Three takeaways from Mizzou basketball's Border War loss to Kansas

Missouri men’s basketball had high hopes coming into Saturday’s game at Mizzou Arena against No. 6 Kansas, the first home game against the Jayhawks since 2012.

Those hopes were proven to be misplaced as KU walked away with the 95-67 win in a Border War rivalry game that looked more like a border mugging to observers.

Here are three takeaways from Saturday’s game.

Defensive breakdowns

For the Tigers to have any chance in Saturday’s game, they needed to play defense. The Tiger defense hasn’t been the strongest so far this season, but it always got the job done.

On Saturday, as the offense struggled to create easy buckets early on, Kansas scored at will. By the under-12 media timeout in the first half, Jayhawk guard Gradey Dick had 12 points and his team was hitting 78% of its field goals.

Kansas wasn’t doing anything particularly creative on the offensive end. It just appeared the Tigers were overmatched and perhaps a little too fired up, making basic mistakes that caused nearly uncontested shots for their opponents.

By halftime, things weren’t much better. The Jayhawks were leading 50-33 at the break and had made 20 of their 31 field goal attempts in the first half.

The Tigers just seemed overmatched. They kept losing shooters and not closing out, resulting in points for Kansas.

The inability to defend against a quality opponent could spell trouble down the line, as Missouri will soon face solid competition in games against Illinois and Kentucky.

Ice cold

If Missouri was going to have a chance to win, it would have preferred Saturday’s game become something akin to a track meet. That didn’t happen.

Even worse, the Tigers simply couldn’t hit shots. Part of it was the solid defense by the Jayhawks, who made things difficult for MU throughout the game.

But the other part was an absolute absence of shooting touch by the home team. Even when shots were open, Missouri still missed it.

The Tigers missed from beyond the arc. They missed from mid-range. They even missed layups and dunks that should have been their easiest points of the night.

By the end of the first half, Missouri was hitting at just a 33.3% clip. From three-point range, even though the group kept shooting, it made just three of its 13 tries.

One of the best ways to beat a more talented team is by shooting lights out, especially from deep. Unfortunately for the Tigers, that doesn’t seem to be how their team is constructed.

Pent-up energy

The first thing you could hear from the stands at Mizzou Arena was the yells. A little under two hours before the opening tip, staff let students enter and the group, some of whom had been camping outside since Friday morning, sprinted through the concourse and down to their seats.

It was a crowd unlike anything the Tigers had seen at home in recent seasons. The game had been sold out the day tickets went on sale and fans packed the arena to the gills.

Before the game, Truman the Tiger descended via rope from the rafters, carrying a Jayhawk pinata, which he jumped up and down upon after arriving on the ground. Mizzou Arena staff also brought out extra pyrotechnics for the event, trotting out pillars that shot fire for player introductions.

When Kobe Brown scored the first points of the game, the crowd exploded, years of frustrations over not playing Missouri’s biggest rival bubbling over all at once. Students chanted throughout, first with the extra lyrics to The Killers’ Mr. Brightside, then several rounds of “FBI”, in reference to the scandal that ensnared Kansas basketball.

Football coach Eli Drinkwitz even made an appearance in the student section, waving a sign and helping to hype up the already rowdy group. The joint was jumping.

Unfortunately for Missouri, it seemed the moment might have been a little too big. The team looked rattled, especially early on, and made some uncharacteristically sloppy plays that helped Kansas get out to a big lead.

Still, for a moment at least, the passion was back in Columbia. Missouri will be back in action next Saturday, taking on Central Florida.

This article originally appeared on Columbia Daily Tribune: Mizzou basketball: Kansas wins Border War rivalry game