Note: the information below was pulled from a document provided by longtime Mizzou historian Tom Orf, @MU4124 on Twitter. He is a wonderful source of Mizzou information.

Next Monday will see the third meeting between Missouri and North Carolina; the two played a home-and-home series in 1973 and 1976, with Mizzou taking both contests. This week, we will relive those games as a digestive of sorts for the independence Bowl and the previews associated with it.

The 1973 season was the first of many "almost" campaigns for the Missouri Tigers. Here's what I wrote about them during last summer's Top 100 countdown:

Not sure what input our friend Earl Billings might have about this team, but in the league of Mizzou Teams That Were Good, But Close to Something Much Better, 1973 was near the top. This is a team that, as late as October 22, was receiving first-place votes in the AP poll (okay, one first-place vote); they took out #2 Nebraska at home and, at 6-0, faced a schedule with only one really good team (#3 Oklahoma at home) and one solid team (#17 Kansas) remaining. Mizzou was not far-removed from the greatness of the 1969 team, and with an experienced team made up of quite a few of the recruits signed after 1969's success, it looked like they were back among the elite programs in the country. And then they lost four of five to end the season.

The season is remembered most for the thrilling 13-12 win over Nebraska that vaulted them to seventh in the country in mid-October.

When Mizzou lost 66-0 to Kansas State in 1999, did they come back and beat KSU in 2000? No. What about when they lost 77-0 to Oklahoma in 1986? No (though in both instances, to their credit, they came close). But in 1973, after losing to NU 62-0 the year before, Mizzou did indeed come back to turn the tables the next season. And they did it in dramatic fashion.

With the previous year's loss in their heads, Mizzou came out fired up, but against the #2 Huskers, simply being emotional wasn't enough to get a lead. Nebraska kicked two first-quarter field goals to take a 6-0 lead, but Mizzou struck back. Led in part by John Moseley's great kickoff returns, Mizzou won the field position battle in the second quarter, and despite the complete lack of a passing game (for the game, Mizzou would complete two of 10 passes for 7 yards and an INT), managed two field goals of their own. The always clutch Greg Hill booted three points through the uprights with 29 seconds left in the first half, and the 68,170 in attendance saw a 6-6 tie at halftime. [...]

With under three minutes to play, Jim Goble lined up to punt to Nebraska. As he had all game, Goble uncorked a beautiful 50-yarder. As Husker returner Randy Borg retreated to field the punt, he stumbled and bobbled the ball. All-American lineman Scott Anderson recovered for Mizzou at the NU 4, and with just 2:35 left, Mizzou had been handed a golden opportunity.

Two handoffs to backup fullback Tom Mulkey were all it took. Mulkey scored from a yard out, and with 2:03 left, Mizzou was suddenly up 13-6.

Nebraska responded, however. Sparked by the desperation of the moment, they needed just four plays to move 72 yards. NU QB Dave Humm found Ritch Bahe for 23 yards and a touchdown with a minute to play. Tom Osborne didn't hesitate--a tie would hurt NU almost as much as a loss would, so he was going for the win.

On the two-point conversion, the suddenly hot Humm rolled left and threw toward halfback Tony Davis, but Bob McRoberts deflected the pass and Tony Gillick pulled in the game-clinching INT. Mizzou had executed a 63-point turnaround from the previous meeting with Nebraska, and pulled off one of the biggest miracle wins in team history.

Two weeks before this win, however, Mizzou had to survive a tricky trip to Chapel Hill.

Continue reading this post »

We've discussed this one before, during both last year's 1976 recap and 2009's Greatest Win competition, and what is written below is partially just a rehash of what was written then. So why are we reliving it now?  Because the ending is now on YouTube!  Jump to the bottom for that, but first, let's set the table.

One of the chapters of Mizzou's football legacy -- right after the 1960s run as a national power, and right before the 1980s collapse -- is the series of unbelievable upsets the Tigers pulled in the 1970s.  From Notre Dame in 1972, to Nebraska in 1973, to Nebraska in 1974, to Alabama in 1975, to USC and Ohio State in 1976, to Notre Dame and Nebraska again in 1978, Mizzou took out one giant after another.  Building a strong history is, really, all about championships and moments.  The list of Mizzou's championships might be short, but they've experienced almost enough incredible moments to make up the difference.

