Kansas Jayhawks point guard Dajuan Harris is 2 for 2 against his hometown Mizzou Tigers
Columbia, Missouri native Dajuan Harris has fared quite well against his hometown university the past two seasons.
As Kansas’ men’s basketball point guard, he’s directed the Jayhawks to a 37-point victory over Missouri in December of 2021 in Allen Fieldhouse followed by last December’s 28-point rout of the Tigers at Mizzou Arena.
“That game meant a lot to me. I had a lot of family that came in and watched me. I wanted to do well for them,” said Harris, a 6-foot-2, 170-pound graduate of Columbia Rock Bridge High School. Playing before dozens of relatives and friends he had six points, nine assists and two steals in KU’s 95-67 rout of the Tigers on Dec. 10, 2022 in Columbia.
“I had other great players around me that game. I just had to make the easy play. They made the shots too,” Harris added of Jalen Wilson, Kevin McCullar, KJ Adams and Gradey Dick who had 24, 21, 19 and 16 points respectively in last season’s game.
That game, as well as KU’s 102-65 home win over MU on Dec. 11, 2021 — one in which Harris hit three 3-pointers and scored 13 points — didn’t quite live up to the hype concerning the renewal of the Border War, which had been dormant the previous nine years after Mizzou moved from the Big 12 to the SEC.
KU will play host to Mizzou on Saturday in the third game of the current six-game, six-year series between the teams. Tipoff between No. 2 KU (8-1) and unranked MU (7-2) will be 4:15 p.m. at Allen Fieldhouse with a live telecast on CBS.
“These are some of the biggest games in college basketball. That game (last season) was very fired-up, but we blew them out,” Harris said. “I really didn’t get to experience (how) the games usually are. The last two years we played them I haven’t really got the Mizzou-KU experience, how it was back in the day,” Harris added.
Winning big against a rival does have its advantages.
“We want to beat them by a lot this game, (but) hopefully I get that experience that it was over the years,” Harris said of the intensity of epic KU-MU contests.
Living in Columbia, Harris watched a lot of Tigers’ games as a youngster.
“I saw games back then, but didn’t go to many games. We didn’t have tickets. I watched a lot of games on TV,” Harris said. “I really don’t have any bad blood. I grew up as a Mizzou fan my whole life until I got here (KU). Everything changed when I committed here and came here. Now I see the whole history, how it was back then. I didn’t know it (history between schools) was so deep. I learned a lot over the years being here. I’m thankful I’m able to play for KU,” Harris added.
When KU and Missouri were in the same conference, the two teams would play a home-and-home each season.
KU coach Bill Self was asked Thursday if he missed “getting to go to their place” in Columbia every year.
“You make it sound like it’s a vacation hot spot,” Self said, smiling, indicating the series setup which has had teams trading off home games year-to-year has been “OK.”
Next year’s game will be back at Mizzou Arena.
“The thing is,” Self added, “with the leagues the way they are now is there a guarantee you’d play twice a year anyway? Will we continue to play Kansas State twice every year, or are they going to move that around? I don’t know exactly how that schedule is going to go (in Big 12 in future with addition of Colorado, Arizona, Arizona State and Utah). But I think it’s worked out fine. It is different though. I sense when we were both in the league and the (home-and-home) games were played within three to four weeks of each other it seemed to me like maybe there was more into it then. It was always late in the season where the intensity is ratcheted up more than early December because the stakes are higher. It’s still darn good though. It’s really good,” Self added of KU-MU.
Missouri, which has lost to Memphis and Jackson State and defeated Minnesota, Pitt and Wichita State, has double-digit scorers in guards Sean East (16.8 points per game) and Nick Honor (11.8 ppg) and forward Noah Carter (12.6 ppg).
“This will probably be the first team we play that creates defensive havoc like they do,” Self said. “We’ve played teams so far that have been pretty traditional. I think Missouri is less traditional in that way. Players have to make plays rather than running plays. That will be part of it.”
Self said this game followed by a game a week from Saturday at Indiana then matchups against Yale (Dec. 22) and Wichita State (Dec. 30) “will be a good indicator.”
KU will have a break in the schedule for finals after this game. The Jayhawks will next play Indiana at 11:30 a.m., Dec. 16 in Bloomington.
