Feb. 25, 2001

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TIPOFF: 8:00 p.m. (central time).
ARENA: Frank Erwin Center (16,175). Opened in 1977. Texas is 261-78 there alltime, including 15-1 this season. MU is 1-2 there overall, including 1-1 vs. Texas.
RADIO: Tiger Network (Mike Kelly, play-by-play/Gary Link, color). Carried on more than 50 stations statewide, and on the Internet at www.mutigers.com.
TV: ESPN. Ron Franklin, play-by-play, Jon Sundvold, color, Jay Kutlow, producer.
RANKINGS: Neither team is currently ranked.
SERIES: MU leads, 8-3 overall, and 3-2 since the inception of the Big 12 Conference. Texas won last season, 66-63 in Columbia.
COACHES:
Missouri: Quin Snyder (Duke `89), 36-22 at MU (2nd season), 36-22 overall (2nd season). Snyder is 0-1 vs. Texas and is 0-1 vs. Rick Barnes.
Texas:
Rick Barnes (Lenior-Rhyne `77), 64-29 at UT (3rd season), 266-163 overall (14th season). Barnes is 2-1 vs. Missouri and 1-0 vs. Quin Snyder.

TIGERS WRAP UP REGULAR-SEASON WITH TWO-GAME ROAD SWING
The Missouri Tigers (18-9 overall, 8-5 in Big 12 Conference play) hit the road for their final two games of the 2000-01 regular season, where they'll have to face two of the top teams in the league playing in their senior day games. Missouri is coming off a solid 69-59 home win over Baylor in what was the final home appearance for Tiger seniors Brian Grawer, Johnnie Parker and Tajudeen Soyoye. MU improved its record to a respectable 4-2 since losing the Big 12's top scorer, Kareem Rush, to a thumb injury. The tough task begins Monday at Texas, as MU will face a Texas Longhorn team (21- 7, 10-4) that has won four straight games, including a 94-78 dismantling of league leader Iowa State on Saturday night. Texas is 28-2 at home over the last two seasons.

TIGERS FACE TWO SENIOR DAYS
Playing any league road game is tough enough in itself, but the Tigers will face even greater odds when they play at Texas and at Kansas in what will mark senior days for both teams. MU is joined by Baylor and Texas A&M as the only three teams in the league who have to face two senior days on the road. Iowa State, Oklahoma and Colorado all get off scott-free this year, playing none on the road. After facing Texas Monday night, the Ti-gers will head to Lawrence, Kan., where they will play Sunday at Kansas for what seems like the 24th straight year on senior day. Ac-tually, it's only two years in a row, it just seems like forever. MU had two senior day road games last year, and got waxed in a love-fest at Oklahoma, 83-56, and nearly knocked off Kansas before falling, 83-82. The last time MU played at Texas, it was also senior day for the Longhorns, but MU stole a 54-47 win over #22 UT.

RUSH IN NO HURRY
Sorry for the lousy play on words, but the cheesy headline registered above does indi-cate where the situation stands with Kareem Rush and his return to the Tiger lineup. Rush had his cast removed on Friday and was cleared by team doctors to return to action less than three weeks after having surgery to repair torn ligaments in his left (shooting hand) thumb suffered in a fall at Oklahoma State on Feb. 5th. He has been fitted with a protective splint that was approved for play by Big 12 Supervisor of Officials Dale Kelley and the lead official prior to Saturday's game vs. Baylor. Rush did not suit up for the game, after conferring with Head Coach Quin Snyder. He is available to play against Texas Monday, but Snyder indicated in his post-game comments Saturday that he would likely not play. Rush resumed practicing with the team Wednesday, just two weeks to the day that he had surgery to repair the injury, which was originally thought to be of the season-ending variety.

TIGERS MAKE A GOOD CASE FOR NCAA
While coaches and players try to focus on playing the games, it's the job of us SID-types to trumpet the case for teams being wor-thy of inclusion in the NCAA Tournament. Well, let the spin cycle begin... .Missouri ranks 37th in the latest RPI rankings, and that's one spot better than last season when the Tigers were a #9 seed in the 2000 NCAA Tournament. .Missouri's win Saturday over Baylor gave the Tigers 18 regular-season wins, which is one more than last season. It also assured MU of now worse than a 9-7 Big 12 record, which has historically been a litmus test for league teams getting into the dance. .In the first four years of the Big 12, 20- out-of-21 NCAA-eligible teams which went at least 9-7 in league play have received NCAA bids. The only exception was Nebraska, in 1998-99, when the Huskers were snubbed de-spite going 10-6 in league play and 18-11 dur-ing the regular season. NU's RPI was 47th that year, with a schedule strength of 48.

