They won and that shouldn't be ignored. The first 25 minutes count and they played well enough to build a lead that was big enough they couldn't blow it. So that's good.
The last 15 minutes weren't pretty. Missouri did just enough, with the help of a poor opponent, to hang on. But this team sure doesn't seem to like prosperity.
They shot the ball fine (53% in both halves, 50% from three) but so many turnovers. They had 14, but it seemed like double that. DaJuan Gordon shouldn't dribble. He's active, he's a good defender and he's their best three point shooter. He cannot hang on to the ball.
Boogie Coleman had no points, five fouls and didn't draw a foul. That's a tough line for the guy that's supposed to be the point guard. He did have more assists than turnovers and three steals, but still.
The issue, basically, is that Missouri just doesn't have anything to really rely on, especially with Kobe Brown battling cramps in the second half. I asked Cuonzo Martin about the shot clock violations (he kind of laughed in the middle of the question) and he basically said Missouri is very reliant on exploiting matchups. They were facing a team that was switching everything and they just don't have many guys that can make one on one plays off the dribble. That's what you need when you get late in the shot clock. And, yes, before you say it, it's his fault they don't have more of those guys.
Ronnie DeGray was big tonight. Missouri doesn't win that game without him. A huge three and a great look to Kobe Brown stopped the bleeding just enough.
Javon PIckett was good except for the missed free throw. 14 points on 6-9 shooting, five rebounds, three steals. He knows his strengths and he doesn't try to do anything he can't do. He's a very good role player. This team, to be good, needs him to probably be a little more than he's capable of being, but that's not his fault. He's not a guy that's going to beat his own team very often at all. That's a strength in and of itself.
I had an entire column written midway through the second half about how the win was nice, but the real story was Rhyan Loos. Seven years in, this game and Brad Loos talking to the crowd at halftime still hits me. I scrapped the column because I don't think it was the story to write tonight, but it's still the most important story of the night. Here's part of the column anyway, because I think Rhyan Loos should get plenty of headlines tonight:
The basketball isn’t really what matters on this night. It’s a nice bonus, sure. But the best part is that Rhyan Loos was here to see it. There was a time that was far from certain.
In October of 2015, five-year-old Rhyan was diagnosed with high-risk Stage 4 neuroblastoma. Brad told the crowd at halftime on Saturday night she was given a 30 to 40% chance to survive. That was almost six-and-a-half years ago.
“She decided that she was going to fight,” Brad told the crowd at halftime of Saturday’s game. “She believed that she was going to beat cancer.”
Her family believed it too.
“I don’t look at stats or statistics or rates. Those don’t apply to me really,” Jen Loos told me back in February of 2016, a few days before the first Rally for Rhyan game. “If she had a horrible diagnosis that was a one percent survival rate, I would expect her to be that one percent. So when that gets brought up, I kind of shy away from that because it doesn’t matter what the numbers say. In my head, it’s our daughter. And we’ll get through it.”
Brad Loos was a Missouri assistant coach when Rhyan’s diagnosis came. There was no reason to really expect him to be standing at midcourt seven years later either. The Tigers had been awful in Loos’ first season as Kim Anderson’s assistant, were just a game better in year two when he spent more time in a hospital room than on the bench and then regressed in year three. When he first addressed the crowd at Mizzou Arena at one of these games, he was a basketball coach trying to save his daughter and his job; make no mistake, definitely in that order.
The first happened, which made the second completely unimportant. Brad has been an Associate Athletic Director in Development the last few years. Fired basketball coaches don’t usually hang around to work for the athletic department that fired them, but basketball long ago ceased becoming the most important thing in the Loos family’s life.
A year after the initial diagnosis, a brain tumor appeared and put Rhyan back in another fight. She won that one too. She’s now been cancer free for five years.
None of them probably should have been at midcourt on Saturday night, waving to the crowd of 8300 as buckets were passed to collect money that will go toward both pediatric cancer research and the new MU Children’s Hospital being built a few hundred feet from the arena in Columbia. But there they were for the seventh straight year, Brad telling the crowd every year he wonders what the night will be like “and you just keep showing up.”
But there they were, giving us all our annual reminder that, yes, we care about college basketball and yes, we want our team to win. We should care. Nobody is saying otherwise. But in the grand scheme of things, it’s okay to take a couple of hours every season to remember what’s really important.
Rhyan told the crowd how grateful she was that they give money every year so that she could survive in a touching video. Some of her school friends were among those passing buckets to collect donations at halftime.
