Nov. 15, 2006

Columbia, Mo. -

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For Openers
Missouri goes searching for its first 4-0 start since the 2002-03 campaign on Thursday, when it hosts Lipscomb at Mizzou Arena ... The Tigers have started the season 4-0 just five times since 1983 and a win on Thursday would make Mike Anderson the first Tiger Head Coach to open his career 4-0 since George Bond started 5-0 in 1922-23, that's 84 years ago ... Anderson would also be just the sixth head coach (out of 16) to open their MU career 4-0 ... Missouri is coming off its first tournament title since winning the Guardian's Classic in 2001-02 ... The Tigers had three players earn All-Tournament recognition over the weekend with Stefhon Hannah and Matt Lawrence making the five-player All-Tournament Team and Kalen Grimes winning MVP honors after recording back-to-back double-doubles ... Missouri showed its ability to win games in a variety of ways this weekend ... The Tigers raced to a 101-80 win against North Carolina A&T, fended off Army's half-court, slow-down game to win 67-58 and played from behind to defeat Stetson 66-45 ... The Tigers trailed Stetson by two (27-25) at the half, but held the Hatters to 25 percent shooting (0-of-8 from three) in the second half and allowed just 18 total points in the final period to earn the 21-point win ... Missouri continues to be one of the nation's most unselfish teams ... Through three games Missouri has nearly doubled its opponents in assists and is averaging 20.7 dimes per game ... The single-season mark for highest assist per game average is 19.0 during the 1988-89 season.

Mizzou Quick-Hitters
- Missouri looks to improve its season mark to 4-0 when it hosts Lipscomb on Nov. 16 at Mizzou Arena. - The Tigers would be the first team in the Big 12 to reach 4-0. - Head Coach Mike Anderson would also be the first "first-year" coach in the nation to reach 4-0. - As a team, Missouri could join San Diego State, Michigan, Michigan State, Syracuse, Clemson and Maryland as the first team's nationally to start 4-0 ... A majority of those teams go for 4-0 on Nov. 15, as San Diego State hosts San Diego, Michigan hosts UW-Milwaukee, Clemson hosts Furman and Syracuse hosts Northeastern on Nov. 15 ... Maryland travels to St. John on Nov. 16. - A win versus Lipscomb would give Missouri its 1,392nd as a program ... Missouri is 38th all-time in NCAA Division I Basketball wins and is currently nine wins shy of 1,400 ... Kansas, Texas Oklahoma and Oklahoma State are the only other Big 12 schools to have reached the 1,400 win plateau. - Head Coach Mike Anderson is reaching a coaching milestone of his own ... Anderson is just eight wins shy of his 100th career victory. - Anderson is the first Tiger Head Coach to start his career 3-0 at Mizzou since Wilber Stalcup (1946-47) ... A 4-0 start would make him the first Tiger sideline boss to accomplish the feat since George Bond in 1922-23. - Through just three games, the Mike Anderson Era Tigers have already set Mizzou Arena records in 11 categories. - Those categories are points scored (101), points in a half (59), field goals in a game (41), three-pointers in a game (13), field goal percentage (.577), three-point percentage (.556), assists (32), steals (13), individual steals (5), individual field goal percentage (.889) and individual three-pointers (7). - Today's game marks the fourth of nine consecutive regular-season contests at Mizzou Arena ... Missouri doesn't play its first road game of 2006-07 until Dec. 9 at Purdue. - The nine consecutive home games to start a season is a school record ... The previous mark was seven, set in 1909-10. - Missouri is averaging a robust 20.7 assists per game (62 total) through three games this season ... The school record for assists per game throughout a season is 19.0, which came in 1988-89. - To put the team's assist production in perspective, Mizzou didn't achieve its 62nd assist in 2005-06 until the fifth game of the year (at Davidson). - As a team, Missouri is shooting 45.3 percent from three-point range (29-of-64) and has topped double figures in three-point makes twice this season ... The Tigers topped double figures in three-pointers just twice all of last year (at Davidson / vs. Kansas). - The Tigers opened the year with a Mizzou Arena record 13 treys vs. North Carolina A&T, before hitting an Arena record 55.6 percent of their treys vs. Army (10-of-18) ... The Tigers hit 7-of-8 triples in the opening half to secure that record. - Despite being labeled as undersized, Missouri is averaging 34.7 points per game in the paint, including a season best 50 tallies in the opener against North Carolina A&T. - Another improved area for the Tigers has come in bench production ... Missouri is averaging 24.0 points per game from its bench through three games, including a season high 39 points vs. North Carolina A&T ... Last season, Missouri's reserves averaged 11.9 points per game ... Mizzou's season best for bench production in 2005-06 was 27 against Louisiana-Monroe.

