Missouri basketball extends win streak to six with 75-61 victory over Morehead State

Missouri’s interesting season continued on Saturday as the Tigers let a 27-point lead slip to single-digits but still closed their non-conference slate with a 75-61 win over Morehead State. The Tigers have won six straight.

After a quiet game against Illinois, his former team, sophomore guard Mark Smith led Missouri with a career-high 22 points. The sophomore outscored the Eagles (4-9) 16-5 early in the game as the Tigers led 32-5 at one point in the first half.

The Tigers went into halftime up 45-22 but saw the Eagles cut the score to 59-51 with eight minutes after a strong run at the start of the second half. Eagles guard A.J. Hicks gave MU’s defense all kinds of issues; he led the Eagles with 18 points.

Hicks also helped lead to Morehead State’s downfall. After cutting MU’s lead to eight points, Hicks got a technical foul for headbutting senior guard Jordan Geist, which keyed a 6-0 MU run to put the game back out of reach.

Geist scored 18 points and five rebounds and fellow senior Kevin Puryear chipped in 12 points and seven rebounds. After battling a foot injury for most of the season, junior college transfer K.J. Santos logged a career-high 19 minutes and scores his first basket as a Tiger off a pass from Xavier Pinson.

Fresh off his Southeastern Conference player of the week award, Jeremiah Tilmon had his worst game in some time even though the Eagles’ tallest player was 6-foot-7. Tilmon finished with just four points and two rebounds and fouled out in 12 minutes.

Missouri opens SEC play on Jan. 8 against No. 3 Tennessee. Tipoff is slated for 6 p.m.

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Cuonzo Martin said after the game that freshman forward Christian Guess is no longer with the program. Guess committed to Missouri in September and was on campus shortly after and appeared in the Tigers’ loss to Kansas State for just seven minutes. Martin called Guess “a wonderful young man” and added that he has a good heart. Guess’ departure opens up a scholarship for Mizzou.

This story was originally published December 29, 2018 at 3:26 PM.