EARLIER THIS YEAR VS. KANSAS
Game #20 -- MU 75, #3 Kansas 66 Jan. 29, 2001 -- Columbia, Mo. Kareem Rush had 27 points and 11 rebounds for the Tigers, in a 75-66 victory over the Jayhawks. Brian Grawer added 14 points and was 4-for-7 from 3-point range and Clarence Gilbert had 12 for Missouri. The floor was named for former longtime coach Norm Stewart">Norm Stewart during a halftime ceremony, and after the game Stewart was given the game ball. Kansas erased a 17-point second-half deficit with an 18-0 run over a stretch of 5:50. Jeff Boschee had two 3-pointers in the run and Kirk Hinrich's 3-pointer gave the Jayhawks the lead for the first time at 44-43 with 12:20 left. Missouri quickly regained control. Rush scored eight points in a three-minute span as the Tigers pulled ahead 59-52 with 7:30 to go. Kansas, despite shooting 50 percent the second half, never got any closer than five points the rest of the way. Missouri held Kansas to 35.5 percent shooting in the first half, leading 37-23. The Tigers were 5-for-10 from 3-point range and Gilbert had 11 points. Kansas, which led the nation with 52 percent shoot-ing coming into the game, began the game 2-for-12.

LAST YEAR AT KANSAS
Game #28 -- #23 Kansas 83, MU 82
March 5, 2000 -- Lawrence, Kan.
Missouri fought back from a 14-point second-half deficit to take a one-point lead into the final seconds, but it wasn't enough, as the 23rd-ranked Jayhawks hit 4-of-4 free throws to hold off the Ti-gers, 83-82. Kansas led by a 63-49 margin with 11:20 re-maining, but MU's Kareem Rush and Jeff Hafer com-bined to score 12 points over the next three minutes to get MU back in the game.

Additionally, KU leads the league (and ranks 4th nationally as well) in field goal percentage defense, at 38.5%. On the flip side, Missouri ranks 10th in the league offensively, shooting 41.9% from the floor, and is 8th in FG defense, allowing oppo-nents a 42.7% success rate. In conference play, the Tigers rank last in shooting, as they've connected on just 38.9% from the floor in 15 league contests. On Jan. 29th, MU shot 43.9% from the floor in its win over Kansas, but held the Jayhawks to just 42.9% (27-of-63), including just 5-of-15 from 3-pt. range. Wow, shooting and rebounding are the keys to Sunday's game? Who'd have thought that we'd offer such penetrating insight!!

TAKING CARE OF THE BALL
Missouri has focused on valuing the ball more of late, and the results have proven suc-cessful. The Tigers have averaged just 10.5 turn-overs in the last four games. That's 4.4 less per game than the team's season average of 14.9 to this point. Oddly, however, the Tigers have dropped two of its last three games despite turning it over just eight times against Oklahoma and just nine times at Texas. Those totals represent the two lowest numbers of miscues in games this season.

HONORS COMING IN
As the regular season winds down, the honors are starting to come in for Missouri Ti-ger players. Kareem Rush has been named as an NABC All-District 12 First-Team selection, along with Jamaal Tinsley of Iowa State, Reggie Evans of Iowa, Nick Collison of Kansas and Maurice Baker of Oklahoma State. There were 150 players named to first and second teams in 15 districts, and all of those will be eligible for the Division I All-American Team to be an-nounced at the conclusion of the season. Brian Grawer has been named to the Big 12 All-Academic First Team for the third straight year, and earlier was named a Verizon/Co-SIDA District 7 Academic All-American. Senior forward Tajudeen Soyoye was also named to the Big 12 All-Academic second team.

YOUTH WELL-SERVED
It's hard to imagine a team in contention for an NCAA Tournament berth having to rely more on freshmen than Missouri, as the Ti-gers feature four first-year players in their top-eight rotation-wise. The Tiger cubs are doing rather well, how-ever, and have come of age nicely, especially since Kareem Rush (who's only a sophomore himself) went down with his injury. Three of the four freshmen -- Wesley Stokes, Rickey Paulding and Arthur Johnson -- are averaging more points per game in the last 7 games without Rush. Stokes has nearly tripled his scoring output, going from a 4.7- per game average in the first 21 games to a 12.6-per game clip in the last 7. Monday at Texas, MU's freshmen led the charge, as the quartet scored 39 of MU's 61 points (63.9%), and 12 of 28 individual re-bounds (42.9%) in the game. Stokes led the way again, as he tallied a team-best 17 pts., on the strength of 6-of-10 FGs (including 2-of-2 from 3-pt. land). Paulding added 13 points on the night, which marked his 4th double-figure scoring game in the last seven since losing Rush.