Tiger Tidbits (Individual Notes)
- Kalen Grimes goes in search of his third consecutive double-double this evening against Lipscomb ... Grimes is averaging 8.0 rebounds on the year and 11.0 boards over his last two games ... The last Tiger with back-to-back double dips was Kevin Young, who accomplished the feat against Oakland (Dec. 30) and Louisiana Monroe (Jan. 2). - Grimes is also averaging a team-leading 14.7 points per game on 67.9 percent shooting from the floor. - Fellow St. Louis, Mo., native Matt Lawrence joins Grimes with that 14.7 ppg. scoring norm ... Lawrence leads the club and ranks among Big 12 Conference leaders with 52.4 percent shooting from three-point range and 11 total three-point buckets. - Through just three games, Lawrence has already eclipsed the 37 total points, 18 total boards, five assists and nine three-point field goals he registered through 25 games last season as a rookie. - The 6-foot-7 guard has been mistake-free for the most part as well and leads with an 8-to-3 assist-to-turnover ratio. - Over the summer, Lawrence averaged nearly 400 shots per day in preparation for his sophomore season under Mike Anderson. - Stefhon Hannah continues to be one of the Big 12's top newcomers and earned All-Tournament recognition at the John Thompson Foundation Classic, averaging 13.0 points, 2.3 boards, 4.7 assists and 2.7 steals per game. - Not to be outdone, Mizzou's Jason Horton led the tournament with 19 total assists and his 6.3 assists per game leads the club and ranks among Big 12 Conference leaders ...His 2.3 steals per game also ranks among the Big 12's best. - Counting teams who have played multiple times this season, Horton and Hannah are the Big 12's leading assist duo at 11.0 assists per game - Horton and Hannah are also the league's No. 2 -ranked duo with a combined 5.0 steals per night.

Getting To Know Today's Foe
Lipscomb comes to Columbia a perfect 2-0 following a 67-64 win over Evansville Monday evening in Nashville ... The Bisons trailed the entire contest, but got a late three-pointer and two free throws from Trey Williams down the stretch to pull out the three point victory ... Eddie Ard led Lipscomb with 21 points and Williams had 20 ... Lipscomb shot 31 three-pointers, but only connected on eight ... Williams paced the team with 4-of-9 shooting from bonus distance ... Lipscomb opened the year with a 70-67 win over Tusculum ... Joe Lunardi of ESPN.com Bracketology fame has picked the Bisons to win the Atlantic Sun and advance to NCAA Tournament play ... Last season, the Bisons shared the Atlantic Sun regular-season title and finished just 29 seconds shy of winning the A-Sun postseason crown and advancing to NCAA Tournament competition ... Instead, Lipscomb fell 74-69 to rival Belmont in overtime and advanced to the NIT, where they lost to Doc Sadler (now Head Coach at Nebraska) and UTEP in the opening round by an 85-66 margin ... For his team's efforts, Lipscomb Head Coach Scott Sanderson was named the Atlantic Sun Coach of the Year and returners Ard and Brian Fisk earned first team All-Conference accolades.