MISSOURI-TEXAS HISTORY
Missouri and Texas will square off for just the 12th time Monday, and the Tigers will be looking to expand on an 8-3 series lead. MU has won three of five meetings since the berth of the Big 12 in 1996-97. The Tigers had won three straight prior to the Longhorns' 66-63 win in Columbia last season. The road team has each of the last two meetings, and four of the five meetings have been decided by seven points or fewer. Last season, MU outrebounded 18th-ranked Texas 45-36, and held a 31-25 halftime lead, but eventually fell by a 66-63 score. UT's Darren Kelly hit a pair of free throws with 13 seconds left to account for the final score, and MU's Brian Grawer was unsuccessful on a long three-point attempt in the final seconds. In MU's last appearance in Austin, the Tigers spoiled Texas' senior day by claiming a 54-47 win over the 22nd-ranked Longhorns to close the 1998-99 regular season. Texas en-tered the game already having locked up the Big 12 title, but MU used 23 points by Albert White to get the win, which gave the Tigers a 2nd-place finish in the league. MU's John Woods, a Dallas, Texas native, hit a big 3-pt. field goal with 1:53 left to give Mizzou a 47-45 lead, and Woods and White hit five of six free throws in the final 42 seconds to seal the win.

LONE STAR STATE OF MIND
Missouri has enjoyed life in the state of Texas of late, as the Tigers have won six straight games in the Lone Star State. MU went 2-0 in Texas last season, and went 3-0 in the 1998-99 season. MU's last loss in Texas was an 89-80 setback at Baylor on Feb. 11, 1998.

LIFE WITHOUT KAREEM
When MU lost the leading candidate for Big 12 player of the year in Kareem Rush, one national pundit called the Tigers "Toast." Instead of folding, Quin Snyder's bunch has come together to go 4-2 in the six games without Rush, solidifying itself as an NCAA Tournament-worthy team. MU's only two losses in the stretch were by eight at 12th-ranked Iowa State (without Rush AND sec-ond- leading scorer Clarence Gilbert) and on a last-second shot to 16th-ranked Oklahoma. MU has shown a good balance in scor-ing since Rush went down with the injury. Four Tigers are averaging double figures in points in the last six games, compared to just two in MU's first 21 games with Rush.

How have the Tigers done in addition to the individual efforts? MU has had to rely on improved team work, as evidenced by an in-crease in assists in more than two per game, as well as improved rebounding, three-point shooting and free throw shooting.

HEAD COACH QUIN SNYDER
The 15th head coach in Missouri basket-ball history, Quin Snyder is 36-22 in his sec-ond season as a head coach. He was named the national rookie coach-of-the-year by Bas-ketball Times last season after leading the Ti-gers to an 18-13 record and an NCAA appear-ance. Snyder's mission is to take the Tiger pro-gram to the next level. And if that next level represents the Final Four of the NCAA Tour-nament, Snyder will be a repeat visitor. In 10 years at Duke, he took part in five Final Fours

AN IMPRESSIVE TRIUMVIRATE
The three-headed weapon of Clarence Gilbert, Brian Grawer and Kareem Rush might be running at just two-thirds capacity cur-rently, but the trio has nonetheless combined to amass a pretty impressive statistic. Gilbert (78), Grawer (64) and Rush (54) have combined to nail 196 three pointers this season. That's more than any team in the Big 12 Conference, with the sole exception of Okla-homa, which has made 204 threes as a team. Additionally, only four previous Tiger teams have made more threes in a season than the current trio has made: the 1999-2000 team (291), 1997-98 (214), 1993-94 (204), and 1996- 97 (197). MU leads the league, and ranks 22nd na-tionally, by making 8.4 threes per game. Individually, Gilbert is 10 made threes away from tying his own single-season MU record of 88, established last season. He also needs 11 more attempts from beyond the arch to tie his single-season record of 233, also set last season as a sophomore. Grawer, who is MU's alltime career leader with 203 treys (13 ahead of Gilbert, who has 190), has made his living from long distance this season. Of his 73 field goals this year, 64, or 87.7%, have been of the three-point variety.