Of all the amazing upsets, Mizzou's late-September 1976 win in Columbus had to be considered the least likely.  Ohio State was ranked 2nd in the country and had just beaten No. 7 Penn State in Happy Valley.  Meanwhile, after drubbing a Top 10 USC team on the road, Mizzou had lost QB Steve Pisarkiewicz and been pummeled, 31-6, by a mediocre Illinois team at home the preceding week.  Mustachioed backup Pete Woods would see his first career start in front of the third-largest crowd in Ohio Stadium history (87,936), against a team that had won 25 straight homes games.

Things went according to plan early.  Buckeye LB Nick Buonamici tipped and intercepted a Woods pass, setting up a Pete Johnson touchdown that gave OSU a comfortable 21-7 halftime lead.  Johnson ran for 103 yards and three touchdowns in the first half, and it looked like Ohio State would win easily.

But then the Mizzou defense stiffened.  OSU would gather just 82 yards of offense in the second half (Johnson had just 19).  After Big Play Chris Garlich intercepted a pass near midfield early in the third quarter, Mizzou's Curtis Brown scored from four yards out to cut the lead to 21-14.  From there, it became a battle of punting units; Woody Hayes was as conservative as they come, and in assuming that eventually his players would execute well enough to win, he took few chances.  On the other sideline, Al Onofrio was not interested in handing the game to Ohio State either.  It was a staring contest -- who would make the first mistake? -- and Ohio State uncharacteristically blinked first.

When Tiger DE Blaine Henningsen sacked OSU QB Rod Gerald with about five minutes left in the game, OSU was forced to punt.  A previously boisterous crowd was starting to get anxious.  Meanwhile, Mizzou settled down ... almost too much.  Milking the clock and attempting just two passes, the Tigers moved down the field, benefitting from a timely Ohio State holding penalty and moving into Buckeye territory.  On third-and-6 from the OSU 40, Brown burst through the line for 31 yards, setting up some serious drama.

Forget OSU v. Mizzou -- it became Pete Woods v. The Horseshoe.  Here's where the YouTube video picks up.

Continue reading this post »

So I finished watching the 1983 Holiday Bowl on DVR last night (it was on something called BYUtv a while back ... on another note, I somehow have BYUtv!).  Man oh man ... you know how Mizzou made a killer mistake to lose the Insight Bowl last year?  And how they lost the 2006 Sun Bowl because of extreme bad luck as much as anything?  Well, that Holiday Bowl was as bad as both combined.  I knew Mizzou had almost picked off the pass to Steve Young on the game-winning play, but I didn't know they had fumbled inside the BYU 5 in the third quarter or been stuffed on fourth-and-1 inside the 10 to set up BYU's final drive.  And I didn't know that they had executed an absolutely gorgeous safety blitz and obliterated Young two plays before the game-winning touchdown; a Mizzou defender fell on the ball but couldn't pull it in, then ANOTHER Mizzou defender fell on the ball but couldn't pull it in.  Talk about What Ifs...

Also: watching Steve Young play this game from a "future pro passer" standpoint, I'd have been entirely unimpressed.  His footwork was shaky, he made iffy reads, and he overthrew his receivers a lot (he threw three picks and almost threw about three more).  He was still terrifying because he has the second-quickest "I'm going to run now" first step I've ever seen (behind Michael Vick), but from just watching this game, I'd have expected nothing from him as an NFL quarterback.

Of course, it's amazing what seasoning can do.  Young got some solid USFL experience, then got to serve as an apprentice under Joe Montana -- with some coach named Bill Walsh -- for a number of years.  Blaine Gabbert's skill set is obviously completely different from Young's, but Young's case does prove how much situation matters; it proves that in the right situation, Gabbert's problems as we know them, particularly in the instincts department, still have time to be rectified.

I ALSO didn't know that an extended set of highlights from the game was on YouTube.  (Or if I did know that, I had long forgotten.)  Fumbles, picks, fumbles, fumbles, and picks.  And for those who continue finding themselves screaming for a power rushing attack, watch this game in its entirety ... power running can fail just as miserably as pass-heavy offenses.

For the longest time, I couldn't find the box score for this game.  But I was clearly underestimating the Statsheet.com archive.  Thanks to the wonders of Shatsheet, it's time to relive a game that is simultaneously beloved and mostly forgotten.  We all remember Corey Tate's shot.  But Mizzou had to hang with a nearly flawless Kansas team for 49+ minutes before Tate's shot could matter.  How exactly did that happen?