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 4-3 in the seven games without Rush, solidifying itself as an NCAA Tournament-worthy team. MU's only three losses in the stretch were by eight at 12th-ranked Iowa State (without Rush AND sec-ond- leading scorer Clarence Gilbert), on a last-second shot to 16th-ranked Oklahoma, and Monday at 24th-ranked Texas. 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 seven games, compared to just two in MU's first 21 games with Rush.

AN IMPRESSIVE TRIUMVIRATE
The three-headed weapon of Clarence Gilbert, Brian Grawer and Kareem Rush has combined to amass a pretty impressive statis-tic. Gilbert (80), Grawer (65) and Rush (54) have combined to nail 199 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 211 threes as a team, prior to Saturday play. Additionally, only three previous Tiger teams have made more threes in a season than the current trio has made: the 1999-2000 team (291), 1997-98 (214), and 1993-94 (204). MU leads the league, and ranks 23rd na-tionally, by making 8.3 threes per game. Individually, Gilbert is 8 made threes away from tying his own single-season MU record of 88, established last season. He also needs 3 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 204 treys (12 ahead of Gilbert, who has 192), has made his living from long distance this season. Of his 74 field goals this year, 65, or 87.8%, have been of the three-point variety.

GRAWER GOES OUT WITH A BANG
Playing his final home game in a Tiger uniform last weekend 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. Here's a quick fensive field goal percentage, but is improved in scoring defense, 3-pt. shooting, free throw shooting, rebounding and assists.

HEAD COACH QUIN SNYDER
The 15th head coach in Missouri basket-ball history, Quin Snyder is 36-23 in his second season as a head coach. He was named the national rookie coach-of-the-year by Basket-ball Times last season after leading the Tigers to an 18-13 record and an NCAA appearance. 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 -- three as a player (1986, 88, 89) and two more as a coach (1994, 99). For those of you keeping score at home, that's exactly five more Final Fours than Mizzou has qualified for in its pre-vious 93 years. Snyder had served as Duke's associate head coach the previous two seasons, and was entrusted with numerous on-court coaching re-sponsibilities, as well as recruiting duties for the Blue Devils by Head Coach Mike Krzyzewski. He was widely credited with re-cruiting the group of student-athletes (includ-ing 1999 national player-of-the-year Elton Brand) at Duke who compiled a 37-2 record in 1998-99 and finished as NCAA runners-up.

TEXAS RECAP

MU MILESTONES

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.

INDIVIDUAL MILESTONES
Junior guard Clarence Gilbert is nearing several milestones. Entering Sunday's game at Kansas, he needs 8 three-point field goals to equal his own MU single-season record of 88 set last year. He also needs 3 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 Sunday's game needing 2 steals to tie former Tiger Greg Cavener for 10th place on the MU career steals chart. Gilbert has 111 career heists heading into Sunday's contest. Gilbert, who leads MU and ranks 13th in the Big 12 with an average of 3.6 assists per game, also needs 3 assists to reach 100 for the season. He would become the 28th Tiger to reach triple digits in assists for a season. With 59 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 7 more rejections to tie Dan Bingenheimer for 9th on the list, at 66.

IT'S A BLOCK PARTY
Missouri has blocked 117 shots in 28 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 59 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 Feb. 19th vs. Oklahoma. A.J. needs only two 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 4.14 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 COMING BACK
Prior to the thumb injury suffered recently, Mizzou sophomore forward Kareem Rush had established himself as an all-America candi-date, 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 will be available Sunday at Kansas. Prior to the beginning of conference play, The Sporting News released its all-American team, and Rush was listed as a first-teamer at MU had been 16th prior to enduring its January three-game losing streak, represent-ing their highest showing this season in the rankings. Kansas enters the game ranked 8th in the power rankings, with a strength of schedule rating of 28th. Six of MU's 10 losses have come to teams ranked 30th or higher in the RPI system -- #6 Illinois, #9 Texas, #10 Iowa State, #19 Syracuse, #23 Virginia, and #30 Oklahoma. The Tigers are 3-5 currently vs. the top-25 in the RPI, with wins coming over current #8 Kansas, #10 Iowa State and a rare non-confer-ence road win at #21 Indiana. As stated elsewhere in the propaganda-laden material is this fact: MU's 3 wins against the RPI's top 25 teams puts the Ti-gers in select company. Only 11 other teams have more than 3 wins against the same group.