GRAWER GOES OUT WITH A BANG
Playing his final home game in a Tiger uniform Saturday was senior guard Brian Grawer. The St. Louis, Mo. native didn't dis-appoint, as he scored a game-high 18 points on 6-of-14 three-point shooting. Despite being outsized most every night, Grawer has displayed a grit and determination that made him a fan favorite right off the bat. He will leave MU with his name firmly en-trenched among the Tiger record books. He is MU's career leader in three-point field goals, among many other great feats.

INDIVIDUAL MILESTONES
Junior guard Clarence Gilbert is nearing several milestones. Entering Monday's game at Texas, he needs 10 three-point field goals to equal his own MU single-season record of 88 set last year. He also needs 11 three-point at-tempts to tie his own record of 233 attempts set last year, as well. But proving he's not a one-dimensional player, Gilbert enters Monday's game needing 3 steals to tie former Tiger Greg Cavener for 10th place on the MU career steals chart. Gil-bert has 110 career heists heading into Monday's contest. Gilbert, who leads MU and ranks 13th in the Big 12 with an average of 3.6 assists per game, also needs six assists to reach 100 for the season. He would become the 28th Tiger to reach triple digits in assists for a season. With 58 blocked shots this season, fresh-man center Arthur Johnson has already bro-ken the MU single-season record of 56, set by Steve Stipanovich during the 1982-83 season. What's amazing is the fact that Johnson al-ready stands 10th on the MU career blocks chart. He needs 8 more rejections to tie Dan Bingenheimer for 9th on the list, at 66.

A SCORING EXPLOSION
It's nothing new for Clarence Gilbert to get hot and score points in bunches. After all, he's been doing that his entire career at MU. But even Gilbert himself had to be slightly amazed at the five-minute stretch he put up against Texas A&M on Feb. 17th in College Station. Gilbert scored 19 of MU's 21 points (and assisted on the other basket) in a first-half stretch that spanned just 5:16. The game was tied 13-13 when he began his personal binge, and moved to a 36-26 MU lead and a :30 sec-ond timeout by A&M when it ended.

BIG 12 RECORD BREAKDOWN
Winning on someone else's home court is a tough chore, but the Tigers have shown an ability to come away with some key road wins over the past two seasons, and those wins have spurred MU to consecutive finishes in the top-half of the Big 12 standings. Last season, MU went 5-3 on the road in Big 12 play, and ended 10-6 overall to finish 6th. All five wins came by 10 points or less. In 1999, MU went a similar 5-3 in Big 12 road games, and finished 11-5 overall to take second in the league. All but one of those wins came by 10 points or less, as well. Missouri went the entire first two years of Big 12 play without a conference road win.

MU NO. 37 IN POWER RANKINGS
Missouri enters Monday's game ranked 37th in the Feb. 25th RPI power poll (www.collegerpi.com). The Tigers have played the 44th-toughest schedule in the land to this point. MU had been 16th prior to enduring its January three-game losing streak, represent-ing their highest showing this season in the rankings. Texas enters the game ranked 12th in the power rankings, with a strength of schedule rating of 14th.

entered the game ranked 2nd in the NCAA in rebounding margin, at +10.8. On Jan. 29th against #3 Kansas, the Ti-gers outrebounded the taller Jayhawks by a 41-37 margin. KU is currently ranked 7th in the country in rebounding margin (+8.5). That broke a streak in which Missouri had been outrebounded in seven straight games, and 10 of its previous 11. The Tigers had opened the season by winning the battle of the boards in six of their first eight contests. They have now outrebounded opponents 10 times in 27 games, a year after doing so only eight times all of last season (31 games). On Jan. 24th, Nebraska outboarded MU, 44-24, and had as many offensive rebounds (24) as the Tigers could muster on both ends of the court. MU entered the game as the Big 12's top offensive rebounding team (over 15 per game), but could snag only 6 offensive caroms. For the season, MU is being outrebounded by a slim margin (-0.1 per game). That's still a significant improvement from last season, when MU was outrebounded by 5.0 boards per game (38.5-to-33.5).