Mizzou 96, Kansas 94

Baffling

Norm Stewart is known for having a very good track record against Kansas, and for an obvious reason: his players quite often played their best game of the season against the Jayhawks, and Mizzou's overall record versus Kansas was quite strong.  We do, however, make a little bit of an error when we're framing the "Norm vs Kansas" series.  We tend to think that, more often than not, it was Norm's scrappy teams of inferior talent versus Kansas and their NBA-ready squad.  This was rarely the case.  Typically, Mizzou did well against Kansas under Norm because Mizzou was equally talented.  In the 1970s, Kansas went 176-104, Mizzou 188-94.  In the 1980s, Kansas went 234-99, Mizzou 226-99.  Kansas obviously had better NCAA Tournament success -- reaching the Final Four in 1971, 1974 and 1986, and winning the whole thing in 1988 -- but as a whole, these teams were equals well into the 1990s.

That said ... by the mid-1990s, the talent tide had turned.

Your point guard matchup in this game: Dibi Ray vs Jacque Vaughn

Your small forward matchup: Corey Tate vs Paul Pierce.

Your center matchup: Derek Grimm vs Raef LaFrentz.

Kansas gave 34 minutes to Billy Thomas, Mizzou gave 34 to Tyron Lee.  Kansas gave 15 minutes to Ryan Robertson, Mizzou gave 13 to L. Dee Murdock.

How ... in the hell ... was this a game?

Continue reading this post »

Okay, so that wasn't the happiest way to end the Missouri-Nebraska rivalry.  Before focusing on Kansas, it's time to take a look back at perhaps the most famous moment of the Missouri-Nebraska basketball series.

They had gotten past Jacque Vaughn, Greg Ostertag and Kansas.  They sprinted by Billy Tubbs and Oklahoma.  They had left Johnny Orr an inconsiderate going-away present by sweeping the Cyclones.  Big Country and Oklahoma State?  No problem.  Donnie Boyce and Colorado?  Please.  Kansas State?  Nope.  Missouri was 13-0, one win away from the first undefeated conference season in the Big 8 since 1971.  All they had to do to finish the run was win at home against a Nebraska team they had beaten by 16 points at the Devaney Center six weeks earlier.  No problem, right?

Unfortunately, Nebraska was peaking at just the right time.  Led by a smoking hot Eric Piatkowski, Erick Strickland and Mikki Moore, the Huskers had won three in a row -- against Kansas, Kansas State and Oklahoma State -- and stood at 17-8 overall.  Piatkowski had averaged 30 PPG in those three games.  Against what would almost certainly be a tight Missouri team, Nebraska was ready and able to pull off what would have been a devastating upset.  Plus, Mizzou sophomore Julian Winfield, who had helped to limit Piatkowski to a season-low nine points in Lincoln, had sprained his ankle in a tune-up game against SEMO and missed two straight games.  He would play 25 minutes, but he was not amazingly productive, either on offense or defense.  Piatkowski would score 26 points this time around ... but thankfully for Missouri, it wasn't 29.

Mizzou 80, Nebraska 78

Continue reading this post »

After seven straight terrible trips to Manhattan, we're going to use our Classic Study Hall space to look at how things played out the last time Mizzou DID win at Bramlage.  We've spoken a lot about the 2003-04 team -- mostly in mournful or negative tones, obviously -- but the team did produce some great moments.  The second half in Manhattan was one of those sustained moments.

It's All There

This game featured all the great and terrible aspects of this team.

Good: Offensive Diversity.  Arthur Johnson scored off of a variety of post moves and short jumpers, Thomas Gardner gave MIzzou a boost in the first half, Jason Conley got hot from long range, and Rickey Paulding went DEFCON 1 in the second half.  Despite a first-half slump, Mizzou averaged a robust 1.24 points per possession.  When things started to click for this team offensively, it was incredible to watch.  (And this says nothing of the fact that Linas Kleiza was injured and out for the rest of the season.)

Bad: Defense.  This was not a very good Kansas State team, finishing 14-14 and ranking 103rd in Ken Pomeroy's offensive rankings.  And yet they averaged 1.08 points per possession and led the Tigers by a healthy margin early in the second half.  KSU didn't shoot particularly well, but Mizzou's complete inability to force turnovers held them back for quite a while.  KSU forged ahead at halftime, thanks in part to the fact that they committed just three turnovers.

Good: Rebounding.  Between Travon Bryant on the offensive glass and Arthur Johnson's box-out skills on defense, Mizzou won the rebounding battle by three in terms of expected rebounds, and against a decent rebounding team in KSU.

Bad: Ball Handling.  Even in their good moments, Quin Snyder's teams were nearly direct opposites of Mike Anderson's team.  This team was only average in avoiding turnovers on offense and terrible at forcing turnovers on defense, and it showed here.  Mizzou managed a solid 2.00 BCI thanks to 18 assists ... but they still lost the BCI battle by a decent margin.

