Mizzou Men's Basketball Slips Away with Victory Over Loyola Maryland

The Missouri Tigers' veteran nucleus led Missouri to its fifth win of the season on Saturday with a victory over Loyola Maryland.

Missouri basketball went into Saturday's matchup against Loyola Maryland searching for a complete, 40-minute performance. Even though the Tigers survived to get their fifth win of the season, the 78-70 win was far from the complete performance they were looking for.

Missouri's shooting success had the same dramatic swings of a Midwest spring; bright and hot one moment but blistering cold the next. The Tigers came out of the gates with the speed of a top-end race car by putting together a 31-9 run in the first 13 minutes, fueled by aggressive defensive play that caused 10 steals. But the Tigers ran out of gas.

In the final seven minutes of the first half, Loyola found life by sustaining a 22-4 run to cut the Tigers' lead to just four points at the end of the half. Missouri had made only one of their final 12 shots in the half. The chaos-inducing Missouri defense had quickly shrunk.

Needing a spark coming out of halftime, Missouri's nucleus of veterans stepped up. Graduate Nick Honor set the tone by landing a 3-point shot for the first score of the half. The Tigers would make six 3-point shots in the second half, three coming from Honor.

With 13 total points, Honor was one of four different players to score double-digit points for Missouri. Leading the Tigers with 18 points was another returning starter, forward Noah Carter. Freshman guard Anthony Robinson scored 10 points for the second straight game while also grabbing five total rebounds. Finally, graduate guard Sean East II scored 17 points while also contributing four assists.

East would keep the foot on the gas for Missouri by scoring on four straight possessions in the final 10 minutes to keep a comfortable 10-point cushion for the remainder of the game.

Missouri has now moved on to 5-2 on the season with the two losses coming from uninspiring performances against Jackson State and Memphis. The Tigers will continue their season this Tuesday when they travel to take on Pittsburgh at 6:30 in the SEC-ACC challenge.

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