CARDIAC KIDS
Missouri has been predisposed to play-ing tight ballgames of late, as 12 of its previ-ous 21 games have been decided by six points or fewer. MU has fared well in the close ones, as they're 10-6 in games decided by 10 points or fewer overall for the season. After playing a total of one overtime pe-riod in the last two seasons combined, the basketball gods are making Tiger faithful sweat it out this year. Jan. 13th's four-overtime affair against Iowa State was historic on several fronts. It marked the most overtimes played in MU and Big 12 history. MU has also now played seven overtime periods this season -- that's just one five-minute period short of a complete extra game. The current group of Tigers are now tied for the most extra periods played in one sea-son at MU. The 1982-83 team, which won the Big Eight championship that year, also played seven extra stanzas.

MORE RANKINGS
Five of MU's nine losses on the year have come at the hands of teams which were ranked in last week's Associated Press Top-25 poll. Illinois leads the list at #3, followed by #6 Iowa State, #9 Virginia, #16 Oklahoma and #17 Syracuse as ranked teams that MU has come up short against. Kansas, ranked #11 this week, and Iowa State (#6), find themselves on MU's victim list. Overall, the Tigers are 2-5 against ranked teams at tipoff. Syracuse was not ranked when MU faced them in the championship game of the Great Alaska Shootout in November.

REBOUND THAT BASKETBALL
Missouri has hit the boards with aplomb of late, as they are coming off a game where they outrebounded Baylor by a 39-28 margin. The plus-11 margin is MU's biggest in a game since outrebounding DePaul by 12 back on Dec. 6th in Columbia. Additionally, MU recently outrebounded two of the nation's top 10 rebounding teams. Feb. 11th at #12 Iowa State, the Tigers grabbed 38 rebounds, equaling ISU's total for the game. The Cyclones aren't accustomed to not having their way on the boards, as they

IT'S A BLOCK PARTY
Missouri has blocked 114 shots in 27 games on the season, and long ago surpassed last year's total of 61 for the season (31 games). Freshman center Arthur Johnson is lead-ing the charge, with 58 blocks. That's an aver-age of 2.2 per game, and he broke the MU single-season record of 56 set by former all-American Steve Stipanovich in 1982-83 with his second-half block last Monday vs. Oklahoma. A.J. needs only three more blocks to equal MU's output as a team last season (61 in 2000-01). Missouri ranks 3rd in the Big 12 with an average of 4.22 blocks per game. Last season, the Tigers were dead last, at 2.0 per game. Missouri is on pace to finish the season with 135 blocks as a team, which would break the MU single-season record of 128, by the 1990-91 team.

RUSH HOUR RESUMING SOON?
Prior to the thumb injury suffered recently, Mizzou sophomore forward Kareem Rush had established himself as an all-America candidate, as well as a leading candidate for Big 12 Player-of- the-Year honors. His injury was originally predicted as a season-ending blow, but MU recently received good news that he should be available to play soon. Prior to the beginning of conference play, The Sporting News released its all-American team, and Rush was listed as a first-teamer at small forward. He was also listed as one of 30 mid-season candidates for the prestigious Wooden Award, as announced recently by the Wooden Award Foundation. ABC/ESPN color man Dick Vitale recently named Rush to his all-Rolls Royce team. The top scorer in the Big 12 Conference (21.9 ppg), Rush made 30-point performances seem routine. He turned in four 30-pt. games this year, including two of his last 7 outings. Rush had 21 points and seven rebounds in his last outing of the season, at Oklahoma State. He injured his left thumb with 1:50 left in the game, but stayed in to finish as MU tried for the comeback win. Rush played in 21 games as a sophomore, after playing in 22 games as a freshman. Rush had arguably the best performance of his young career on Jan. 29th vs. Kansas, as he notched his fourth double-double of the year, with 27 points and 11 rebounds. Rush scored 18 of his points in the second half, in-cluding 8-of-9 free throws to help seal the win. He was named Big 12 Player-of-the-Week for his efforts -- his 2nd time earning the honor

