Big 12 Tournament - First Round

(12) Nebraska 75, (5) Missouri 60

College basketball and the month of March are synonymous with upsets. With that having been said, few people saw this one coming in Kansas City.

Nebraska, a woeful team that brought up the rear in the Big 12 regular season, wasn't expected to offer much of any resistance against the fifth-seeded Missouri Tigers. Sure, this is not the Missouri team that rolled to the Elite Eight last season, but the Tigers are still an NCAA Tournament team with a proven coach - Mike Anderson - and a flotilla of fleet-footed guards with an appreciable amount of savvy and experience. The Tigers are thinner on their front line, but they still dwarfed anything Nebraska managed to do during the regular season. More specifically, Missouri went into Lincoln, Neb., on Feb. 20 and whacked the Huskers, 74-59. That lopsided win came one month after the Tigers trounced the Big Red, 70-53, in the Show Me State.

When one team beats another on two separate occasions by a minimum of 15 points, it's safe to say that a third decisive win should be expected. Yet, coach Doc Sadler rallied the Huskers on the hardwood and got his team to produce its very best game of the Big 12 season.

Nebraska was superior early, often and late in this 15-point pounding of a body-snatched Mizzou crew. Sadler's squad rolled to a 26-9 lead in the first 10 minutes of the game and basically maintained that hefty lead over the final 30 minutes. Missouri got within eight, at 32-24, late in the first half, but Nebraska pushed the lead back to 11, at 39-28, at halftime. In the second half, most people inside the Sprint Center felt that the No. 5 seed would come roaring out of the gate, but it was Nebraska which scored the first five points after halftime. Missouri did reduce a 19-point Nebraska lead to eight, at 67-59, but with only 1:58 remaining. The Huskers made most of their foul shots, and the Tigers' brief rally was much too little and far too late.

Just what happened in America's Heartland? Well, for one thing, Nebraska shot the ball at a high level... 55 percent high. Four of Sadler's starters hit at least 50 percent of their shots, and three of them made at least 70 percent of the field goal attempts they took. The Huskers also hit 8 of 14 3-pointers, a testament to their supreme offensive efficiency against an opponent - Missouri - that prides itself on its pressure defense and its ability disrupt halfcourt sets.

An account of this shocker can't go without mention of the numbers that should really short-circuit a college basketball fan's brain. Missouri's three best and most dependable players - starting guards Zaire Taylor, J.T. Tiller, and Kim English - hit only 7 of 33 shots, under 23 percent. The Taylor-Tiller-English law firm did much to lift the Tigers to the 2009 West Regional Final against Connecticut, so it is exponentially surprising that all three of those players came up so small against the Big 12's worst team. It's also stunning that Missouri succumbed so quickly in defense of its 2009 Big 12 Tournament championship.

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Everyone thought a blowout would indeed occur in this game between a 12 seed and a 5 seed. The winner was the only thing the prognosticators got wrong.

What's Next

Nebraska now faces fourth-seeded Texas A&M in a most unexpected Thursday quarterfinal. The Aggies need to take Nebraska seriously, because the Huskers were solid on a sustained basis against Missouri. A&M should be far too powerful and muscular for Nebraska in the low post, and it's that presence of both size and brawn within 10 feet of the rim that should pay off handsomely for Coach Mark Turgeon's team. Texas A&M wanted to face Kansas in the semifinals before this tournament started. Now that Nebraska has removed Missouri from the bracket, the Aggies are very likely to get their wish.

By: Matt Zemek
DFN Sports Senior Staff Writer