Tigers fail to keep up with Lyons

Junior forward Leo Lyons scored 27 points in 35 minutes.

By Mike Bushnell

Published Feb. 29, 2008

Junior forward Leo Lyons has had an incredibly erratic season, and from game to game, his statistics seem to go from great to terrible. But in Wednesday’s loss to Oklahoma State, Lyons put up a record-setting performance that his teammates said they knew he had in him. But it was still all for naught.

With scouts from three National Basketball Association teams looking on, Lyons scored 27 points and had 18 rebounds — eight of them offensive — in 35 minutes. He also shot 12-of-13 for the game in his first start since Jan. 16.

But the rest of MU couldn’t keep up. The Tigers blew a seven-point lead late in the second half in just two minutes, and then let the Cowboys escape Mizzou Arena with a 75-73 win.

“Leo would tell you that you’d rather have the win than the stats,” coach Mike Anderson said. “You could tell how much he wanted this one.”

Teammates and the media have occasionally criticized Lyons for sometimes not living up to his potential. He is the tallest player on the Missouri roster at 6 feet 9 inches, yet he was only averaging five rebounds per game.

Even though Lyons had scored 20 or more points four times this season and had 10 rebounds on Saturday against Colorado, Tuesday’s game reached a new plateau.

Lyons had the most rebounds of any Big 12 player in a conference game that ended in regulation this season. Baylor’s Kevin Rogers needed five overtimes against Baylor to get 18 rebounds.

Sophomore guard Keon Lawrence said the team always knew Lyons was capable of a game like he had Tuesday.

“We knew he had it in him,” Lawrence said. “It was just a matter of it coming out. And he came to play tonight and he carried us.”

Earlier in the season, Lyons scored 22 points at Colorado after playing just nine minutes in the prior game at Texas Tech. And when he had 23 points and 11 rebounds in November against Maryland, he played just 12 minutes the night before against Michigan State.

Lyons said that Anderson removing him from the starting lineup made him more focused, even though he was still playing over 20 minutes per game off the bench.

“It just came to the point where coach Anderson took me out of the lineup, and it was challenging me a lot,” he said. “So I knew tonight I had to get out there and play my best and just stay aggressive.”

But with a loss, the Tigers have fallen out of contention for the fourth seed in the conference tournament, and now the odds for earning even a berth in the National Invitation Tournament are contentious at best.

Lawrence said while the end result of losing still hurt, the Tigers and Lyons himself can take a lot out of the loss.

“I think Leo understands now what he can do in impact games,” he said. “It should be a real motivator for him the rest of the year and into next season.”