Below are several news stories and excerpts from stories published by ESPN during and immediately following Cornell's first round defeat to Missouri in the NCAA Tournament.Missouri (28-6) vs. Cornell (21-9)
Missouri coach Mike Anderson has shown the national championship ring he won while an assistant at Arkansas just twice: once when he was hired and once before the championship game of the Big 12 tournament. The allure of the bling was enough to bring home Missouri's first-ever Big 12 title, and the shine hasn't faded as Missouri heads into its first NCAA tournament since 2003.
"In order to get something," Anderson said, "you've got to be able to see it."
The Tigers are heavily favored over Cornell, which made its first NCAA tournament appearance in 20 years last year against Stanford. The Big Red lost that game 77-53, but are hoping for a better result this time around. Cornell players acknowledge that won't be easy against Missouri's full-court pressure style. The Tigers' high-pressure defense tends to wear opponents down, especially in the second half. Missouri has outscored opponents 89-87 in the first half, but 132-92 in the second.
Cornell has tried to simulate Missouri's style by practicing against a sixth man on defense.
"I think it's a focus that we just have to make sure that we don't play into their hands of speeding ourselves up and rushing our style of play," senior guard Adam Gore said. "I think we kind of need to play at our own pace and realize that if we do that we'll be OK."
Posted by Graham Watson
BOISE, Idaho -- Cornell and Ivy League officials were disappointed that Utah State lost, because they were counting on the Aggies' fans to cheer for the Big Red.Cornell ended up giving the bulk of its ticket allotment to Utah State, a move that allowed the school to bring most of its student section.
Utah State fans pledged before the game to cheer for Cornell in exchange for the tickets, but most of the navy-and-white shirts vacated the building after the 58-57 loss to Marquette.
Posted by Graham Watson
BOISE, Idaho -- So far Missouri hasn't played like the team that won the Big 12 tournament last weekend, but it has played like a team that hasn't been to the NCAA tournament in six years.Missouri has been tentative on offense. Forward DeMarre Carroll, the Tigers' top scorer, has just two points at the break and has been quick to pass the ball rather than drive to the hoop.
Cornell has hit a couple open 3-pointers, which have kept this game close and compensated for some struggles near the basket. The Big Red have missed several uncontested layups and jumpers. They've looked for the outside shot as their main source of offense, but they're shooting just 33.3 percent.
It's fair to say that Missouri is the better team. It has better athletes and toward the end of the first half it started to assert its dominance inside. But the perimeter shooting needs to improve. Missouri is just 2-for-12 from behind the arc. But the Tigers shouldn't be settling for jump shots. They've had little trouble getting to the basket.
Cornell needs Missouri to have another lackluster effort in the second half to have a chance to win the game. Missouri is a second-half team. During the Big 12 tournament last weekend, the Tigers outscored their opponents 132-92 in the final period.2:19 p.m. March 20
Your afternoon slate of games
West Region
No. 3 Missouri (28-6) vs. No. 14 Cornell (21-9): Cornell star Ryan Wittman is the son of former NBA player Randy Wittman. At 6-foot-6, 220 pounds, Ryan is a little bit bigger than his father. I hope his shorts are much bigger.
4:09 p.m.
Missouri 29, Cornell 25 at the half
Randy Wittman's son isn't playing too well. He might also have a future with the Pacers.
This game is being played at Boise's Taco Bell Arena. Insert your own joke about hoping the arena was built with extra bathrooms. (I'm too classy to make my own. Yep.)
5:26 p.m.
Wrapping up the final three games
Missouri 78, Cornell 59
The Big 12 is 6-0 so far in the tournament. Call me a hater if you want, but I don't think it can stay undefeated.
Posted by Graham Watson
BOISE, Idaho -- Missouri didn't put on its usual spectacle of up and down play that the university touts as "The Fastest 40 Minutes in Basketball" during Friday's first-round game against Cornell, but it didn't have to to secure a 78-59 win and advance to the second round of the NCAA tournament for the first time since 2003.Missouri put forth a lacksidasical effort in the first half, played better in the second half, and in the end, beat Cornell with sheer athletic ability.
Missouri forward Leo Lyons had 23 points, most of which were on putbacks, which helped Lyons nab 10 rebounds. Despite Cornell boasting 7-footer Jeff Foote on its roster, the Big Red had no answer for Lyons or any other Tiger that wanted to score from the paint. The Tigers had 42 points in the paint, which offset a 25 percent effort from 3-point range.
"We had a little quickness advantage when it came to the rebounding," Lyons said. "I tried to stay close to the rim and get a lot of the loose balls."
Cornell missed several shots near the rim and relied on 3-pointers to keep it in the game. Cornell coach Steve Donahue said the game was lost for his team in the first half when it went into halftime with a 29-25 deficit despite playing great defense and holding Missouri to less that 40 percent shooting.
"I thought we played extremely well defensively, took care of the ball, and then shots that we normally make, we didn't," Donahue said. "And all of the things that you look for and what things we worked on, I thought in the first half we did, except make shots."
The Big Red shot 31 percent from the field, including just 33 percent from 3-point range.