Mizzou 79, Kansas State 69

Continue reading this post »

The temptation was strong to do the 4OT MU-ISU game from 2001, but as I mentioned last time, I don't ONLY want to do games from the early part of last decade.  It's enjoyable, but Mizzou's history, to say the least, expands beyond that era.  MUtigers.com's online archive stretches back into the late-90s, but the Trib archive comes through occasionally as well -- I was able to dig up the box score for this hidden classic.

We speak of the 1994-95 Missouri basketball season in hushed tones, like we accidentally just brought up an ex-spouse to somebody.  "Remember that trip to Italy?  Wasn't that fun?  Oh.  Right."  That season was one of the damnedest and most fascinating in Missouri history.  It was both pleasantly surprising and crushingly disappointing.  It started with low expectations because Mizzou had to replace six seniors from 1994's Elite Eight squad (Melvin Booker, Jevon Crudup, Lamont Frazier, Mark Atkins, Chris Heller, and Reggie Smith).  Then the expectations got lower when Kelly Thames tore up his knee.  Mizzou was picked to finish in the bottom half of the Big 8 ... but then they started winning.  A lot.  Led by funky killing machine Paul O'Liney (19.7 PPG), Julian Winfield, and a host of youngsters and newcomers -- sophomores Derek Grimm, Jason Sutherland and Cory Tate, freshmen Kendrick Moore and (briefly) Troy Hudson, and JUCO newcomers Sammie and Simeon Haley -- Mizzou started better than could have been reasonably expected.  They beat Purdue in the Great Eight and rolled through Illinois, Washington and Notre Dame on the way to an 11-1 non-conference record (the only blemish: a 23-point whipping at the hands of defending champion Arkansas).

On January 30, Mizzou headed to Ames for a Big Monday bloodbath.  Ten-point underdogs, the Tigers were ranked 18th at 14-3 overall, 3-2 in a tough Big 8.  Their conference losses had come to stellar Kansas (Raef LaFrentz, Jacque Vaughn, Scot Pollard, Greg Ostertag) and Oklahoma State (Big Country Reeves, Randy Rutherford, Sutton Brother No. 2) teams.  Iowa State, meanwhile, was 14-2 and ranked 12th, having recently upset Kansas.  Led by Fred Hoiberg, Loren Meyer, and the ugliest person to ever grace this fine earth, Julius Michalik, the Cyclones were stout under first-year coach Tim Floyd.

With Iowa State keying on O'Liney, Mizzou would ride to victory thanks to contributions from a couple of unexpected sources.

Mizzou 80, Iowa State 71

Near-Flawless Offense

For the season, the 1994-95 Tigers had almost as good an offense as their predecessors -- they averaged 1.05 points per possession to 1994's 1.06.  Their defense may have suffered slightly (they allowed 1.00 PPP compared to 1994's 0.97), but the offense was basically fine.  This game may have been their finest moment.  Using O'Liney as mostly a decoy (he took just eight shots from the field, two from 3-point land, in 35 double-teamed minutes), four players racked up at least three assists, and the Tigers shot incredibly well from the field.  From the Trib Archive:

As one-sided as the statistics were, Missouri was in a perilous position in the second half. When Hoiberg knocked down a three-point shot with 12:25 left, the Cyclones led 55-50.

Missouri called a 20-second timeout to settle down and quiet the crowd. The Tigers proceeded to connect on their next seven shots -- three of them three-pointers -- and score on 10 straight possessions. The streak finally ended when Simeon Haley missed a free throw with 3:53 left in the game, but by then MU led 72-63.

"We played a team that did a great job executing their offense," ISU coach Tim Floyd said. "Their plan was to take it at us. Our defense had some slippage. We never really stopped them."

With their best scorer locked down and a crazy Hilton crowd excited as hell, the Tigers calmly and surgically took the Cyclones apart.

Oddities

* Three minutes into the game, one of the shot clocks stopped working.

* With three minutes remaining, Julius Michalik was given credit for three points after making two free throws.

* With 17 seconds remaining, Fred Hoiberg was given credit for four points on a three-pointer.  (Of course, four points was nothing in the mid-1990s...)

Both scoring errors were corrected, of course.  Norm's reaction to the points issues?  Predictably Norm-esque.  From the same Trib article:

"I lived up here for six years, and I know they're good people and they're honest people," MU coach Norm Stewart said. "And I know the basic skills are higher on the tests than they are in Missouri. But boys, they were having a little trouble with their math tonight."

Continue reading this post »