Missouri Tigers ease past Utah State in opening NCAA Tournament game in Sacramento
It had been 4,745 days since the Missouri Tigers men’s basketball team won a game in the NCAA Tournament.
Wind the clock back to zero.
The Tigers (25-9), seeded No. 7 in the South Region, blitzed No. 10 seed Utah State (26-9) with a second-half onslaught to win 76-65 Thursday and advance to the second round of the NCAA Tournament.
MU’s D’Moi Hodge led all scorers with 23 points, 15 coming on five three-pointers.
Missouri’s opening tip-time in the dance came early. MU played the 10:40 a.m. Pacific Time slot in Sacramento. But that didn’t slow the Tigers. MU took advantage of Utah State’s cold shooting early and led early.
“Nobody in the country, nobody in the basket world, expected, first of all, us to be here and secondly for Utah State to go 0-11 in the first half or make the amount of threes they made,” Dennis Gates said. “The only people that believed we could do what we did (were) the guys in our locker room, obviously, our crowd, our fan base, those that have been by our side from day one.”
Foul trouble and missed shots allowed the Aggies to creep back into the game. But the Tigers pulled away with their best player doing what he does best.
Missouri will next face No. 15 seed Princeton, a Thursday upset winner over No. 2 Arizona, on Saturday in Sacramento.
Brown takes over season’s biggest game
With Utah State taking the lead in the second half, MU coach Dennis Gates needed instant offense.
Look no further than Kobe Brown. And what can Brown do for you? Score a lot in a short amount of time.
Brown scored 13 points in the second half to finish the game with 19. When the lights shined bright, Brown answered the call.
It wasn’t just bullying in the post. Brown took contested 3-pointers. He established himself as the best player on the court in an NCAA Tournament game.
“We don’t blink,” Brown said. We felt them getting the momentum, but we couldn’t show that. If we would have showed that, things would have went a lot different.”
Early foul trouble puts MU in a hole
The first half would have been a chance for the Tigers to go up by eight or 10 points, but MU kept committing bad fouls.
Sean East committed a foul around 60 feet away from the basket. Aidan Shaw picked up two fouls in his five minutes of game action. Brown had two fouls, too.
That allowed Utah State to find its go-to inside. The Aggies may not have made a 3-pointer but they made 13 of their 17 shots from inside the arc. With the Tigers in foul trouble, they struggled to stay aggressive on the defensive end as the first half wore on.
Carter continues his scoring stretch
Coming into March Madness, Noah Carter scored double figures in points in five of the last six games. Make that six of his last seven.
Carter had 10 points in the first half, as he sparked MU’s offense early. He finished the game with 10, but was clearly a catalyst early.
Carter was also a force on the boards, finishing with six rebounds. His play has improved in the last handful of games for MU, and that’s a boon for a team that’s always in need of players
The Star has partnered with the Columbia Daily Tribune for coverage of Missouri Tigers athletics.