Missouri acknowledged that it had jitters coming into the game since it was the first NCAA tournament for everyone on the roster but reserve guard Michael Anderson Jr., who played in two tournaments while at UAB. The nervousness especially affected forward DeMarre Carroll, the Tigers leading scorer. Carroll was hesitant around the rim, and though he scored 13 points, including his 1,000th career point, it wasn't a typical performance by Carroll.
"There were jitters, but once I got into the locker room [at halftime], my teammates, they were looking up to me and they told me to be the junkyard dog that I am," Carroll said.
Missouri will face Marquette in the second round on Sunday. Marquette was the last opponent the Tigers faced in the NCAA tournament in 2003. The Tigers lost in overtime to a Dwayne Wade-led Golden Eagles team that year.Associated Press/ESPN.com
"20 Minutes of Hell."
It was more than enough to lift Leo Lyons, DeMarre Carroll and the Tigers to a 78-59 win over Cornell in the first round of the NCAA tournament Friday.
Lyons finished with 23 points and 10 rebounds and Carroll, the coach's nephew, had all but two of his 13 points in the second half to help the third-seeded Tigers (29-6) pull away after a slow opening 20 minutes.
"I thought the second half was typical of our basketball team all year long," said coach Mike Anderson, a longtime assistant of NolanRichardson's in Arkansas when "40 Minutes of Hell" was a college hoops catchphrase.
Anderson is trying to bring that intensity to Missouri, and it has led to the program's first NCAA appearance in six years -- and first win. Next up for the Tigers in the West Regional: a second-round game against Marquette on Sunday.
Ryan Wittman led the Ivy League champions with 18 points and by controlling the pace, 14th-seeded Cornell (21-10) found itself trailing by only four at the half.
But Mizzou's talent took over after the break and the win gave the Big 12 a clean sweep -- six wins, no losses through the first round of the tournament.
"Once I got into the locker room, my teammates were looking up to me," Carroll said. "They really told me to be the junkyard dog that I am."
Led by the junkyard dog, the Tigers opened the lead to double digits shortly after halftime and coasted in. They got easy layups by making the extra pass, and it showed in the stat sheet: Carroll finished with five assists and J.T. Tiller had six, as Mizzou finished with 19 assists on 28 baskets.
Kim English hit three 3-pointers to finish with 13 points.
On defense, Missouri's full-court trap also started taking its toll. Anderson said the fact that Cornell had only nine turnovers -- and only three at halftime -- actually pleased him. Indeed, sometimes you can't win for losing when you're playing Mizzou.
"That plays right into our hands because maybe it means they're more concerned about not turning it over than what they're trying to do on offense," he said.
Point well made.
Wittman shot 4-for-11 from 3-point range, and the nation's third-best team from behind the arc made only six 3s all day -- not enough to succeed at this level.
Cornell fell to 0-5 lifetime in the tournament and the Ivy League stayed winless since Princeton beat UNLV back in 1998. Still, this was much more competitive than Cornell's 77-53 loss to Stanford in the first round last year.
"To me, the underrated thing with Mike's team is their offense," Cornell coach Steve Donahue said. "They don't turn the ball over. They share the ball."
Missouri made 12 of its first 22 shots in the second half to start pulling away.
With Wittman not at his best, Cornell tried going into 7-foot-1 center Jeff Foote. Facing only single coverage, he got great position inside but had trouble finishing when the game was still competitive. His final line still looked decent: 5-for-11 for 12 points and 10 rebounds.
Cornell shot only 35 percent and with the game getting out of reach, frustration started to show. Holding the ball and trying to create room on the sideline, Wittman pinged Zaire Taylor with a nasty elbow. The refs checked out the play on the monitor but decided only an offensive foul -- not a flagrant -- was in order.
Overall, it turned into a nice tuneup for Mizzou, a school troubled with NCAA problems and coaching changes for much of this decade. Even this year, the Tigers were picked as a second-division team in the Big 12, but Anderson's (or Richardson's) system started taking hold, wearing teams down and turning the Tigers into legit contenders.
"The runs, when the defense is good, they're going to come," Anderson said.
Carroll was the MVP when the Tigers won the Big 12 tournament last week, another nice reward for transferring to Missouri to help out his uncle after the system at Vanderbilt wasn't to his liking.
And speaking of family, with Missouri comfortably ahead, Anderson was able to get his son, Michael Anderson Jr., into the game for a minute at the end -- a nice close for a team that has built itself on family and character as much as the frenetic pace since the coach arrived from UAB three years ago.
Last January, with the program languishing and his job hardly secure, Anderson suspended five players before a conference game against Nebraska. Missouri lost, but the coach said it "wasn't even a decision" -- better to send the right message than get a win.
Six months before that, Carroll, the 6-8 forward from Birmingham, put his life on the line and got shot in the foot while playing peacemaker in a fight.
"Once I transferred here, everything started going wrong," he said of the incident. But Anderson asked him to keep the faith, and because he did, he and the Tigers get to celebrate an NCAA tournament win.
...Big 12 teams are a combined 6-0 in NCAA first-round games after Missouri routed Ivy League champion Cornell 78-59 on Friday in the West Region in Boise, Idaho.
...Missouri had a first-half scare from Cornell but pulled away.
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