The Tigers learned their NCAA Tournament fate about one minute into the selection show. They are the No. 9 seed in the Midwest Region will play eighth-seeded Colorado State around 8:20 Thursday night at Rupp Arena in Lexington, Ky. The game will be televised on TBS.
High-scoring guard Willie Smith spent only two seasons at Missouri, but they sure were memorable. Smith, the school’s leader in career scoring average at 23.9 points per game, saved his best moment for last, dropping 43 points on Michigan in a 95-88 loss in the 1976 Elite Eight.
“Don’t call it a comeback.” That was former Missouri basketball star Marcus Denmon, a Kansas City native, in January, taking to Twitter to announce his return.
Mississippi coach Andy Kennedy says his team got a “gift” in beating Missouri 64-62 on Friday in the SEC Tournament. It was the latest in a line of miscues in the clutch as the Tigers, 23-10, continue to show a frustrating inability to close out games away from Mizzou Arena. They await their NCAA Tournament fate on Selection Sunday.
Derrick Millinghaus’ tear-drop floater with 1.1 seconds left Friday night sent Mississippi to a 64-62 victory in the SEC tournament quarterfinals at Bridgestone Arena. The Rebels overcame a 14-point second half lead by the Tigers, who dropped to 23-10 on the season and now await their NCAA Tournament seeding on Sunday.
Key play: An Alex Oriakhi putback keyed a 12-2 run that eventually put Missouri ahead 22-13 with a little under seven minutes left.
Missouri, which never trailed and led by as many as 21 in the second half, beat Texas A&M 62-50 in a second-round SEC Tournament game in Nashville, Tenn. The Tigers advanced to face Mississippi in the quarterfinals at 9 p.m. Friday.
WHEN/WHERE: 9 p.m. Friday at Bridgestone Arena in Nashville, Tenn.
When asked about junior point guard Phil Pressey, who again came under fire Saturday for missing a late shot in a road loss to Tennessee, Missouri coach Frank Haith — who expressed his frustration with the shot after that game — came to the defense of his co-captain.
With the Tigers set to begin the SEC Tournament at 9 p.m. Thursday, MU coach Frank Haith wants to see his team get back to dominating the boards after a poor performance at Tennessee in the season finale.
Despite leading the SEC in assists this season at 7.1 per game, Missouri point guard Phil Pressey has become a lightning rod for criticism because of his inconsistent shooting, rising number of turnovers and miscues in the clutch. “People have been killing me, but I don’t really pay that any mind because I’m like, in transition mode,” he said.
WHEN/WHERE: 9 p.m. Thursday at Bridgestone Arena in Nashville, Tenn.
Missouri qualified 10 wrestlers to the NCAA championships for the second straight year as pairings for the national meet March 21-23 in Des Moines, Iowa, were announced Wednesday.
Missouri junior guard Phil Pressey was chosen first-team all-Southeastern Conference by the league’s coaches on Tuesday and was joined on the all-SEC team by teammate Laurence Bowers, a senior forward who made the second team. Pressey was also chosen first-team all-SEC by The Star.
Missouri — which enters the SEC Tournament as the sixth seed with a 22-9 overall record, including an 11-7 mark in league play — will now have to regain their mojo quickly after seeing their three-game winning streak come to an end.
On the eve of his team’s first practice of the spring, Missouri coach Gary Pinkel was decidedly energetic, upbeat and positive, not that last season gave him any reason to feel that way.
The SEC men’s basketball tournament starts Wednesday in Nashville, Tenn.
Terez A. Paylor, The Star's MU reporter, looked back at each of the Tigers' possessions down the stretch of their 64-62 loss at Tennessee, trying to figure out why Phil Pressey went away from the formula that helped MU get back into the game.
Phil Pressey’s missed three-pointer was the last dagger in a disappointing loss for the Tigers, who fell to the No. 6 seed in the upcoming SEC Tournament with a 64-62 loss to the Vols.
The Missouri wrestling team had four individual champions and easily won the Mid-American Conference title Sunday in Buffalo, N.Y.
Redshirt freshman guard Quinton Chievous, the son of Missouri’s all-time leading scorer Derrick Chievous, finished with seven points and five rebounds in 14 minutes off the bench for Tennessee.
In the 2011-12 fiscal year, Missouri’s athletic department lost $16.2 million, mostly because of $13 million in Big 12 revenue withheld as a penalty for leaving for the SEC. Kansas reported an $8.7 million loss, mostly because of severance payments to fired football coach Turner Gill. Meanwhile in Manhattan, Kansas State’s bottom line was $12.3 million in the black.
Five-year financial snapshots, including detailed revenues and expenses, for the Kansas, Kansas State and Missouri athletic departments.
With a win Saturday at Tennessee, Missouri clinches a bye to the quarterfinals of the SEC Tournament and will be either the No. 2 or 3 seed. But if the Tigers lose, they could fall to the No. 6 seed depending on tiebreakers.
WHEN/WHERE: 3 p.m. Saturday at Thompson-Boling Arena in Knoxville, Tenn.
Sheldon Richardson swaggered around Dan Devine Pavilion on Thursday, a smile plastered on his face. Missouri’s Pro Day was finally here, and this was a day Richardson had been waiting on for a while.
They may not talk about it, lest they neglect to focus on the task at hand. But when the Missouri’s women’s basketball team faces Vanderbilt at 5 p.m. Thursday in the first round of the Southeastern Conference tournament in Atlanta, its postseason ticket may be all but punched.
In their last home game of the season, the Missouri Tigers earned a convincing and immensely satisfying 93-63 victory over Arkansas in which the Mizzou Arena crowd made it clear from the get-go that it wanted Razorbacks coach Mike Anderson to get his reckoning, despite the fact he coached five largely successful seasons in Columbia.