MORE RANKINGS
Six of MU's 10 losses on the year have come at the hands of teams which were ranked in this week's Associated Press Top-25 poll. Illinois leads the list at #5, followed by #7 Virginia, #8 Iowa State, #17 Oklahoma, #19 Syra-cuse and #24 Texas as ranked teams that MU has come up short against. Kansas, ranked #10 this week, and Iowa State (#8), find them-selves on MU's victim list. Overall, the Tigers are 2-6 against ranked teams at tipoff. Syracuse was not ranked when MU faced them in the championship game of the Great Alaska Shootout in November.

CARDIAC KIDS
Missouri has been predisposed to play-ing tight ballgames of late, as 16 games this season have been decided by 10 points or fewer. MU has fared well in the close ones, as they're 10-6 in those games for the season.

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 per-formance at A&M, with 26 points, 6 assists and 2 steals in 29 minutes off the bench. As mentioned earlier, he went ballistic in the first half, scoring 19 points in a 5 minute, 16 sec-ond stretch. He followed with a game-high 16-point performance in MU's narrow loss to #16 Okla-homa. He made 4-of-10 3-pt. FGs on the night, but went just 1-of-9 inside the arch, as his ef-forts 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 five games, since missing the Feb. 11th game at Iowa State due to disciplinary reasons. He's averaged 14.2 pts. per game in that stretch. 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 after the game, "I told Clarence that I was go-ing to suspend him again if he didn't start shooting the ball." Gilbert had a solid night at Oklahoma State, where he scored 15 points on 6-of-12 shoot-ing in Stillwater. That marked the third time this season he connected at 50 percent or bet-ter in a game. 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's 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 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 this season. He's made 52.2% of his shots in the last three games (24-of-46) and scored 20 or more points in five straight outings. Rush had a 23-point outing Jan. 27th vs. Texas Tech. He hit the game-winning three-pointer with 33 seconds left to give MU a 64-62 lead, and later notched a steal with time run-ning out to preserve the win. Rush hit 4-of-6 three-pointers on the day, and hit 9-of-15 from the floor overall. On Jan 13th, Rush had a 32-point game vs. Iowa State, which tied his career high. He hit only 13-of-31 shots on the day, but was solid from beyond the three-point line, where he sank 5-of-10 attempts. Rush had 30 points vs. Nebraska in MU's Big 12 opener, and was a perfect 8-of-8 from the foul line on the night, including a pair of clutch freebies with 1:04 left that provided the final margin in MU's 68-66 win. Rush turned in an outstanding perfor-mance at #22 Iowa, as he tallied a career-high 32 points. He also added 11 rebounds. Rush scored 24 of his points after half-time, and was a perfect 10-of-10 from the foul line, including 8-of-8 in overtime. Prior to that, Rush had a huge week when he averaged 28.0 points and 6.5 rebounds in leading MU to comeback wins over DePaul and Saint Louis.

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 seven games since Rush went down, Grawer has stepped up his scoring role immensely, and has aver-aged 15.1 points per game. He's coming off a game in which he was shutdown by Texas' smothering defense. Grawer was held to just 3 points (on 1-of-6 FGs) Monday, breaking a streak of six straight games in double figures. Grawer closed his home career by scor-ing a game-high 18 points Feb. 24th vs. Baylor as he nailed 6-of-14 three-point attempts. He also contributed his typical 3 assists, 2 steals and zero turnovers in a stellar 36-minute per-formance playing before his entire family. Grawer scored 14 points at Texas A&M on Feb. 17th, and became MU's alltime 3-pt. king with his first of four treys. That bomb from the left corner gave him 191 career three pointers, which gave him sole possession of the career lead, moving him past former leader Jason Sutherland (190). Grawer has now made 204-of-480 threes in his Tiger career, good for a school-best 42.5% career mark. Grawer had a brilliant performance at #12 Iowa State, when he sank 8-of-13 three-point field goals and ended with 24 points. The eight treys tied the MU single-game record held by John Woods (vs. UAB in 1998), and was the fourth-most in Big 12 history. In the previous game, Grawer stole the show in MU's 70-66 come-from-behind win over Kansas State. In MU's first game without the services of Kareem Rush, and a sick Clarence Gilbert who scored just 2 points (he was averaging 17.7 ppg coming in), the Tigers were in des-perate need of someone picking up the scor- 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 the 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. He tallied 23 of his points in the second 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 personal binge, which included two three pointers, es-sentially 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.

