The rivalry between Missouri State and Mizzou women’s basketball just kicked up a notch.
Off to their best start since the 2003-04 season, the No. 18/20 Missouri State Lady Bears (8-1) hosted in-state rival Missouri (3-7) Sunday at JQH Arena. Jasmine Franklin’s 20 points led four Bears who scored in double figures as MSU beat Mizzou 79-72. Amber Smith led the Tigers with 22 points on 9 of 18 shooting.
During warmups, Missouri State wore white t-shirts with the slogan “Missouri Is Our State.”
After the game, during the hand shakes, Missouri State head coach Amaka “Mox” Agugua-Hamilton claimed one of the Mizzou assistants mocked the t-shirts her team was wearing. During her post game interview for radio which was broadcast to the more than 5,000 fans inside the arena and during her post game comments, to the media, she gave her side of the story.
Click below to hear her comment
The Lady Bears (9-1) led 6-0 after two minutes before the Tigers (3-8) pulled even at 15-all thanks to a 7-for-10 shooting start. The Tigers wrapped a 15-2 run around intermission to lead 38-35 early in the third quarter, but Missouri State countered with a 9-0 run, then rattled off 10 straight points after MU closed within a point to lead 54-43 with 1:48 left in the third period. Missouri State then used an 11-1 run early in the fourth quarter to lead 65-50 with 6:09 to play. The Tigers got back to 72-65 with just under a minute to go, and each team went 7-for-8 at the foul line in the last 58 seconds for the final margin.
“At the end of the day, the shirt says “Missouri is our state” and that’s the message that I’ve had from day one with them. We’re playing an in-state team, it’s a rivalry, it’s competitive, they beat us last year – it’s revenge and we’re going to come out and play that way…at the end of the day, it is our state.”
Missourinet has reached out to Mizzou Athletics and responded “Coach Pingeton was nothing but complementary of Coach Agugua-Hamilton and the Missouri State program following yesterday’s game. Mizzou wishes Missouri State the best of luck with the rest of their season, and looks forward to future competitive matchups against one another.”