half alone, including sinking 5-of-8 from the three-point line. Gilbert had a clutch game at Colorado, where he scored a game-high 22 points. He struggled for most of the night to find his shot, yet he still proved to be the key to MU's win as he scored eight straight Tiger points in less than a minute in the second half to stake MU out to a 64-48 lead with 6:47 left. That per-sonal binge, which included two three point-ers, essentially put the game away. He later hit 6-of-6 free throws in the final 3:05 to help seal it up. The 32.5 points-per-game average vs. CU and ISU, coupled with his 11 assists to just 1 turnover, earned him Big 12 Conference Player of the Week honors (Jan. 15). He was also named ESPN national player of the week. He had a 23-point outing vs. Illinois. De-spite making just 8-of-23 FGs on the night (4- of-13 3-pt. FGs), he was forced to carry the load offensively while his teammate Rush was on the bench with foul trouble. Gilbert did his best to play hero, though, as he hit a runner in the lane with 1:03 left in regulation that gave MU its last lead of the game, at 72-70, before Illinois sent it into overtime. Gilbert turned in a 32 point outing at #22 Iowa. He hit 5 three pointers on the night, and added 3 rebounds and 2 assists, playing 46 of 50 minutes. Gilbert currently ranks among league lead-ers in several categories. Gilbert, who broke the MU single-season three-point field goal record last season (88 treys) ranks 4th on the MU career 3-point field goal chart (190 entering the UT game), and is now 13 behind current leader Brian Grawer. His next trey will move him into 2nd place alltime, past former Tiger Jason Sutherland. Gilbert earned 3 rd -team all-league honors last season as a sophomore. He was tabbed as high as 2 nd -team all-league by several pub-lications this fall.

GRAWER LEADS THE CHARGE
When Kareem Rush went down with a thumb injury, everyone wondered where MU's points would come from. Everyone except se-nior guard Brian Grawer. In the six games since Rush went down, Grawer has stepped up his

CLEARANCE, CLARENCE
Junior guard Clarence Gilbert has emerged as one of the Big 12's top scorers this season, and assured everyone with his performance recently at Texas A&M that he's ready to lead the Tigers into the postseason. Gilbert had an outstanding overall perfor-mance at A&M, with 26 points, 6 assists and 2 steals in 29 minutes off the bench. As men-tioned earlier, he went ballistic in the first half, scoring 19 points in a 5 minute, 16 second stretch. He followed with a game-high 16-point performance in last Monday's narrow loss to #16 Oklahoma. He made 4-of-10 3-pt. FGs on the night, but went just 1-of-9 inside the arch, as his efforts to get inside the lane just wouldn't fall for him. He ended 5-of-19 overall. Gilbert has come off the bench in the last four games, since missing the Feb. 11th game at Iowa State due to disciplinary reasons. He had 11 points and added 3 assists in Saturday's win over Baylor. He came off the bench for the first time this season vs. Colorado (Feb. 14) and scored 8 pts. and added 3 rebs. and 3 assists in 26 minutes. He took only 7 shots on the night and passed up several open shots, which prompted Head Coach Quin Snyder to joke af-ter the game, "I told Clarence that I was going to suspend him again if he didn't start shoot-ing the ball." Gilbert had a solid night at Oklahoma State, where he scored 15 points on 6-of-12 shooting in Stillwater. That marked the third time this season he connected at 50 percent or better in a game. Gilbert had a 7-of-15 shooting night at Ne-braska (46.7%) on Jan. 24th. He sank 7-of-13 from three-point range, which tied his career high for makes, and was just one shy of John Woods' school record for a game. In case you hadn't heard, Gilbert had a pretty good gameon Jan. 13th in MU's 4-over-time win against Iowa State. Gilbert tied a Big 12 record by scoring 43 points vs. ISU, and added 9 assists and had zero turnovers in 56 minutes. He set Big 12 and MU records in minutes (56) and field goal at-tempts (36). His 18 three-point attempts (of which he made 7) were also an MU single-game record. His point total was the 4th-most in MU history, and if the 78.0% free throw shooter had made more of his 12-of-17 attempts from the foul line, he might have surpassed the MU scoring record of 46 points.

