and the shorts and the lack of empty seats in the background.
However, we’ve seen a corresponding decline in the number of rap songs dedicated to the Tigers, so you have to acknowledge there is an upside to apathy.
For a few hours Tuesday night, a Missouri basketball game felt like an event again. The arena was loud, the student section was packed and a middle-aged woman on an enormous unicycle was kicking dishes onto her own head. Most important, the Missouri Tigers had one of the best teams in the nation on the run. It was well worth venturing out on a frigid midwinter night to experience in the flesh.
That’s the feeling nostalgic Missouri fans have been chasing.
The Tigers mostly have been down for the last ten years, but that’s only part of the reason a night out at a basketball game has become an obligation more than a party. The sport’s regular season is an afterthought almost everywhere outside a handful of hotbeds.
How many college basketball games not involving Missouri have you watched on TV this season? I’ve caught bits and pieces of a few but haven’t watched any end to end. I used to know the entire starting lineups of the better Big East, Big Ten and ACC teams and granular details about all the Big Eight/Big 12 teams.
Bryant Reeves grew up in Gans, Oklahoma. Eric Piatkowski was — perhaps still is — known as “The Polish Rifle.” Julius Michilik’s favorite show was “Matlock.”
The games are still available to watch — more available than ever, actually — but there is more competition for our attention, and football occupies almost all of our sports-related headspace. Last Saturday, when Missouri tipped off at Alabama, the Tigers were on my laptop while the NFL playoffs got the big screen.
My ambivalence about Missouri basketball was the result of some combination of my general declining interest in the sport and my particular disinterest in this team, which has been a very hard watch for most of the season. There’s no way to sugarcoat it: Cuonzo Martin lost this round of transfer portal roulette and is paying the price for a few consecutive years of bad recruiting. Trevon Brazile is the only underclassman with the potential to be a star in the SEC.
I had minimal anticipation about the reboot of the Kansas series, because I fully expected the game to be as lopsided as it turned out to be. Ditto with the Braggin’ Rights game. I turned off the Arkansas game at halftime, and, unlike the Tigers, I didn’t miss much. Those are the three biggest rivalry games, and Missouri lost by a combined 106 points.
It’s also true that the Tigers have shown improvement in recent weeks, so I thought they might hang with Auburn for a half on Tuesday. Bruce Pearl’s team was bound to be hungover from receiving the first No. 1 ranking in program history the day before. The students created a good atmosphere, the refs allowed Missouri to play physically on defense and Auburn’s freshman lottery pick couldn’t make a shot. All that got us to Red Panda time with the game tied.
Some of Missouri’s offensive limitations started to show in the second half. If you judge a point guard on the who-is-worrying-whom scale, Boogie Coleman is the “whom.” That’s no knock on him, since it’s not his natural position, but he is just trying to get the protect the ball until he can back his way across halfcourt and get rid of the damn thing. His defender has zero concerns about giving up a drive to the basket. So the offense spends the first half of the shot clock in survival mode before players are even thinking about attacking. That means a lot of late-clock desperation shots.
In this case, Javon Pickett, who is a different player entirely when the opponent is wearing orange uniforms, made enough shots to keep Mizzou in the game. That included a 3-pointer with 35 seconds left that cut Auburn’s lead to one point. I don’t want to overstate the noise or atmosphere — because Mizzou Arena was only two-thirds full — but it was getting pretty wild as it dawned on all concerned that for the second time in a month, a Missouri basketball team could take down the No. 1 team in the nation.
A month ago, Robin Pingeton’s team executed exquisitely on the final possession against South Carolina, calmly working the offense until Lauren Hansen used a screen to free herself for the winning shot. Martin’s team was not as ready for the big moment. The logical move was to go for a quick steal and then foul if that didn’t work. Instead, Missouri played straight-up defense, and when Auburn kept a missed shot alive with a tipped rebound, the clock expired.
That unforced error at the end was disappointing and robbed this Mizzou team of a last chance to match the achievement of another nondescript team of the past, the 1997 squad that upset No. 1 Kansas. But the evening had was what has been missing from much of this season, and much of the last ten seasons — it was fun.
GOOD TRY, GOOD EFFORT
In honor of Buffalo Bills quarterback Josh Allen, who had a flawless night right up to the point when he called tails on the overtime coin flip against the Chiefs, let’s explore the category of greatest Mizzou individual performances in a losing effort.
*Brad Smith rushed for 213 yards in a 31-24 loss to third-ranked Oklahoma in 2002. That day, Smith proved he could make even elite defenders look silly.
*Tony Temple rushed for 194 yards against Oregon State in the 2006 Sun Bowl and was actually voted the MVP until the Beavers won 39-38 on a 2-point conversion at the end. Bowl officials called a last-second audible and gave the MVP award to Oregon State QB Matt Moore. The next year, Temple left no doubt who deserved the MVP in the Cotton Bowl when he rushed for 281 yards in a 38-7 rout of Arkansas. So, in summation, Temple rushed for a combined 475 yards in his last two bowl games.
*On to the basketball court, where Renee Kelly scored 41 points in a loss to Oklahoma in 1986. I don’t have any details to add except that the Mizzou sport information staff was nice enough to include a line in the women’s basketball record book that says “Points Scored in a Losing Effort,” and if you’re going to do my work for me, I’m going to use your stat.
*On the men’s side, Anthony Peeler scored 43 points in a 97-89 loss at Kansas in the final regular-season game of his career in 1992. He just kept rising up and shooting smooth jumpers over the person or persons in front of him.
*It was before my time, but Willie Smith scored 43 points in a 95-88 loss to Michigan in the 1976 NCAA Tournament Elite Eight. That was Norm Stewart’s best chance to make the Final Four, and Smith almost made it happen.
*Then there was the 2003 second-round NCAA Tournament game against Marquette when Rickey Paulding (36 points) and Arthur Johnson (28 points and 18 rebounds) outplayed Dwyane Wade (24 points) but Missouri lost 101-92 in overtime. It didn’t help Mizzou’s cause that Ricky Clemons, who was on temporary loan from the local authorities, went 2 for 15 from the field.
GETTING THERE IN STYLE
I’ve been watching with interest the masculine modes of transportation Missouri’s football coaches have used to make recruiting trips. They pulled up to Lee’s Summit North High School in dump truck and visited East St. Louis in a monster truck.
This doesn’t leave much wiggle room to make a splash with other recruits. Tanks are not welcome on our interstate highways. While a Case IH combine might connect with a beefy offensive lineman in rural Missouri, the stunt could backfire if you’re tying up traffic for an hour while puttering down a two-lane at 15 mph. And wild boars are legendarily difficult to saddle up and navigate.
Call me old-fashioned, but I think the classics still work best. Just show up in a new Mustang, and when the visit’s over, hand the recruit the keys.
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