The Tigers and Jayhawks played in Columbia for the first time in 10 years on Saturday, but the visiting Kansas squad won easily, 95-67. Graduate guards D’Moi Hodge and Nick Honor led the team in scoring with 15 apiece.
For the first time since 2012, the notorious Border Showdown returned to Columbia. On Saturday, the men’s basketball game between Missouri and Kansas was highly anticipated, and fans filled the sold-out Mizzou Arena to watch.
“You want to be in environments where people care,” Kansas head coach Bill Self said. “There was obviously a caring environment today. They turned out and the crowd was great.”
The Tigers, however, seemingly disappeared in their biggest game of the season — the fast paced, high-scoring offense that had propelled Missouri earlier in the season was nowhere to be found.
Missouri entered the game undefeated, nine games into the season, so a competitive game between the rivals was expected. However, for most of the game, the Tigers struggled to keep up with the No. 6 team in the nation.
Missouri jumped out to an early 4-2 lead, but Kansas stole that lead after senior guard Kevin McCullar Jr. drained a 3 to put the Jayhawks up 7-4. The Tigers would not regain the lead for the rest of the game. Kansas freshman guard Gradey Dick started the game by hitting his first five shots, three of them from behind the arc. The Jayhawks continued to pull ahead, finishing the half ahead by 17.
In the first half, Missouri shot 33.3% from the field and 23.1% from behind the arc while its opponent seldom missed, shooting 64.5% from the field and an impressive 60% from behind the arc.
Graduate guard D’Moi Hodge and graduate point guard Nick Honor led Missouri in first-half scoring, contributing 7 points each. But unfortunately for the Tigers, the second half was worse than the first.
Kansas went on a 9-0 run to open the half, extending its lead to 26 in just over two minutes of game time. The Jayhawks’ second-half shooting declined slightly, but not enough for the Tigers to mount any serious comeback. The Jayhawks shot 50% from the field and 33.3% from 3 in the second half, putting them at 57.4% and 45.5% for the game.
Missouri’s offense improved its shooting in the second half, finishing the game with a field goal percentage of 40% and a 3-point percentage of 30%.
With 7:54 left in the second half, the Tigers went on a small run to cut the deficit to 15, but just like the other mini-runs, the Jayhawks responded. In the end, Kansas won 95-67.
Missouri’s defense had no answer for the Jayhawk starting five, which combined for 86 of Kansas’ 95 total points.
The Tigers entered Saturday as the nation’s top assist team with an average of 21.6 per game — yet they had just eight against Kansas. Missouri’s offense was known for playing fast, sharing the ball and knocking down shots at a high percentage, but the Tigers could not effectively do any of those things.
Despite the steady lead the Jayhawks maintained throughout the game, the fan-filled Mizzou Arena stayed loud.
“Our crowd was outstanding,” Missouri head coach Dennis Gates said. “It was a beautiful sight to see. We just didn’t give them more reasons [to be loud].”
The Tigers entered the game with the 356th best strength of schedule out of 363 possible schools, according to KenPom.com. Having experience playing one of the country’s best teams will benefit the team going forward, as the schedule only gets tougher.
Each of the team’s next 13 games will be against a top-100 KenPom-rated team. Before Kansas, only Wichita State — ranked 84th — fell within the top 100.
Gates said the Tigers will have to continue fighting as they look ahead to upcoming win opportunities in the thick of the season.
“My challenge to my guys each and every day is: ‘How can we use every situation that we encounter?’” Gates said. “Good, bad or ugly, we have to galvanize and get on the same page so we can have, in April, the outcome that we want.”
Edited by Matt Guzman | mguzman@themaneater.com
Copy Edited by Grace Knight