OH, RICKEY, YOU'RE SO FINE
Freshman slasher Rickey Paulding is one of the more quiet guys on the Missouri team, and sometimes he can get a lost in the shuffle. But with MU's recent hits to the roster, he's been thrust into the spotlight more than ever. The Detroit, Mich. native has responded with flying colors in MU's last 6 games, as he's averaged 8.7 points and 3.3 rebounds per game while facing the daunting task of replac-ing all-American candidate Kareem Rush in the lineup. Paulding has started all six games since Rush went down, and is coming off an 11- point, 3-rebound outing vs. Baylor Saturday. Last Monday, Paulding had a 5-point, 3- rebound outing vs. Oklahoma. He was held to Stokes picked up the scoring slack mostly from long range, as he nailed a career-high 5- of-8 three pointers. He had made 9 treys in 21 games prior to his feat that night. Stokes had 9 points in MU's win at Colo-rado, including 7-of-8 free throws in the game's final four minutes to help seal the win. At Indiana, Stokes provided a huge spark off the bench, as he scored a career-high 11 points and added an assist and a steal in 15 minutes of play. Stokes hit 4-of-7 FGs on the night, includ-ing a gutsy floater in the lane over IU's 6-foot-9 Jeff Newton with 1:06 left in the game that gave MU a 62-61 lead. He added 9 pts., 4 rebs., 3 steals and 2 asst. in 24 mins. vs. #5 Illinois. Seven of his points came in the second half, as he helped MU rally from an 8-point deficit to force overtime. The Sporting News recently listed Stokes as having the best hair in college basketball.

DOCK BLOCK
You can call him A.J., or you can call him Arthur, or you can call him Dock. Whatever you prefer, Tiger opponents are calling Arthur Johnson a handful. The Detroit, Mich. native is laying claim to Big 12 Freshman-of-the-Year candidacy, as he's averaging 9.3 points and 8.0 rebounds per game. He leads Big 12 freshmen in four cat-egories, including field goal percentage, re-bounding, blocks and steals, and is currently 3rd in scoring. Johnson ranks not only among league lead-ers in freshmen, but all players.

A.J. recorded his 6th double-double of the season Saturday vs. Baylor, as he notched 11 points and a game-high 10 rebounds in 22 min-utes. He came off the bench for the first time since Nov. 25th, which broke a string of 22 con-secutive starts. Johnson had 10 points and 8 rebounds last Monday vs. Oklahoma. Eight of his points and all of his rebounds came in the second half. Six of his rebounds were on the offensive glass, and led to six of his 10 points on the night. A.J. notched his 5th double-double of the

MU MAKES HISTORY AT INDIANA
MU became just the 9th non-conference team to claim a win at Indiana's Assembly Hall when the Tigers claimed a 68-63 win on Dec. 18th.

TIGER TALK
Missouri Tigers fans who wish to speak with MU Head Basketball Coach Quin Snyder can do so each Monday night through the radio facilities of the Tiger Network. "Tiger Talk" airs each Monday evening from 7-8 p.m., on radio stations across the state. Persons in central Missouri may also attend the show, which is broadcast "live" each week from Harpo's in downtown Columbia, located at the intersection of 10th and Cherry streets. Snyder spends most of the hour fielding telephone calls from interested fans across the state, and even the nation. Tiger players often appear as guests, as do coaches of MU oppo-nents, college basketball media experts from across the country, broadcasters, and others on the inside of college athletics. "Tiger Talk" is hosted by Mike Kelly, the Tiger Network voice of the Tigers, as well as director of broadcast operations for the Univer-sity of Missouri athletic department. rado on Jan. 10th, when scored 12 points and added 9 rebounds vs. the Buffs, and was a key to MU's big road win. He followed with another stellar performance vs. ISU, as he hit the Cyclones for 9 points, 6 rebounds and 3 blocks. More importantly, he gave MU 31 minutes off the bench, which proved invaluable in the 60-minute marathon. Bryant was held to 3 points at Kansas State (on 1-of-6 FGs), but grabbed a career-high 12 rebounds in 18 minutes of play. He's made just 8-of-27 free throws so far (29.6%), but one look at his nice shooting stroke, and there's no doubting he'll improve on those numbers when he begins to feel more comfortable on the floor. A McDonald's All-American out of Long Beach Jordan High, Bryant signed with MU last spring. He attended Maine Central Insti-tute for the first semester, and after receiving a qualifying test score, joined the team at the conclusion of the first semester. His first prac-tice with the team was Dec. 20th at Vashon High School in St. Louis, as the Tigers pre-pared for their next-day battle with 5th-ranked Illinois.