Fun With Numbers
According to realtimerpi.com, Missouri is ranked No. 32 in the latest RPI rankings after the first week of the season and have a quality win over No. 53 Army ... The Tigers face No. 54 Davidson on Sunday, while Lipscomb is ranked No. 196 ... Of course it's too early to fully utilize the RPI and the New Jersey Institute of Technology is ranked No. 10 following their 56-55 road win at Manhattan and 63-52 home win over Rider College ... How early is it? Well, North Carolina is ranked No. 176, just ahead of N.C. State (177), Illinois (178), Providence (179) and Marquette (180).

The Mike Anderson Revival Tour
We're early into a long 2006-07 season, but it appears that Head Coach Mike Anderson has shed light on the careers of Tigers Kalen Grimes and Matt Lawrence ... Starters in each game this season, both returners have played significant rolls for Mizzou after seeing limited action in 2005-06. - Lawrence opened the season with a career high 27 points on 7-of-11 shooting from three-point range to pace Missouri's 101-80 win over North Carolina A&T ... Lawrence went on to earn All-Tournament recognition at the John Thompson Foundation Classic and is tied for the team lead with 14.7 points per game. - As a freshman, Lawrence played in 25 games, but averaged just 6.9 minutes and scored 37 total points, grabbed 18 rebounds, had five assists and seven steals ... Lawrence needed just three games to top those totals in 2006-07. - For the first time in Grimes' career, the 6-foot-9 post player recorded double figures in points in back-to-back games and enjoyed the first double-double of his career with an 18-point, 11-board effort in the win over Army. - Grimes went on to win MVP honors at the Thompson Foundation Classic and is on a run of two consecutive double-doubles. - Last season as a sophomore, Grimes played in all-28 games, but just recorded totals of 74 points and 73 rebounds in 11.5 minutes per game ... This season, Grimes has already recorded 44 points, 25 boards in a career high 23.0 minutes per game.

The Good Tigers Giveth ...
Looking for two under-valued statistics that often translate into "W's", look no further than assists, steals and deflections. - In Mizzou's season-opening win against North Carolina A&T, the Tigers dished out a record 32 assists (fourth highest total all-time) and had seven players record multiple assists, highlighted by junior guards Stefhon Hannah (nine) and Jason Horton (six). - Hannah and Horton are the Big 12's top assist duo at 11.0 per game.

... And Taketh Away
Mizzou's record number of thefts and deflections also stole the statistical headlines as Mizzou's 13 steals against North Carolina A&T tied a Mizzou Arena record. - Horton tied his own Mizzou Arena record with five thefts, while Hannah and Matt Lawrence each added three rips apiece. - Another key statistic recorded by the coaching staff is deflections ... Through three games Missouri has 100 team deflections.

Can You Spare A Dime
Through the first week of the season, no Big 12 program can boast a better assist tandem than Missouri's Jason Horton and Stefhon Hannah ... The duo is averaging a combined 11 assists per game and could threaten to unseat some of the great Mizzou assist tandems of all time. - Horton leads the club and ranks among Big 12 leaders with 6.33 assists per game ... He also ranks among the Big 12's best with a 2.1-to-1 assist-to turnover ratio, aided by an eight assist, two turnover night against Stetson. - Hannah joins his teammate as one of the Big 12's top assist producers and his nine dimes in the season opener is tied for the top single-game total in the Big 12 this season.

Quick Starts
Thanks to a 3-0 start and the John Thompson Foundation Classic Tournament crown, the Missouri Tigers will have the opportunity to become the first 4-0 team in the Big 12 Conference with a win this evening against Lipscomb ... The Tigers could also join San Diego State, Michigan, Michigan State, Syracuse, Clemson and Maryland as the only 4-0 programs in the country (end of games on Nov. 16). - A 4-0 start would be Missouri's 17th over the last 70 years of college basketball (1936-37) and first since 2002-03.