Watching last night’s Mizzou game against Davidson, I couldn’t help but think of Bob Eucker’s character, Harry Doyle, delivering the line in Major League, “In case you haven’t noticed, and judging by the attendance you haven’t…”
Just over 2,400 were on hand to witness Mizzou’s 85-77 come from behind win over Davidson in the opening round of the NIT Tournament at Mizzou Arena.
I truly wonder what the rating was for the game. At this point, is there anyone left on the Mizzou bandwagon? You look at their record, 23-11, and most teams would take that. However, this has been an underachieving team with some ugly losses on their resume.
Because of injuries and suspensions, Mizzou dressed only eight players. Wes Clark and Shane Rector, were suspended earlier this week after they were arrested on suspicion of possession of 35 grams or less of marijuana.
Afterwards, Tigers’ Head Coach Frank Haith, who earned career win number 200, said, “This is a heck of a win for us; it was short-handed so I was so proud of how hard our guys played. This guy right here, our senior (Earnest Ross); he came out and did not play particularly well in the first half, but he was terrific in the second half but it was a team effort; everybody that played contributed. I thought our guys competed their butts off. I thought that from start to finish even when we got down 13; we were playing hard. “
Haith also gave a lot of credit to the Wildcats, “Davidson is a really good ball club and you look at them on tape; they are an outstanding team. They play everybody; they beat Georgia and they took (North) Carolina to overtime. “
Jabari Brown led all scorers with 30 points, which put him over 1,000 points while at Mizzou. He said that despite trailing for much of the game, he never thought that this was his last game as a Tiger, “”No, we were focused on winning.”
Haith said of Brown, “If you would have told me, and this is about the maturation of his game, that Jabari had 30 points I would have said he made five or six 3-pointers; but he only made one 3-pointer. That tells you a little bit about him not settling and his ability to finish through contact, his ability to get to the free throw line. I am proud of him, obviously he was terrific tonight, but it was a great team effort.”
The official attendance was announced as 2,403. Haith said, “First I want to thank the fans that came out tonight, they were outstanding. We truly appreciate that and it means so much to us and our players to have the fans come out and support us; the energy they brought tonight was outstanding and I am forever grateful to them. We play Sunday and we do not know the time; I know it is spring break, but if we can get folks in town out here again it would be really appreciated.”
Mizzou is now 2-2 against Davidson (20-13) all time. The Tigers will host a second round game Sunday against the winner of tonight’s (Wednesday) Toledo at Southern Miss game.