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. 2 from three-point range. Stokes has warmed up from three-point land of late, as he's made 18-of-39 treys (46.2%) in his last 13 games, after making just 3-of-17 (17.7%) in his first 14 outings. Stokes was held to 5 points Feb. 24th vs. Baylor, but he ran the MU offense crisply, as he notched a game-high 6 assists (just one shy of his career high), and he added a career-best 6 rebounds in 26 minutes. Stokes had 12 points on Feb. 17th at Texas A&M (on the strength of 7-of-9 FTs), and added a career-high 7 assists with just one turnover in 30 minutes. He was held to four points last Monday vs. Oklahoma (on 2-of-7 FGs), but stepped up in crunch time, as he hit a floater on the right baseline with 17 seconds left to forge a 61-61 tie prior to OU's last-sec-ond win. Stokes scored 19 points Feb. 14th vs. Colorado, on the strength of a 14-of-16 perfor-mance from the foul line. He hit 7-of-8 freebies in the game's final three minutes to help seal the win. That followed a solid performance at #12 Iowa State, where he had 12 pointsand added career highs in rebounds (6) and assists (5) in his first career start. Stokes turned in a heroic performance in MU's 70-66 win over Kansas State on Feb. 7th. The dynamic rookie scored a career-high 19 points on the night -- an invaluable feat considering the fact that MU got only 2 points from Clarence Gilbert, who entered the game with a 17.7 scoring average. 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. ing slack. Grawer did just that, by shooting his way to a season-high 22 points, on the strength of a 6-of-12 night from three-point range. His big-gest one of the night came with just 17 sec-onds left in the game, and MU trailing by one. His 23-footer settled home perfectly, and gave MU a 68-66 lead. On Jan. 29th, Grawer tallied 14 points vs. #3 Kansas. He nailed 4 three pointers on the night (in 7 attempts), and scored 11 of his points in the second half. Grawer is showing that he's regaining the stroke from long range that saw him rank 3rd in the NCAA as a sophomore in three-point per-centage (49.6%). The St. Louis native has made 41-of-87 three-point field goals in his last 11 games (47.1%), and his season total of 65 is 18 more than he made all of last season, when he struggled behind the stripe (shot a career-low 32.8%). Grawer has scored in double figures 12 times this season, including 6-of-7 games since the Rush injury.

A quick check of the MU career records shows that Grawer is statistically one of the school's most productive players. He is the only Tiger in school history to rank among the career top-10 lists in free throw percentage (3rd -- 83.5%), steals (3rd -- 190) and assists (10th -- 318). He is also joined by former Tiger greats Anthony Peeler and Melvin Booker as the only players to rank among the career top-10 lists in three point field goals, assists and steals.

STOKES FANS THE FLAMES
Freshman point guard Wesley Stokes has emerged as an invaluable cog in the Tiger attack. Stokes has combined with fellow guard Brian Grawer to spearhead the Tiger scoring attack of late, as he's averaged 12.6 points per game in MU's last 7 outings, after averaging 4.7 points a game in his first 21 contests. He's coming off a solid game at Texas Monday, as Stokes led MU with 17 pts. and added 3 steals in 28 minutes of play. He went 6-of-10 from the floor, including a perfect 2-of-

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 9.1 points and 7.9 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 Feb. 24th 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 Feb. 19th vs. OU. 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 season Feb. 14th as he scored a career-high 17 points and added 11 rebounds vs. Colorado. He had a strong performance at #13 Vir-ginia, where he scored 14 points, on 7-of-9 shooting. He proved to be vital to MU's suc-cess, as the Tiger offense suffered without him in the game. When he picked up his fifth foul with 3:34 left in the game, MU trailed by just two points. Without him patrolling the middle, MU went scoreless until a free throw with 50 seconds left. UVA took advantage to claim an 80-70 lead by that point. A.J. had a monster game at Colorado, as he pulled down an MU freshman record 19 re-bounds, which broke the old record of 16 by Gary Leonard in 1986. He might have ap-proached the single-game record of 27 by Bob Reiter (1955), but foul trouble limited him to just 23 minutes of play. He added 9 points, 4 blocks and 1 assist to the cause. On Dec. 30 vs. Stetson, Johnson blocked a school-record 8 shots. That shattered the old MU single-game mark of 5, which was held by seven former Tigers. He also added 10 points and 6 rebounds on the day. He followed that with a 14-point outing vs. Coastal Carolina. He blocked 7 shots dur-ing the game, marking the second straight game he surpassed the old school record. Against 5th-ranked Illinois, A.J. had a solid 15-point, 12-rebound performance vs. the Illini's strong front line.

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 7 games, as he's averaged 9.3 points per game while fac-ing the daunting task of replacing all-Ameri-can candidate Kareem Rush in the lineup. Paulding has started all 7 games since Rush went down, and is coming off a 13-point game at Texas Monday night. That followed an 11-point performance Feb. 24th vs. Baylor. Feb. 19th, Paulding had a 5-point, 3-re-bound outing vs. Oklahoma. He was held to 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 8 games.