Missouri Still Knows How to Beat Kansas

If it wasn’t for Missouri, top-ranked Kansas would be working on a perfect season.

The No. 2 Tigers beat the Jayhawks for the second time this season--their only losses in 26 games.

The Tigers’ 77-71 victory on Tuesday night was also the second time Missouri beat Kansas when it had the No. 1 ranking.

“It wasn’t different this time,” said Anthony Peeler, who led the Tigers with 22 points. “The big difference for us right now is the Big Eight title and beyond. One-two is up in the air right now. That’s for other people to decide.”

Missouri (23-2, 9-1) is making it a lot easier.

The Tigers beat Kansas, 95-87, on Jan. 20 with a dominant inside attack. This time, they relied on strong outside shooting and some solid defense.

“They are a great team,” Kansas Coach Roy Williams said of Missouri, which snapped the Jayhawks’ 14-game home winning streak. Kansas is 24-2 and 7-2. “They hit inside, outside. They rebound the heck out of it and they play defense. You better be ready to play them and get lucky and hope they don’t shoot the ball well.”

Missouri, which had the No. 1 spot for three weeks after beating Kansas last time, shot 55.1% for the game, and the Jayhawks managed just 43.9%.

“We weren’t sharp and the ball didn’t go in the basket,” Williams said.

Missouri Coach Norm Stewart had a good reason for that.

“I thought our defense was very good at times as well as our rebounding,” he said. “It was a great win and a tough, gutty performance.”

This was the first matchup of Nos. 1-2 since top-ranked North Carolina beat Georgia Tech, 78-77, on Feb. 4, 1986, and that was also a road victory. Williams was a member of Dean Smith’s staff in the game.

Kansas had rallied from a 63-53 deficit to tie, 64-64, with 5:33 to play. The Jayhawks used their bench and went inside to score, usually the Tigers’ strength.

Peeler, who leads the Tigers at 18.7 points per game, broke the tie for good when he scored on an offensive rebound with 4:58 left. The play followed a timeout called by an obviously upset Stewart.

“We started standing around on offense, that’s all,” he said. “Then our defense helped and we started rebounding better.”

Doug Smith, the Tigers’ second-leading scorer at 18.6, then made two free throws--only his second and third points of the half--and Missouri was on a 9-2 run which put the game away.

Kansas did get within 73-71 on a three-point basket by Kevin Pritchard with 1:09 to play, but freshman Travis Ford then made two free throws and Peeler added two more for the final margin.

“Our defense took over and we hit our free throws at the end,” Peeler said.

Nathan Buntin added 16 points for Missouri, which lost the No. 1 ranking this week after losing to Kansas State last Thursday. John McIntyre had 15 and Smith 12.

Mark Randall led Kansas with 15 points, one more than reserve forward Mike Maddox, who scored four points and had an assist in the Jayhawks’ 11-1 run which brought about the 64-64 tie.

“We’d like to have another shot at them in the Big Eight tournament,” said Kansas’ Ricky Calloway, who had 10 points but shot only four for 12 from the field and had five turnovers. “Three times I couldn’t take. This is very hard to swallow. Both times we played them we played very poorly. You can’t beat a team like Missouri with performances like that. You can say it’s a lot of things, but the bottom line is we just didn’t play well--again.”