Tigers take control against Jayhawks

MU women's basketball broke its five-game losing streak Saturday.

By Evan Glantz

Published Feb. 9, 2009

Mired in a five-game losing streak, the Missouri Tigers women's basketball team ended its struggle in a big way Saturday against rival Kansas Jayhawks. No one seemed more relieved with the Tigers' 74-60 win than coach Cindy Stein.

"This type of game has been a long time coming," she said. "We controlled the game defensively and I'm just very pleased with our play."

By the end of the first half, the Tigers were sitting on a comfortable 40-29 lead. But the tone of the game was set early on. With one of the largest crowds of the season, Missouri came out ready to play. The team seemed to feed off the energy provided by supportive fans.

"They loved the crowd, absolutely," Stein said. "Everybody likes to play in front of a crowd, especially at home. I thought the crowd was tremendous."

Sophomore forward Shakara Jones got Missouri on the board with a field goal and sank the following free throw. Jayhawk junior guard Danielle McCray scored Kansas' first eight points, giving them an 8-7 lead. MU would not trail again. Junior forward Jessra Johnson came off the bench to pace the Tigers with 11 points in the first half.

"I'm sure there's something I could have done better, but overall I feel good about how I played," Johnson said.

Missouri's lead shrunk late in the first half. Ahead 30-19 with seven minutes left, that cushion dwindled to just a 31-26 lead as Kansas charged back. But with some timely shots and strong defense, the Tigers seized control for the rest of the game.

A big reason for MU's success was one of its best shooting performances of the season. In the first half, the team shot 50 percent from the field, then upped that to 56 percent after the break. Missouri had four players reach double digits in points, the second consecutive game in which that happened.

"When you have Jessra and Shak working on the inside, it makes it a lot easier to get stuff done on the outside," senior guard Alyssa Hollins said. "They were aware of where I was of every moment of every play, so it was good to have people knock stuff down. People were just playing with confidence, and that's exactly what we need."

The second half featured more of the same for Missouri. The team had great ball movement and cut to the basket. On one particular play, sophomore guard RaeShara Brown worked the ball inside to freshman guard Bekah Mills who bounced a pass between her legs to Hollins for the easy bucket and added to the Tigers' lead, making the score 64-45.

"All five people were looking for the ball, and all five people wanted to be a threat," Johnson said. "This game gives us confidence to know we can go to big games and give it our all. We just need confidence as a team to know we can go out there and do it."