All-American candidate Kareem Rush will lead the Tigers against Xavier on Saturday.All-American candidate Kareem Rush will lead the Tigers against Xavier on Saturday.
Men's Basketball

No. 5 Tigers Face Xavier On Saturday Night

Nov. 23, 2001

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TIGERS MEET MUSKETEERS IN 2ND ANNUAL WOODEN TRADITION
The 5th-ranked Missouri Tigers won't have long to bask in the glory of the school's first in-season tournament championship since 1989, as Mizzou turns around to play a dangerous Xavier squad Saturday night in Indianapolis, Ind. in the 2nd annual John R. Wooden Tradition, double-header that features #14 Stanford vs. Purdue in the opener.

MU claimed the inaugural NABC Guardians Classic in Kansas City this week with wins over #22 Alabama and #9 Iowa. The latter was done with a miraculous comeback that saw the Tigers erase an 11-point deficit in the final 2:15 of the game.

Xavier has played only one game thus far, but the Musketeers were quite impressive in their season-opening 72-41 dismantling of Coastal Carolina on Nov. 17th.

THE QUIN SNYDER FILE
The 15th head coach in Missouri basketball history, Quin Snyder is 42-26 in his third season as a head coach.

Snyder guided Missouri to a 20-13 record in 2000-01, including the schools' first NCAA Tournament win since 1995, when MU defeated Georgia in the opening round.

He was named the national rookie coach-of-the-year by Basketball Times after leading the Tigers to an 18-13 record and an NCAA appearance in the 1999-2000 campaign.

Snyder's mission is to take the Tiger program to the next level. And if that next level represents the Final Four of the NCAA Tournament, 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).

Snyder had served as Duke's associate head coach the previous two seasons, and was entrusted with numerous on-court coaching responsibilities, as well as recruiting duties for the Blue Devils by Head Coach Mike Krzyzewski. He was widely credited with recruiting the group of student-athletes (including 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.

MU-XAVIER SERIES
Missouri and Xavier will meet for just the third time when they square off in Indianapolis Saturday night. The series is tied, 1-1, with both prior meetings having come during tournament play.

The first-ever meeting between the two was a painful 70-69 loss for Missouri in the first round of the 1987 NCAA Tournament in a game played in Indianapolis. MU swept the Big Eight regular-season and post-season tournament titles that year, and had a #4 seed in the Midwest Region. But the #13 seeded Musketeers prevailed, thanks in large part to the stellar play of Byron Larkin, who had a game-high 29 points. MU ended the season with a 24-10 record.

The next meeting came in the second round of the 1988 pre-season NIT, when the Tigers downed Xavier 83-71 in Columbia, on the way to a runner-up finish in the tournament. Former MU greats Byron Irvin had 28 points and Doug Smith added 16 points and 11 rebounds to lead the way in that contest.

MU-IOWA POST-GAME NOTES

  • MU won its first in-season tournament title in 12 seasons with its 78-77 win over Iowa. The last such title for MU came during an impressive run through the 1989 Maui Invitational, when the Tigers knocked off Evansville, Louisville and North Carolina in successive days to win it all.
  • MU's Clarence Gilbert was named the MVP of the Guardians Classic, as he scored 27 points and sank the game-winning free throw with :00.8 seconds left Wednesday vs. Iowa.
  • MU improved to 4-0 to begin a season for the first time since the 1995-96 squad began the year 4-0. The Tigers have quite a ways to go to equal the school record for best start to a season, however, as the 1981-82 squad led by All-Americans Steve Stipanovich and Jon Sundvold began that season 19-0 on the way to a No. 1 ranking.

    MU VS. RANKED TEAMS

  • Missouri improved its record versus ranked opponents under Quin Snyder to 6-16 with wins Tuesday against #22 Alabama and Wednesday vs. #9 Iowa.
  • Mizzou notched consecutive wins over ranked teams for the first time since beating #3 Kansas on Jan. 19, 1997, and #10 Iowa on Jan. 24, 1997. Both games were played in Columbia.
  • #9 Iowa was the highest-ranked non-conference opponent MU has beaten since the Tigers knocked off #7 Arkansas in Fayetteville in an 89-88 thriller on Dec. 13, 1989. MU was ranked #4 heading into that game.
  • Missouri also improved to 17-5 alltime in games in which it was ranked #5 in the Associated Press poll at tipoff. The last time the Tigers were ranked so high was during the 1993-94 season, when MU went a perfect 14-0 in claiming the Big Eight title.
  • MU improved to 2-10 alltime in games against #9 teams.