A little after 9 p.m. Friday night, with Missouri leading Iowa State 39-25 at halftime in both schools’ men’s basketball opener, Norm Stewart stepped out to midcourt.
Stewart, the Tigers’ legendary coach from 1967 to 1999, had been outside Mizzou Arena earlier in the day as the guest of honor. He had pulled off a black curtain to unveil a hulking statue of himself that will gesture forever toward the sky.
Inside, Stewart, flanked by his former Tiger players, addressed a sellout crowd of 15,061.
“We have the greatest fans,” Stewart said. “You’ve been absent for a while, but you’re back.”
After this weekend, Missouri fans should be back for good.
The basketball team, with all of 100 seconds played by star freshman Michael Porter Jr., never trailed against Iowa State in a 74-59 win.
On Saturday night, Missouri football beat up on Tennessee 50-17, prompting Sunday’s firing of embattled Vols head coach Butch Jones.
It was a great weekend for Missouri sports, one that provoked memories of the dominant Tigers teams of the past and brought out hope for a return to the days of sold-out Memorial Stadium and packed-to-bursting Mizzou Arena.
The latter, at least, rang true Friday night. Half an hour before the game, the student section — formerly sparse — was so full it spilled out into the upper bowl, filling up three more sections of Mizzou Arena and still leaving eager students doubling up on seats and crowding the aisles.
I choose to attribute that not to poor allocation by Mizzou Athletics of the student ticket system but to actual excitement for the basketball program, something that was noticeably, and understandably, lacking during my first two years at MU.
You can’t expect people to support a bad team — when the Tigers were bad, the student section for both major sports had visible holes. I would show up for 7 p.m. basketball games at 6:55 and sit in the otherwise vacant second row, or sneak into Tiger’s Lair at Faurot with no one bothering to check.
Those days have gone, at least for the time being. And that’s a good thing.
They’ve been replaced by days where Missouri beats a power-conference team outside of the Southeastern Conference in basketball for the first time in … well, let’s just say it’s been a while.
And, again, Missouri managed this without Porter Jr. In his stead, freshman big man Jeremiah Tilmon dominated down low on offense and defense, pouring in 14 points on 7 of 9 shooting. Tilmon shares his hometown of East St. Louis, Illinois, with first-year coach Cuonzo Martin, who’s known for his recruiting and the scrappy defense of the teams he’s coached.
Martin pinballed from Missouri State to Tennessee to California before finding himself in Columbia, two hours away from home and across the mighty Mississippi.
In his first game as the Tigers’ coach, Martin brought the excitement like Kim Anderson, his predecessor, never really could. That’s due to the new blood Martin managed to bring in: Tilmon, Jontay Porter, Blake Harris and C.J. Roberts, who didn’t even need to play Friday night. And, of course, Michael Porter Jr., the anointed one, the heralded savior of a cellar-dwelling Tigers team. Porter Jr., who wasn’t really needed, sat on the bench in warm-up clothes with a tweaked hip, as Missouri walloped Iowa State in front of a raucous crowd.
The Tigers kept it up on Saturday in front of a respectable audience at Faurot for senior night. Quarterback Drew Lock wasn’t at his best and it didn’t even matter for Missouri, which pounded the Vols on the ground for a whopping 433 rushing yards. Senior running back Ish Witter had the game of his life in his Columbia encore with 216 yards and a score. Freshman Larry Rountree was a perfect complement, providing 155 yards on 18 carries and scoring once in his bruising style.
The defense was aggressive in its pursuit of freshman quarterback Will McBride, picking him off twice and sacking him five times, with redshirt senior Marcell Frazier and redshirt freshman Tre Williams each contributing two. Mizzou took a little while to open it up, but the team cruised to a win.
The Tigers have stabilized at 5-5, after a sky-is-falling reaction from pretty much everyone (myself included) when they fell to 1-3, then to 1-5. Missouri has a favorable schedule from here on out with games at Vanderbilt and at Arkansas. It has a realistic shot at a 7-5 finish and almost definitely will make a bowl game. And after a five-game losing streak, that’s something even the most optimistic pundits didn’t expect.
Maybe last weekend won’t be the sole, critical turning point it could be. Perhaps Missouri basketball never gels as well as in its first game and struggles to another SEC basement year. Maybe the football team comes out flat and falls in Nashville or Fayetteville or both.
But Friday and Saturday sure were enjoyable. And after the last two dismal years for Missouri fans, does it have to be anything more than that?
_Edited by Joe Noser | jnoser@themaneater.com_