Missouri State was led by freshman Jarred Dixon who posted a career-high 19 points. (file photo/MSU Athletics)
Its not even worth writing up individual stories for Mizzou, Missouri State and Saint Louis. You’ve come here for one stop shopping for the sad state of Division I basketball in the state of Missouri. All three teams lost on Wednesday night and each one uglier as the night went on.
For starters, the Bears were going for their fourth straight road win in Missouri Valley play, and let a 12-point lead slip away as they lost at Indiana State 68-59. MSU melted away in the final eight minutes of the game.
The Bears play four freshman and at least with Paul Lusk’s team, they are showing some positive signs of improvement. Not to make an excuse, the Bears were also without their big inside presence with Camyn Boone who is nursing an ankle injury.
Lusk has his team in the middle of the pack in the MVC, while getting over 30% of his scoring production from freshman. MSU is 8-13 overall, 4-5 in conference play.
SLU never found their shooting touch at Dayton (photo/SLU Athletics)
The Billikens couldn’t hit (fill in the blank) at Dayton. SLU shot 27% for the game, making just 15 shots, were just 3-of-24 from three-point range and couldn’t even make free throws. SLU was 4-of-11 on freebies. The Billikens scored a season low in a 73-37 final to the
Flyers.
SLU is now 8-12 overall and 3-5 in the Atlantic 10.
Mizzou’s Kevin Puryear is hounded under the basket by two Wildcat defenders (photo/UK Athletics)
The nightcap. Well, you only needed to watch about five minutes to see how this was going to end. Mizzou had scored only 20 points at halftime. Kentucky put up 20 in the first 4:34 of the game! The Tigers were down 18 points and out of the game just like that.
Mizzou lost 88-54. They turned the ball over 15 times. Got outrebounded 47-28 and played horrible zone defense as the Wildcats shot 52% for the game.
Kim Anderson was hoping his team would not play “horrible” as it put, when they lost 86-37 last year at Kentucky I guess that’s some improvement right?
The record is still poor. 8-12 overall, 1-6 in the SEC.
Thursday, the sad state of Missouri basketball could continue it what could end up as another bad road loss. Southeast Missouri State, under first-year head coach Rick Ray is 4-16 overall and just 1-6 in the Ohio Valley with a game at SIU-Edwardsville.
We can give Ray a free pass, this is his first season. We did that with Anderson at Missouri, but I’m quickly hearing from fans that their patience is wearing thin in Columbia.
D-I basketball as a whole in Missouri is in a deep freeze.
