Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Tigers down Huskers in OT


The Jekyll and Hyde act that the Missouri Tigers have been performing all season continued on Wednesday night as they defeated Nebraska 86-78 in OT.


Keon Lawrence and J.T. Tiller came up huge for the Tigers. Lawrence led MU with 19 points and also pulled down 6 rebounds. Tiller added 14 and four assists and came up with several key plays down the stretch. These two guys struggled against Texas A&M on Saturday, but excluding that game they have stepped up in a big way since the Athena Night Club incident. 

Nebraska center Aleks Maric absolutely destroyed the Tigers scoring 32 points and pulling down 16 boards. But not one of those points came in the overtime period. 

This was a great win for Mike Anderson's team and really a solid all-around effort by just about everyone that played. But I would not be doing my job if I didn't point out two strategic decisions made by coach Anderson that left me dumbfounded. 
  1. Justin Safford gets only 6 minutes after how well he's played the past few weeks? Really? And he doesn't even check in until the 9-minute mark in the first half? Maric is eating DeMarre Carroll, Leo Lyons and Vaidotas Volkus alive and you don't even give Safford a chance (whose help defense on Maric was outstanding when these teams played a couple weeks ago)? And why did Gary Link not bring this up in the postgame interview with coach Anderson? How does Darryl Butterfield get more minutes than Safford (even if the difference is minimal) at this point? Inexplicable.
  2. With 5.1 seconds remaining Anderson called a timeout following a free throw by Nebraska that tied the game. He had enough time left on the clock to draw up a play that would get his team a great look at the basket. His quickest player (and one of his only players who has shown some ability to create his own shot), Keon Lawrence, had been on fire all game. But what happens? The inbound pass goes to Jason Horton, who nearly dribbled out the clock before throwing up an off balance three that doesn't even sniff the rim. What's worse is the play appeared to be designed to go to Horton. Keon was nowhere near the ball at any point during that play. I just don't understand. 
But I also have to give credit where credit is due. Coach Anderson had his players ready to play tonight and they gave a resilient effort. When the game went into overtime with the Tigers missing Carroll (who fouled out) and the way Maric was dominating I didn't think there was any chance Mizzou would be able to pull out a victory, but they proved me wrong.

If you had visited Tigerboard after Saturday's loss you would have found a plethora of posts calling for coach Anderson's head. But tonight the discussion is centering around whether or not the Tigers still have a chance of sneaking into the NCAA Tournament with an upset win or two. That's been this season in a nutshell.

Tigerboarder's opinions aside, what does this win really mean for the Tigers? Do they have a legitimate shot at the Dance? Come on. This team has proven time and time again this season that consistency is not really their thing. I guarantee you'll be reading tiger_boi08's pleas for the dismissal of Mike Anderson again before the season's over.

What this win does do is keep the Tigers off the NIT bubble for the time being. As of Monday NIT-ology has the Tigers "solidly in" at a No. three seed. And I suppose there is a glimmer of hope for those Tiger fans who still have NCAA Tournament dreams. 

And to quote Andy Dufresne from the Shawshank Redemption, "Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things. And no good thing ever dies."

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Gary Link doesn't ask the tough questions because Gary Link is not paid to ask the tough questions. He's an arm of Alden. But it needed to be asked by someone.

As for the NIT, MU's solidly in for now, but as we saw last year, that can change quickly. With the automatic bids factored in once teams from small conferences screw up their tournament, nothing is certain.

The True Son said...

That's very true about Link. The better question probably would have been why Graham or DeArmond didn't ask the question. I expect more from Mizzou grads.