‘You have to embrace it’: Mizzou Tigers basketball enters Kansas rivalry in the dark

When the Kansas and Missouri men’s basketball teams meet on Saturday, reviving a storied rivalry after nearly a decade of dormancy, one side will be much more familiar with the game’s meaning than the other.

Bill Self has coached plenty of KU-MU games before and his players say he’s ”amped.” Jayhawks forward Chris Teahan knows plenty from when his brother, Conner, played in the series. Christian Braun does too, as many of his family members played at Mizzou, including his brother, mother, Lisa Sandbothe, and uncle, Mike Sandbothe.

But on the Mizzou side, everything about this rivalry is new. Coach Cuonzo Martin was in his first season when the two teams played in an exhibition game for charity in 2017, but that’s the extent of his experience. None of the players are from the Kansas City area or have connections to the rivalry either.

“It’s a game on the floor, but it’s more than that. I mean because the fans, the energy, everything around it makes that,” Martin said Friday morning. “I don’t know if it necessarily means anything that nobody in the program has been in it.”

Martin has never been to Allen Fieldhouse, but he was well aware of the rivalry growing up in East St. Louis. And a Jayhawk happened to be one of his favorite players to watch.

“One of my favorite players coming up was Danny Manning. I mean, everybody probably liked Danny at 6-foot-10, a guy that could handle the ball and make plays,” Martin said. “...If you understand basketball, you know what it is. I’ve always admired Larry Brown when he was the coach there. but it’s business now. I mean, I enjoyed that as a youth but it’s business now.”

Self has had former players speak with his team over the past week about how much the rivalry means to them. Teahan and Braun have chimed in too. But things are being handled a bit differently on the Mizzou side.

Forward Kobe Brown didn’t know much about the rivalry growing up in Alabama, but he said he’s heard about the history from former players when they visited over the summer.

“Now I’ve been here, I see how important it is to like the fans and alumni here, the previous players, talking to them, so it’s a big thing,” Brown said. “I’m glad to be a part of it.”

Brown couldn’t remember who it was or what he said though. No former players have spoken to the Tigers directly this week yet, guard DaJuan Gordon said. But he’s heard a lot about it from his academic tutor.

“They tell me how big it is because they all went here,” Gordon said.

Gordon is the only Mizzou player who has taken the court at Allen Fieldhouse, as he transferred to the program from Kansas State. He played there in a game on Jan. 21, 2020 that ended in a scuffle between the two Sunflower State teams.

“I told them a little bit about it, how it’s just gonna be one of the loudest games that they play in,” Gordon said. “...Real loud, you won’t be able to hear the coach, so we gotta know what we’re doing. And the floor’s gonna be shaking, it’s gonna be a real good game.”

Kansas students have been camping out for seats since Monday and Allen Fieldhouse is expected to be packed to the brim. This will be a college basketball christening for many of the Mizzou players as they get their first dose of the rivalry once the ball tips at 2:15 p.m. Saturday.

“This is one of the top five games historically that you’ll see,” Martin said. “And I’m glad to have it back, so that they’ll feel whatever that is in that game. But I think you have to embrace it.”

This story was originally published December 10, 2021 at 1:30 PM.

Lila Bromberg

The Kansas City Star

Lila Bromberg covers the Missouri Tigers for the Kansas City Star. She is a graduate of the University of Maryland and was ranked as the best college sports reporter in the country by the Associated Press Sports Editors in 2021. In addition to covering the Terrapins for four years, Bromberg has worked for Sports Illustrated, Yahoo Sports and USA TODAY Sports.