Missouri
Evansville
Mizzou Claims Round One of WNIT
3/15/2000 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
March 15, 2000
COLUMBIA, Mo - The Missouri Tigers (18-11) survived last second controversy in regulation to claim an 84-81 overtime victory over the Evansville Lady Aces (23-7) in the first round of the Women's National Invitational Tournament. The win is Missouri's first post-season victory since 1986 when the Tigers defeated Arkansas in the first round of the Midwest Regional of the NCAA Tournament. Missouri will move on to play the Arkansas Lady Razorbacks at 7:00 p.m. on Saturday night in Fayetteville, Ark.
Missouri owned a 73-68 lead with three minutes, 27 seconds left in the game, but could not tally any points until the eight-second mark when Natalie Bright (17 points, 4 assists) netted one of two free throws. That free throw gave the Tigers a 74-72 lead.
Evansville's Lisa Eckart (22 points, 13 rebounds) missed a three-pointer from the top of the key with under two seconds left. The Lady Aces' Shyla McKibbon grabbed the offensive rebound and put up a successful shot as the buzzer sounded to end the game. Two officials immediately signaled the shot was taken after the horn, but the baseline official called the shot good. After close to two minutes of conferring between the officials, the basket was ruled good and the game was sent to overtime.
In the extra stanza, Evansville broke out to a 79-76 lead with three minutes, 39 seconds remaining. That is when Missouri made its' move. The Tigers, led by Amanda Lassiter (23 points, 9 rebounds) went on an 8-0 run to open up an 83-79 advantage. Mizzou upped its' lead to 84-81 with 52 seconds to go and survived two missed jumpers by Evansville, despite two missed Missouri free throws with 10 seconds remaining in the game.
Missouri led 18-11 early in the first half before the Lady Aces put up an 11-0 run covering three minutes, 30 seconds. The Evansville lead reached five points at 27-22 before the Tigers' eventually tied the game 31-31 on a Lassiter layup at the 4:07 mark of the half.
Evansville scored the next the five points to regain a 36-31 lead and led until the Tigers tied the game 38-38 with 19 seconds to go. Following a missed three-pointer by the Lady Aces' Alison Langham with five seconds to go, Natalie Bright connected on a court-long pass to Tracy Franklin. Franklin drove to the basket and was fouled by McKibbon with 0:00 showing on the clock. Franklin hit one-of-two free throws to give the Tigers a 39-38 halftime lead.
The Lady Aces' McKibbon led all scorers with 30 points and a game-high 14 rebounds. Amy Monsees added a season-high 22 points and 5 rebounds for the Tigers.