12-GAGE PLAYS A KEY ROLE
Sophomore forward Justin Gage might not have big numbers, but he gives much more to the team than his 1.9 point and 1.9 rebound per game averages would indicate. Gage, who wears #11 in basketball but is #12 in football (thus the 12-Gage reference), where he was MU's leading receiver last sea-son, has played more on the wing in Kareem Rush's absence, and his number have gone up considerably. In his last 6 games, Gage is averaging 3.7 points per game, after averag-ing just 1.0 points in his previous 12 games. Gage scored 7 pts. at Texas A&M, match-ing the seven he scored Feb. 14th vs. Colo-rado. He also grabbed a season-high 4 re-bounds last Saturday at A&M. Gage has found the mark from the foul line of late, as he's made 10-of-16 freebies in his last 6 games (62.5%), after making just 6- of-15 (40.0%) in his first 12 games. Gage made several big plays late in MU's win over Kansas State on Feb. 7th. His first big play came with 1:14 left in the game, and MU trailing by five points. MU's Brian Grawer missed a three-pointer, and KSU's Quentin Buchanan grabbed the re-bound. Just when things started looking bad for the Tigers, Gage quickly stole the ball from Buchanan underneath MU's basket, and was 1-of-7 shooting on the night, but his one make was an exciting alley-oop slam on a pass from fellow freshman Wesley Stokes. Paulding was fouled on the play, and consequently com-pleted the three-point play with his free throw. Paulding started his second straight game Feb. 11th at #12 Iowa State, and scored 15 points (one shy of his career best) and added five rebounds and a career-high 3 assists in 37 minutes of play. He had an important 3-point play that was MU's first score after ISU jumped out to a 10-0 lead right off the bat. On Feb. 7th vs. Kansas State he scored 10 points and added 5 rebounds and 2 assists in his first career start. Paulding hit 3-of-6 shots on the night, including a career-best 2-of-2 from three-point range. Prior to the Rush injury, Paulding had been MU's top reserve this season. Paulding had 3 points in a limited 7 minute-stint at Oklahoma State, hitting 3-of-4 free throws on the night. He went 0-of-3 from the floor, after having made 6-of-10 from the floor in his previous three games. Paulding had 5 points in 13 minutes on Jan. 29th vs. #3 Kansas, and hit 1-of-2 from three-point land. He's finding his stroke from the foul line, as he's hit 14-of-18 free throws (77.8%) in his last 7 games.

BRYANT FINDING HIS WAY
Freshman center Travon Bryant has had a crash course in Division I college basketball since joining the team in late December. And while he's had his typical freshman ups and downs, there's no question that he has the ability to be a huge contributor. Bryant had a solid game Saturday vs. Baylor, as he scored 4 points and added 3 re-bounds in 15 minutes off the bench. He had a nice 17-foot jumper in the first half which quelled a Baylor run, displaying a nice perimeter touch that he hadn't exploited to this point. Bryant played 10 minutes in last Monday's loss to Oklahoma, and scored 4 points (on 2- of-4 FGs) and added 1 rebound. Bryant played 12 minutes Feb. 17th at Texas A&M, and had 4 points, 5 rebounds and 2 assists in a solid day. Bryant played well at Oklahoma State, as he grabbed 5 rebounds and blocked 3 shots while scoring 3 points in 20 minutes. Previously, Bryant had a solid game vs. #3 Kansas, as he contributed 4 points and 5 re-bounds in a 9 minutes off the bench.

T.J. BREAKS THROUGH AT A&M
There's no one on the Tiger team who works harder than senior forward Tajudeen Soyoye. That's why it's been so frustrating for those in the program who know his work ethic to see him struggle offensively since the start of league play. Soyoye, who had a solid non-conference season (averaging 8.8 ppg), just couldn't get things to go his way in Big 12 play. He was averaging just 3.5 ppg in MU's 11 league games prior to the Feb. 17th game at Texas A&M. He might have found his groove in Col-lege Station, however, as T.J. came up with a season-high 16 points vs. the Aggies. He made 5-of-9 shots on the day, and added a perfect 6- of-6 from the foul line. Soyoye, who has started all 58 games of his two-year career, continues to be one of the more improved foul shooters around. He has made 19-of-21 foul shots in his last 8 games, and has raised his season mark to 77.8%, a year after making just 63.1% of his foul shots.