Mizzou wins game, community wins overall in One State Classic

The University of Missouri jumped out to an early 10-0 lead Saturday and never looked back, as the Tigers won 114-68 against Missouri Southern in the One State, One Spirit Classic at the Leggett & Platt Athletic Center in Joplin.

Missouri took a 47-23 lead at halftime after Michael Dixon scored 12 points in the first half.

Southern’s Jason Adams, a Carthage product, had back surgery three weeks ago, but looked full strength Saturday night, as the senior scored 12 points in the first half and finished the game with 18.

“I feel good,” Adams said. “Our trainer and everybody has helped me a lot with icing and a lot of therapy. It felt real good out there, but back to the rehab now. I’m feeling a little sore tonight.”

Robert Corn, Southern’s head coach, said the plan going in to the Mizzou game was to limit Adams’ playing time. He ended up playing 25 minutes, though.

“I really thought we’d play him 15 to 20 minutes, eight to 10 minutes each half,” Corn said. “Obviously that didn’t materialize.”

For Missouri, the Tigers won their first game under new head coach Frank Haith, who left the University of Miami in the spring to take over the helm in Columbia after former head coach Mike Anderson left for the University of Arkansas.

“I thought we at times looked very good,” Haith said. “I thought at times we didn’t look so good. All in all, not many teams start on the road in Division 1 at a place where the team’s ranked in the top 10 of Division 2, so our guys are to be commended for that. I thought we played well. We executed offensively very well at times. Our defense was okay, it has to get better.”

Missouri led 10-0 with 15:35 left in the first half before Keane Thomann got the Lions on the board with a tip in of an Adams’ miss. An Adams three pointer at the 4:27 mark cut the Missouri lead to 32-18, and the Tigers led 34-20 a minute later, but Missouri Southern turned the ball over seven times before the end of the half and the Tigers closed the half on a 15-5 run.

Thomann, who scored just four points in the first half, added 17 in the second half.

“First off, their big guys are real good guys,” Thomann said. “I talked to them a little bit while I was playing. I didn’t want to be afraid of them. Just go out and play my game and it was fun, it was a good challenge.

“I feel like the quickness and size they had will prepare me really well for the MIAA,” he said.

The Tigers had six players finish in double figures, with Marcus Denmon leading the way with 25 points. Dixon added 19, Matt Pressey scored 18, Ratliffe finished with 17, and Kim English and Phil Pressey scored 10 apiece.

“I’m optimistic of the way we looked,” English said. “A little scared about our turnovers and our defense at the end. We’ve got to be good enough when we get good leads like that.”

Missouri turned the ball over 12 times in the game, but forced Southern into giving up the ball 26 times.

“Anytime you have an opportunity to step up and play some higher-caliber players than what you normally play, you look for that challenge,” Corn said. “We have an opportunity to play maybe one or two Division 1 teams every year in exhibition games. We’ve played them three or four times since I’ve been here. We always look forward to that challenge. Obviously it makes it very difficult because their quickness an size presents a lot of problems for us.”

The game served as a fundraiser for Missouri Southern’s tornado relief fund, and more than $100,000 was raised through the exhibition game.

Haith, who had just arrived at Missouri when the May 22 tornado struck Joplin, was instrumental in arranging the contest in Joplin.

“We took the guys around today and I think Marcus (Denmon) and Kim (English) went out yesterday, too with some ESPN people,” Haith said. “We had a reception last night and I talked to the folks about people going through adversity in life. I would hope our team coming here could see the spirit of the folks in Joplin and the courage these folks had based on what they had to go through because in life you’re dealt adversity and you have to see how you handle it.

Haith said he visited Joplin three days after the tornado and described the scene as “unbelievable.”

“That’s the thing about this game,” he said. “Hopefully we can continue to help people bring this community back, but there’s still a long ways to go.

“Folks were in the stands and there was energy in the building,” he said. “Great atmosphere, and the way those kids competed. Missouri Southern, they really competed hard, so I think we can all learn from that.”

Denmon said visiting Joplin and seeing the destruction was a humbling experience.

“It touched a lot of the guys here,” he said. “I felt it was good for our team to get out here and see. Hopefully we can learn from the experience.”

And English said seeing Joplin with his own eyes was “devastating.”

“Just to help in any way we could,” he said. “It just feels good to know our basketball team and our university helped.”

Corn said the exhibition game was a huge event for the community and for Missouri Southern.

“After May 22, the national media told me, ‘We’ll be here for a few days and then something else will happen and it will carry us away.’ For one night, the national media came back to Joplin, Mo.

“We don’t want to play a basketball game because a tornado happened, but it did and we’ve had a lot of people reach out to us and none more so than coach Haith and the University of Missouri,” he said.