Photos from basketball and football coverage overlap for the final time this year in this week’s column. Men’s basketball took down Minnesota 83-60 on Wednesday, and football celebrated senior night with a 49-27 win over Mississippi State for the final home game of the season.
Basketball is one of my favorite sports to shoot. The fast-paced action on a relatively small surface where you can get really close to everything is right up my alley. I was really excited to cover this game specifically because
a lot of my family is from Minnesota and I knew my cousins Robbie and Sam would be watching. I was assigned a spot on the home bench for both halves and had to cover Missouri defense for the first half, which is how I got this photo. Here, I really like that we can see Reynolds’ face and that Mack’s arms are outstretched.
This photo most likely isn’t something that would be used in most journalistic coverage, but we see a lot of shots like this and other portrait-style photos get a lot of positive attention on social media. There’s not a lot of sports where photographers are able to get this close to players mid-game, which is part of the reason basketball is so cool. Just looking at this photo and the detail of the sweat dripping down Mark Mitchell’s face, you can see the amount of effort he’s exerting in the game. I also love the small detail of his tongue sticking out, which he does often while playing. (editor’s note: this photo is astonishing and when I saw it I immediately showed it to everyone)
I love celebration photos. They’re some of the coolest and most fun photos in sports coverage, and I can honestly say that I usually prefer those over actual action photos, which is why there’s so many shots like this and other feature-style work in each week’s column. I especially liked this one of Jayden Stone celebrating after his dunk because we can see him running by the bench and all his teammates cheering with him. It would have been awesome to be able to see his face, but seeing the reactions of his teammates paired with being able to see him still visibly celebrating makes up for it pretty well.
This is kind of a twin photo to last week’s one of fans holding up “heart hands” after the football game. In the post-game press conference, Dennis Gates gave a shout out to the fans for their help in keeping the energy up throughout the game and supporting the team. I thought it was a really nice moment and I’m glad I got a good picture of it. I’m also a huge fan of Gates since we went to the same high school. Go Dolphins!
Like I mentioned a few weeks ago, I don’t usually shoot Tiger Walk. It’s pretty repetitive and ends quickly, so I almost went up to the press box to get dinner instead of shooting it but changed my mind last minute. Last time I shot from the ground but noticed other photographers standing near the entrance that was raised above that and thought it’d be a nice angle to try. A bit before it began, I noticed drum major Ava Lairmore start dancing with Truman to “Sweet Child O’ Mine” by Guns N’ Roses, and snapped a few photos of the fun.
I’ve been wanting to re-attempt this shot for a few weeks but it didn’t work out until the last home game of the season. A few weeks ago at the homecoming game I sat in the same place and got some nice photos of the runout in the daylight, but as you may remember, my friend Sam’s knee was unfortunately in the top right corner of my photo. This time, I made sure to position myself in the very middle to avoid that happening again. I think it was definitely more challenging at night, but the cool lighting effects made up for it in my eyes. It was just as scary but fun as the first time, and I even heard one of the players running past me yell, “I can’t see!”
I love to get photos of football players all crowding together trying to tackle someone, especially when I can still see the player with the ball like in this one. Here, I really like the contrast between the black and white jerseys, the fact that this play is so close to the goal line and that Mississippi State’s Blake Shapen and the ball are so clear in the frame. I also like that linebacker Triston Newson is on the ground but still grabbing at Shapen’s legs.
For the last home game of the season, all the seniors from the football team, cheer, the Golden Girls and more were recognized as part of the senior night celebrations. Before the game, Mizzou Football posted that a smaller version of the Rock M, which was removed for the construction in the north end zone, had been placed along the sideline for the seniors to continue the tradition of taking a rock.
When the game ended, I got a few shots of post-game interviews and players singing the Alma Mater before running over to the Rock M to get the seniors grabbing their rocks and being carried across the field by their teammates. As I was running around getting photos of as many seniors as I could, I saw Chris McClellan being carried by Elias Williams. Most players were being carried by two or more of their teammates instead of just one, and Williams was trying to run with McClellan on his back. The funniest and best part, in my opinion, was that Williams seemed to be struggling to hold him while McClellan seemed to be having an awesome time.
Look out for more photos of men’s basketball next week as the Tigers take on the South Dakota Coyotes!
