Zaire Taylor made a tough shot and hit his free throw with less than six seconds left and DeMarre Carroll hit two more free throws off a Texas turnover, and the Tigers leave Austin with a 69-65 upset win over 16 th ranked Texas.
This win in Austin is the first since 1999, Norm Stewart’s last win.
Taylor finished with a team high 17 points and three steals as Mizzou forced 15 turnovers. I think Missouri’s defense set the tone in the second half. Earlier in the week, head coach Mike Anderson talked about how you can’t press as much on the road as you do at home because of the calls the home teams seems to get, but it seemed the Tigers did enough of that in the second half to be successful.
The Tigers jumped out to a 10-3 lead, something they haven’t done well with on the road. The Longhorns shot back to outscore Mizzou 25-6 and build a 12 point lead with seven minutes to go in the first half as the Tigers went about five minutes without scoring at one point in the first half.
However, Missouri stayed calmed, didn’t panic and when they cut the lead to five at 34-29 at the half, I figured the Tigers at least kept themselves in the game.
The Tigers kept their composure in the 2 nd half especially in the last five minutes when the teams traded the lead several times down the stretch. However, as good as the win is for Missouri, and I’m not taking anything away from them, the young guys on the team really didn’t contribute. It came down to Carroll, Lyons, JT Tiller, and Taylor accounted for 78% of their points as the bench contributed just 13 points and Matt Lawrence’s shooting took the night off as he was just 1 of 5 (1 of 4 on three point shooting).
Hey, a win on the road at 16 th ranked Texas is still a huge win and while the young players may not have been a big part of the win, they learned a lesson in what it takes to be tough on the road thanks to their more experienced teammates.