OKLAHOMA CITY | Nobody knows for certain who invented the first zone defense. Some believe the zone goes back to the very beginning of the game, that each team played zone for the very first game played in 1891 in the Springfield YMCA with a soccer ball and two peach baskets. Of course, there were nine playing on each team then, so it must have been something like a 3-1-1-2-2 zone.</p><p>Some say the man most responsible for inventing the zone was Frank Lindley, who coached high school basketball in Newton, Kan., for 30 years before the end of World War II.</p><p>And others say the zone was not invented at all &#8212; it was discovered by a coach noticing that his team was playing lousy man-to-man defense.</p><p>However it began, the zone defense is now best known for turning perfectly good basketball games into ugly affairs. That&#8217;s what happened Friday night, when Missouri beat Oklahoma State 67-59 in the Big 12 tournament. It was a beautiful outcome for the Tigers &#8212; they reached their first Big 12 tournament final since 2003. And when they play Baylor at 5 p.m. today, they will be favored to win their first Big 12 tournament championship.</p><p>The game itself, though, was agonizing. And the reason, simply, was that Oklahoma State played a packed-in zone defense, and for much of the game the Tigers seemed to have no idea how to attack it. The Cowboys really had no choice but play zone; this was their third game in three nights. They looked exhausted from the opening tip. They had no distance control on their shots &#8212; everything seemed to come up short or sail long. They seemed to know from the start that they could not match the energy level of Missouri.</p><p>So, they did the smart thing: They tried to sap the energy of the game. And the best way to do that is to drop back into a zone and hope the other team just chucks three-point shots until they realize too late that the game is getting away from them.</p><p>For a long while, the strategy worked beautifully. The Tigers fired up 16 three-pointers in the first half, and most of them were bad shots &#8212; from the corner, off-balance, out-of-rhythm shots. The Tigers made only two of them. They trailed 23-21 at the half. They made 25.8 percent of their shots. It was one of the worst offensive halves of the season for Missouri.</p><p>The Tigers, though, are a good basketball team, and Mike Anderson is a coach who makes adjustments. They prove that in a new way every time they play.</p><p>At one point in the second half, Missouri&#8217;s Zaire Taylor made a three-point shot, and then a moment later he tried another that would have been a dagger. The shot rattled in and out. Seconds later, Taylor turned to teammate Matt Lawrence and said with a smile: &#8220;It&#8217;s a good thing I missed that one. If I had made it, I wouldn&#8217;t have passed the ball again.&#8221;</p><p>He said it as a joke, but there was truth in it. And the Tigers seemed to realize that. They came out in the second half and understood that, on this night, facing a tired team but a raucous Oklahoma State crowd, they were not going to be able to just clamp on that full-court defense and play their fast-break offense and run Oklahoma State off the floor. It wasn&#8217;t going to happen.</p><p>So, they played a whole other way. That&#8217;s the sign of a good basketball team.</p><p>They attacked the basket &#8212; Leo Lyons scored 12 of his 15 points in the second half, and he scored most of them around the basket. They forced the Oklahoma State guards to shoot from a step beyond their comfort zone &#8212; the Cowboys missed their first 16 three-point shots. And mostly, Missouri just worked on its lead, slowly, methodically, purposefully. It wasn&#8217;t pretty. But tournament victories are not often pretty.</p><p>Tonight, Missouri will probably face the same challenge. Baylor will be playing its fourth straight night, and the Bears players will be hungry (they have to win to make the NCAA Tournament) but, you would expect, exhausted. They will pack into a zone. They will try to coax Missouri into shooting those three-pointers again. They will hope their own three-point shots fall.</p><p>And it will be fun to see how the Tigers respond to the challenge this time. Friday&#8217;s game wasn&#8217;t all that much fun to watch, but it was impressive in its own way. The Tigers seem to be getting better and better. And it&#8217;s the right time of the year to be getting better.