“She is absolutely living her best life,” Brad said.
The last 15 minutes weren't pretty. Missouri did just enough, with the help of a poor opponent, to hang on. But this team sure doesn't seem to like prosperity.
They shot the ball fine (53% in both halves, 50% from three) but so many turnovers. They had 14, but it seemed like double that. DaJuan Gordon shouldn't dribble. He's active, he's a good defender and he's their best three point shooter. He cannot hang on to the ball.
Boogie Coleman had no points, five fouls and didn't draw a foul. That's a tough line for the guy that's supposed to be the point guard. He did have more assists than turnovers and three steals, but still.
The issue, basically, is that Missouri just doesn't have anything to really rely on, especially with Kobe Brown battling cramps in the second half. I asked Cuonzo Martin about the shot clock violations (he kind of laughed in the middle of the question) and he basically said Missouri is very reliant on exploiting matchups. They were facing a team that was switching everything and they just don't have many guys that can make one on one plays off the dribble. That's what you need when you get late in the shot clock. And, yes, before you say it, it's his fault they don't have more of those guys.
Ronnie DeGray was big tonight. Missouri doesn't win that game without him. A huge three and a great look to Kobe Brown stopped the bleeding just enough.
Javon PIckett was good except for the missed free throw. 14 points on 6-9 shooting, five rebounds, three steals. He knows his strengths and he doesn't try to do anything he can't do. He's a very good role player. This team, to be good, needs him to probably be a little more than he's capable of being, but that's not his fault. He's not a guy that's going to beat his own team very often at all. That's a strength in and of itself.
I had an entire column written midway through the second half about how the win was nice, but the real story was Rhyan Loos. Seven years in, this game and Brad Loos talking to the crowd at halftime still hits me. I scrapped the column because I don't think it was the story to write tonight, but it's still the most important story of the night. Here's part of the column anyway, because I think Rhyan Loos should get plenty of headlines tonight:
The basketball isn’t really what matters on this night. It’s a nice bonus, sure. But the best part is that Rhyan Loos was here to see it. There was a time that was far from certain.
In October of 2015, five-year-old Rhyan was diagnosed with high-risk Stage 4 neuroblastoma. Brad told the crowd at halftime on Saturday night she was given a 30 to 40% chance to survive. That was almost six-and-a-half years ago.
“She decided that she was going to fight,” Brad told the crowd at halftime of Saturday’s game. “She believed that she was going to beat cancer.”
Her family believed it too.
“I don’t look at stats or statistics or rates. Those don’t apply to me really,” Jen Loos told me back in February of 2016, a few days before the first Rally for Rhyan game. “If she had a horrible diagnosis that was a one percent survival rate, I would expect her to be that one percent. So when that gets brought up, I kind of shy away from that because it doesn’t matter what the numbers say. In my head, it’s our daughter. And we’ll get through it.”
Brad Loos was a Missouri assistant coach when Rhyan’s diagnosis came. There was no reason to really expect him to be standing at midcourt seven years later either. The Tigers had been awful in Loos’ first season as Kim Anderson’s assistant, were just a game better in year two when he spent more time in a hospital room than on the bench and then regressed in year three. When he first addressed the crowd at Mizzou Arena at one of these games, he was a basketball coach trying to save his daughter and his job; make no mistake, definitely in that order.
The first happened, which made the second completely unimportant. Brad has been an Associate Athletic Director in Development the last few years. Fired basketball coaches don’t usually hang around to work for the athletic department that fired them, but basketball long ago ceased becoming the most important thing in the Loos family’s life.
A year after the initial diagnosis, a brain tumor appeared and put Rhyan back in another fight. She won that one too. She’s now been cancer free for five years.
None of them probably should have been at midcourt on Saturday night, waving to the crowd of 8300 as buckets were passed to collect money that will go toward both pediatric cancer research and the new MU Children’s Hospital being built a few hundred feet from the arena in Columbia. But there they were for the seventh straight year, Brad telling the crowd every year he wonders what the night will be like “and you just keep showing up.”
But there they were, giving us all our annual reminder that, yes, we care about college basketball and yes, we want our team to win. We should care. Nobody is saying otherwise. But in the grand scheme of things, it’s okay to take a couple of hours every season to remember what’s really important.
Rhyan told the crowd how grateful she was that they give money every year so that she could survive in a touching video. Some of her school friends were among those passing buckets to collect donations at halftime.
“She is absolutely living her best life,” Brad said.
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