On Saturday, Missouri men’s basketball team took on Ole Miss. This is the last time these two schools will play each other until they possibly meet in the SEC Tournament.
This game was more than what happened on the court that night. This was a time to come together as a community and bring awareness to cancer. To help stop cancer and help raise money for Rhyan Loos and many other children fighting through the battle of cancer.
To help raise money for pediatric cancer research, the Loos family started the Rally for Rhyan fund. While Rhyan has now been cancer-free for almost five years, the fight still goes on.
This year, the Rally for Rhyan game produced $52,000 that will go to the MU Women and Children’s hospital as well as to research for pediatric cancer.
The Tigers weren’t going to let her down. They came out with a full head of steam and aggressiveness from the tip. Missouri got the scoring going off a Trevon Brazile put-back layup and then Javon Pickett hit a three to put them up by five to start the game (5-0).
The defense was suffocating Ole Miss’s offense every time they had an offensive possession, capitalizing off their turnovers. DaJuan Gordon really made his presence known in the first half with knocking down three 3-pointers.
In which helped the Tigers rally to an eleven point lead at the half, 43-32. The Tigers physical demeanor on defense set the tone for their offense to have success. Only turned over the basketball five times and scored 12 points off eight Ole Miss turnovers.
Ole Miss needed to find a way to swing the momentum coming out of the locker room or Mizzou was going to roll out the red carpet. To get the Rebels going in the right direction, they needed to really lean on their senior Jarkel Joiner. In which he had 38 points in their last game against Alabama.
Missouri found a way to keep Joiner in check and were really dialed in defensively. Joiner finished with 13 points but was 5-12 from the field and 0-2 from three. Matthew Murrell made his imprint on the court for the Rebels though with 15 points on 6-11 from the field.
Ole Miss came back and cut the lead to four but time was not on their side, losing 74-68.
They are now 4-7 in conference, while Ole Miss drops to 3-9 in conference play. The next home game for the Tigers is against No. 23 Arkansas at 8:00 p.m. Tuesday.