With 3:46 left in a two-possession game against No. 10 Arkansas back in January, Missouri guard Hayley Frank knifed into the lane, spun to her right and put up a lay-up for an and-one. After she knocked down the free throw, the Tigers found themselves down just four with plenty of time left.
But, as has been a common theme with this year’s Tigers team, it came up excruciatingly short against the 9-2 Razorbacks in its first game of 2021. Missouri faced a seven-point deficit with under two minutes left and lost by just three.
Still, it was enough to make Arkansas coach Mike Neighbors sweat in the game’s final minutes.
“I mean, this is the team that at the end of the year is either going to have a bunch of wins or a bunch of games just like this that they’re battling every single person they play,” Neighbors said after the game.
Arkansas’ coach turned out to be spot-on. Five of the Tigers’ seven SEC games since then have come down to the final minutes in a league where they seem to play a top-20 team every night. The Tigers were within one possession in each of its last four games and lost all but one.
After a recent win against Florida, even Missouri coach Robin Pingeton admitted that her team could easily be 9-2 if it executed better down the stretch.
So, when Arkansas traveled to Columbia, it felt only fitting that the game came down to the final minute once again.
Unfortunately, like clockwork, the Tigers struggled to find that final shot to push them over the top. Once again, Missouri played a close game down the stretch, and once again it ended in a frustrating defeat, this time an 85-80 loss to the No. 16 Razorbacks.
“There were some times I wasn’t in love with our body language,” Pingeton said. “It’s a 40-minute game and I know there’s probably some self-doubt when you’re not pulling these games out, but you got to stay the course. I thought our kids battled back and made it interesting down the stretch, we just didn’t have enough to get over the hump.”
For stretches of Thursday’s game, it didn’t appear as if the score would be all that close. Arkansas began to pull away early in the second half behind hot shooting from its guards and went up 18 in the third quarter. But, like seemingly every game, Missouri found itself down just one point with under a minute remaining.
Then Destiny Slocum comfortably buried a three from a step behind the arc. Ball game. The shot gave her team a four-point lead, which it held onto down the stretch. Once again, it was too little, too late for the Tigers, and another close loss against a top-15 team.
“They made big plays down the stretch and you expect that out of a veteran team,” Pingeton said. “I told our girls in the locker room that no one’s going to feel sorry for us…. We’ve got to stay the course and one of these times it’s going to pay off for us.”
The Razorbacks received their offense from two key sources Thursday: from behind the arc and from its dynamic trio of Slocum, Amber Ramirez and Chelsea Dungee.
Slocum’s late three was the last of 14 three pointers that the Razorbacks converted on Thursday night, good for half of its 85 points. Slocum, Ramirez and Dungy combined for 66 points and 14 assists while no other Razorback scored more than six.
On a positive note, Missouri guard Lauren Hansen may have had her outbreak game for the Tigers. Hansen played a pivotal role in her team’s second-half comeback and finished with a team-high 19 points and four made 3-pointers, including a 4-point play in the third quarter.
“We know she’s a very talented player and I felt like at halftime you knew that she was having a pretty good game,” Pingeton said. “I thought she was playing with confidence, shooting the ball well, but not forcing the action. I thought she’s had the best game that she’s had since she’s been here at Mizzou.”
Sophomore Aijha Blackwell agreed and said that Hansen’s hot shooting helped in a third quarter in which Arkansas threatened to pull away.
“I think Lauren took the right shots we needed,” Blackwell said. “She had the hot hand, and we knew that, so we just got her the ball and she knocked [shots] down.”
Ultimately, not even Hansen’s newfound shooting-stroke could make up for a third quarter in which the Razorbacks outscored them by six points or the slow start to the first half where the Tigers went down 13-2 early.
Offensively, the Tigers couldn’t keep up with an offense that shot 51.7% from the field and 53.8% from beyond the arc. They couldn’t find that one final play down the stretch.
There’s a reason that a team like Arkansas can beat a then-unbeaten Connecticut team while Missouri’s best win came against unranked Florida –– a reason that Arkansas is ranked No. 16 in the country while Missouri is yet to win an SEC home game.
The Razorbacks had fifth-year seniors, multiple go-to scoring threats and had more wins than Missouri had games played. Too many little things added up as the Tigers allowed the game to slip away in the final minute. Those things hurt, especially in a league with as much talent as the SEC.
“Sometimes you just got to go through it,” Pingeton said. “The SEC this year is as tough as it’s ever been. [Arkansas] is a senior-led team and you gotta do a lot of things right. And we did, we just didn’t have enough to get over the hump.”
The Tigers will next travel back to Auburn, Alabama, this Sunday to make up its postponed game against Auburn at noon on Superbowl Sunday.
_Edited by Hope Davis | hdavis@themaneater.com_