After three straight wins by more than 35 points, the Tigers came out flat.
But they didn’t finish that way as Missouri beat the Lindenwood Lions 81-61 on Wednesday at Mizzou Arena.
But in the win, the Tigers might also have had a major loss.
Midway through the first half, graduate captain Caleb Grill took a forearm or elbow to the back of the head while going for a rebound and was down on the court for more than 10 minutes before being taken off on a stretcher with a backboard and a neck brace holding his body in place.
He gave a thumbs up to the crowd on his way off the floor and was reported by a team official as “responsive” while on his way to the hospital for tests and treatment.
“No one likes to see their teammate go down, we’ll go over there and check on him,” Missouri coach Dennis Gates said. “… Precaution is what we’re going to take when he took an elbow to the head. Credit to our EMS team.
“… You don’t think about the game, you don’t think about anything else. You just want your student athlete to be OK.”
Grill, who had been a spark plug for Missouri’s offense off the bench in the Tigers’ recent string of big wins, was sent into the game alongside Tony Perkins as the Tigers struggled early once again.
Lindenwood led 4-3 after two free throws with 17:00 left in the first half as the Tigers were just 1-for-3 in the first three minutes.
The teams then tied at 4 and 6 before a Jordan Wildy 3 put Lindenwood up 9-7 with 15:53 to play.
Missouri came back to tie at 11, then the teams tied at 13, 15 and 17 before the Tigers finally pulled ahead when Tamar Bates took two free throws after the flagrant foul against Grill with 10:16 left in the first half.
Two Perkins layups made it 25-19 Missouri with 7:34 left, but the Lions stormed back again to tie at 25.
“Had some battles early trying to figure out my situation, but I just kept sticking with it, grinding, figuring out ways to get healthy,” Perkins said. “… Feeling good, feeling like myself more and more every day.”
Missouri pulled ahead for good as Jacob Crews collected an assist from Bates following an offensive rebound and hit a 3 from the left wing to jump start an 8-0 Tiger run.
Marques Warrick then hit a 3, three of his 17 points, and Aidan Shaw sank a free throw to send Missouri into halftime on a 12-2 run and holding a 37-27 lead.
“I knew that they would provide the spark on both sides of the ball,” Gates said. “Specifically Aidan Shaw being able to get a tip dunk and be able to fly around and use his athleticism and quickness. … Ques is always ready man, he’s a silent assassin. He’s stealth.”
The Tigers were lucky Lindenwood missed 16 layups in the first half alone and went into the break 1-of-10 from beyond the arc and 2-of-6 from the free-throw line.
The Tigers’ energy showed up more in the second half, led by Warrick, who hit a layup and a 3 early to put Mizzou up 44-29 with 17:50 left.
Lindenwood was never able to cut the lead back to single digits, as an Anthony Robinson layup made it 53-39 with 12:50 left, a Mark Mitchell dunk put the Tigers up 57-41 with 10:32 to play and a Robinson to Trent Pierce alley-oop with 10:11 left made it 59-41.
Shaw added a second-chance and-1 layup to create a 62-43 advantage then the Tigers kept the lead around 20 points the rest of the way, extending as far as 24 after a Perkins steal-turned-dunk with 3:30 left made the score 75-51.
Perkins led the Tigers with 18 points on 5-of-8 shooting overall and a 7-of-9 day at the free-throw line to complement four rebounds. Warrick added 17 points and three rebounds, while shooting 6-of-10 from the field, 3-of-7 from 3 and 2-of-3 at the line. Pierce was the third Tiger in double figures with 12 points, while the starting five combined for just 17 points, though Josh Gray did have a season-high eight rebounds and Robinson led the team with five assists.
Missouri shot 27-of-54 (50 percent) from the field, 5-of-22 (22.7 percent) from 3 and 22-of-29 (75.9 percent) from the free-throw line.
The Tigers outrebounded Lindenwood 46-25 and had an astounding 64-12 lead in bench points.
Lindenwood shot 21-of-59 (35.6 percent) from the field, including 15-of-31 (48.4 percent) on layups or dunks.
Missouri (6-1) will take its six-game winning streak into the Thanksgiving break as it prepares to face Gates’ alma-mater California (5-1 at the time of publishing and playing Mercyhurst tonight, so likely 6-1 at the end of the night) in the SEC/ACC challenge at Mizzou Arena at 6 p.m. Tuesday.
