Texas A & M celebrates their 77-74 win over Missouri snapping a 32-game home winning streak. UPI/Bill Greenblatt
The Missouri Tigers home winning streak at Mizzou Arena ends at 32 games after Texas A & M battled from 11 down in the second half for a 77-74 win Wednesday night. It was a struggle most of the first half for the Tigers who had difficulty getting into any kind of rhythm and then after building a big lead, went cold again.
The Missouri Tigers started out sluggish in the first half as A & M jumped out to a 7-0 lead . After head coach Mike Anderson called a timeout, Mizzou cut the lead to 10-7, but each time the Aggies would answer with a run to push the lead back up to seven. At one point the Aggies were shooting 64% for the half, but the Tigers began to chip away at the lead and finally caught and passed A & M with 35.6 left in the first half when Steve Moore hit two free throws to give the Tigers a 37-36 lead.
Outside shooting was a struggle for Mizzou in the first half as they hit just 4 of 12 on three pointers in the first half while shooting less than 50% from the floor.
Missouri came out strong to start the second half and built a six point lead at 44-38 after Justin Safford nailed a three pointer forcing Aggies coach Mark Turgeon to call a timeout with 17:57 to play. The Tigers kept the pressure on and it looked like Mizzou was in the driver seat when Laurence Bowers blocked the put back attempt and pushed the ball out to Kim English on the right wing…with JT Tiller cutting in the lane, English hit Tiller with a pass who dunked around Aggie big man Bryan Davis to prompt another time out as Mizzou increased the lead to 48-39. English increased the lead to 11 at 52-41 with a three pointer with 14:33 to play.
A & M battled back to go up with less than six minutes to play. Ray Turner of A & M dunked over English to make it 58-55. Then Donald Sloan hit a three to make it 61-56 with just over four minutes to go as the Tigers went cold on the offensive end. The Tigers started to make a move in the final minute and a half and they had to keep fouling. Mizzou started hitting shots on the other end and English made it 75-74 with 12.4 seconds to go when he hit a three from the right elbow.
MU coach Mike Anderson tries to settle his team down (UPI, Bill Greenblatt)
Off the inbounds pass, Zaire Taylor fouled out sending BJ Holmes to the line for A & M with 10.5 seconds. Holmes hit both to make it 77-74. After an A & M timeout, Missouri had one more chance to tie, but Tiller three try bounced off the front of the rim.
A & M shot 52% for the game including 6 of 10 on three pointers from the worst three point shooting team in the Big 12. The Tigers were just 9 of 28 on three’s and shot just 42% for the game. Kim English led MU with 15 points. Safford and Tiller each had 12.
Listen to Mike Anderson’s postgame comments.
