KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The Missouri men’s basketball team currently owns a 20-game home winning streak. But if you ask Missouri interim head coach Tim Fuller, the streak should have stood at 23 games heading into Saturday’s matchup with Hawaii at the Sprint Center.
“This is Mizzou West,” Fuller termed Sprint Center. “We continued to reiterate that to our team throughout pregame shootaround and throughout the whole day, that we don’t lose at home, and this is our home away from home.”
Whether it counts as a home game or a neutral site game is a technicality. Either way, Missouri improved to 3-0 on the season with a 92-80 win against the Rainbow Warriors in its first game in Kansas City since winning the 2012 Big 12 Tournament.
Junior guard Jabari Brown sat on the bench as a redshirt watching the Tigers win the title in their last season in the conference. This time around he quietly led Missouri with 23 points, tying a career high.
“He’s a silent assassin,” Fuller said. “I hardly ever want to take him off the floor because he guards every possession. He’s lethal from the 3-point line. He just plays with such a poise about him that keeps our team temperament calm.”
Earnest Ross reached double digits with 12 points, while also adding five assists and five rebounds.
After attempting 12 3-pointers in Missouri’s first two games, the 6-foot-5, 228-pound senior guard shot just three times from beyond the arc. Instead, he drove the lane, with all four of his field goals coming on layups.
“I called him over to the side when Jordan (Clarkson) went out, I said, ‘If you shoot another 3, I’m taking you out, so drive the ball,’” Fuller said. “And sometimes it has to be that point-blank with him. And then he started driving the ball and once he saw the ball going through the rim that way, he just continued to do it.”
The biggest surprise for Missouri came from Tony Criswell. The senior forward was a game-time decision after missing Missouri’s first two games due to an unspecified violation of team rules.
Criswell received a warm welcome from the Kansas City crowd, and he didn’t disappoint. He scored 11 points and grabbed nine boards in his first action of the season.
Junior guard Jordan Clarkson picked up his second foul just three minutes into the game when he received a technical foul for taunting. Clarkson, the team’s leading scorer entering the game, sat the remainder of the half.
“It’s always tough sitting on the sideline when you’re in foul trouble,” Clarkson said.
His backup, freshman guard Wes Clark, picked up three fouls as well. Freshman guard Shane Rector, who didn’t play in MU’s first two games, had to hold down the fort, and the Tigers trailed by one at half.
“I think we did a great job,” Clarkson said. “Wes came in and did a great job of handling the team, and so did Shane Rector. And then you had our older guys like Earnest and Jabari doing a great job of handling the scoring and rebounding and playing defense, and our frontcourt did what they have to do, so I think we still did a great job.”
Clarkson scored eight points in the second half, finishing with 13 points, three rebounds and two assists.
Due to the foul trouble, the Tigers bench received a workout. Missouri’s reserves netted 28 points, and 10 Tigers ended up on the score sheet.
After a week off, Missouri returns to its true home when it hosts Gardner-Webb on Nov. 23 at Mizzou Arena.
