Tigers win in double overtime

By Mike Bushnell

Published March 7, 2008

In the loss last week to Oklahoma State, the entire Missouri team jumped on the back of junior forward Leo Lyons, but his 27 points and 18 rebounds weren’t enough for a win.

On Wednesday against Iowa State, it was again Lyons who helped rally the Tigers late, but they were able to pull out the win thanks to a strong team performance.

After being down by as many as 12 early in the second half, MU had pulled to within three, trailing 62-59 with less than 30 seconds left. Lyons drained a layup over Iowa State’s 6-foot-11-inch junior center, Jiri Hubalek, and drew a foul. He made the free throw to tie the game, and after senior center Darryl Butterfield forced a steal three seconds later, Lyons had a shot to win the game in regulation.

But his 14-foot jumper from the right elbow of the free-throw line lipped out, and the Tigers would have to go two overtimes to pull out an 81-75 win over an Iowa State team that hasn’t won a road game all season.

“That’s a shot we work on every day in practice,” Lyons said. “I thought it was in rhythm.”

Apparently it wasn’t. MU (16-14, 6-9 Big 12) had won five of their last six overtime games dating back to 2004, including a win last month at Nebraska coming into last night.

Yet the Tigers couldn’t close out a win in the first overtime. After MU staked itself to a 68-62 lead with 1 minute, 35 seconds left, the Cyclones (14-16, 4-11) rallied to tie the game, capping their comeback with a short jumper by freshman guard Diante Garrett as time expired.

As the 7,691 people in attendance stood in stunned silence, MU coach Mike Anderson said he saw a new focus out of his team that had just blown a lead.

“When we got into the second overtime, I could see it in their eyes,” Anderson said. “They wanted it.”

And the Tigers got it.

Lyons scored two points in double overtime, but junior forward DeMarre Carroll scored six points, including an emphatic dunk as time ran out to put an exclamation point on the win and his 26-point, eight-rebound performance.

It was a stark contrast from just over a week ago, when Carroll said his right ankle hadn’t shown any improvement since he hurt it Feb. 4 at Kansas. Carroll said during the loss at Baylor last Saturday that he had an epiphany of sorts.

“In the second half of the Baylor game, I was sitting on the bench, and I just knew I needed to come back to play, and if I hurt the ankle again, so be it,” he said. “I was so worried about tweaking it again, it was messing with my mind. I just told myself I wasn’t going to use that as a crutch anymore.”

Carroll’s surprising renaissance came at a good time for the Tigers, because other players who had been playing strong struggled on Wednesday. Sophomore guard Keon Lawrence, who averaged 15.3 points per game in February, scored just nine points and fouled out. Senior forward Marshall Brown played only 10 minutes and went scoreless.

The Tigers also had to contend with Iowa State going 30-for-35 from the free-throw line. Just two weeks ago, MU held Colorado to no foul shots in the whole game.

But the Cyclones seemed to tire down the stretch while the Tigers did not. Lyons said it was a payoff from Anderson’s intense practices.

“We practice situations like having longer games every day,” he said. “We practice hard with lots of extra periods. You could see in the overtimes we weren’t really tired.”

Anderson said he was happy the team was able to avoid leaning on Lyons for the win.

“It was a team effort,” he said. “Our guys fought and fought and refused to quit.”