In May of 1973, Secretariat reluctantly moved into the starting gate at Pimlico Race Course looking for the second leg of the Triple Crown after his record-setting Run for the Roses at Churchill Downs a few weeks earlier.
Known for his thrilling come from behind style, he quickly settled into the back of the six horse field out of the gate. But then, jockey Ron Turcotte made a daring move with the chestnut thoroughbred not yet known for his excellent stamina.
Secretariat bolted to the outside heading
into the first turn, thundering past the rest of the field at a tremendous pace to seize the lead shortly after reaching the straightaway. The shocking move was key to his history-making run, breaking another record in his Preakness Stakes win.
Missouri men’s basketball outpaced Kentucky with an equally surprising surge Wednesday night at Rupp Arena, just 20 miles from Big Red’s eternal resting place, to make history of its own.
The 73-68 final gave the Tigers their first-ever win over the Wildcats on the road, breaking a nine-game losing streak that dated back to 1960 — 13 years before Secretariat’s run to the Triple Crown. MU also advanced to 2-0 in SEC play for the first time since joining the conference in 2012.
“I’m proud of our guys to be able to do something that we’ve never done in history, that’s win at Kentucky, and obviously being able to go 2-0 to start our SEC schedule,” head coach Dennis Gates said. “Our guys was resilient; they didn’t break during the moments where we could have. We withstood every run that they (UK) were able to execute, whether it was big shots, whistle may not have gone our way; but our guys fought.”
Kentucky seized a 66-58 advantage with 4:37 remaining on an Otega Oweh triple, completing a quick 6-0 streak for the Cats that forced Gates to use his final timeout and seemed like the deciding moment in the contest. At that point, the Tigers’ head coach said, it became his players’ team.
“Our guys played, they took over the huddle, and they led in a tremendous way,” he said. “You heard their voices, not my voice, and I give them credit for what they have accomplished. I’m proud of them.”
Mizzou outscored the Wildcats 15-2 the rest of the way, taking the lead for good with 36 seconds left on a Mark Mitchell post hook. By the time the final buzzer sounded, the name of the horse that placed second behind Secretariat in both the Derby and the Preakness seemed like a fitting term for UK’s reportedly $22 million roster: Sham.
The outcome in Lexington would have seemed nearly impossible just weeks ago, when MU made a very different kind of history with its 91-48 loss to Illinois — the largest ever in the Braggin’ Rights rivalry. The Tigers dropped to 94th in the NET and 62nd in KenPom ahead of their matchup with Florida, hitting rock bottom in the middle of one of their most important stretches of the year.
Now, Mizzou has jolted its tournament hopes back to life with two Quad 1 wins in just five days, jumping all the way up to 67th in the NET — a jump of 27 spots — and 52nd in KenPom. The graph below from our own Matt Harris shows just how dramatic the Tigers’ change in fortunes has been:
The key to MU’s success is no secret: the team returned key pieces to the puzzle in Trent Pierce and Jayden Stone, two SEC starting-caliber players and shooters on a squad that desperately needed both. For the first time all year, the Tigers had almost all of their impact players available.
“If you’re healthy, your team can get better. But if you have so many moving parts throughout the season, in this early phase, you’re not going to take the jump yet,” Gates said after the Illinois loss, “And I’m excited about getting our team together and being prepared to take the jump.”
Gates used the nearly two-week break between facing the Illini and the Gators to revitalize his team after a shoddy non-conference performance. The coach known for the close bonds he has with many of his players shifted gears, doling out some tough love — with great success.
“I want to publicly thank our guys for allowing me to be the biggest asshole known to man in the last week,” he said after the team’s 76-74 win over Florida, “and they took ownership and established their own identity without me being able to say a word, at the end of the day.”
Pierce painted a somewhat different picture of the week leading up to the team’s SEC opener after the victory, talking about the work they put in away from the court.
“Coach had sat us down, we kind of talked to each other, and then he made each player kind of partner up and go get lunch together,” he said, “and I think that just really helped us stay connected and allowed us just to grow closer to each other and trust each other more up there.”
The deeper connections forged ahead of conference play have shown in the seamless transitions back to the court for Pierce and Stone. Their production has been key to Mizzou’s wins over Florida and Kentucky, but their presence on the floor has arguably been more important.
“What they bring is confidence on both sides. Forget the stats. They bring confidence on both sides of the court,” Gates said after beating the Gators, “And when you’re out there playing basketball, you cannot play with anything but confidence, and you got to live with the results. It’s such an instinctual game, and I thought those guys were able to add a level of confidence to our group and a level of sureness that allowed us to come out with a victory.”
Both halves of the duo have shown up when the Tigers needed them in the biggest moments since their return. Stone got Mizzou started against Florida, scoring MU’s first eight points of the contest, but it was Pierce who finished off the Gators.
The junior from Tulsa hit a shot in the paint to lift the Tigers back into the lead, 66-65, then followed that by splashing a key three-pointer to go up by four with 2:05 remaining. They held onto their advantage for the final 125 seconds as Boogie Fland’s last-ditch attempt at the buzzer was off the mark, preserving the two-point Mizzou win.
Pierce again came up in the clutch facing Kentucky, hauling in a rebound on Otega Oweh’s missed layup to send Anthony Robinson II to the free throw line for a one-and-one. Robinson missed the shot, but Pierce tipped the ball out to Jayden Stone for another crucial rebound with 12 seconds remaining.
Stone sunk both free throws, putting MU up by three, and hit another pair in the final seconds to seal the big victory. He finished the game with 20 points and seven rebounds after his 4-for-4 performance from the line in the game’s closing moments.
The Tigers’ domination of the final four-and-a-half minutes, with key contributions from Pierce and Stone, was the culmination of their work over the last two weeks to drastically change the outlook on their season.
“Us not breaking is an accumulation of everything we’ve been doing since winter break,” Mitchell said after the game, “Obviously what we do on the court is important, but just the amount of time we spent together, the amount of team building we’ve been doing, I think that was just an accumulation of everything. We didn’t blink; we stayed stronger, got closer, got more together, and I think it showed in those last couple minutes.”
Mizzou will need that connection to hold strong over the next month. The Tigers did a lot of work to get out of the hole they dug with blowout losses in the Border War and Braggin’ Rights, but they haven’t gotten back to the tournament bubble just yet.
That could change if they build on their momentum and find success over the next five games. MU’s next two contests come against teams that have stumbled to begin conference play, Ole Miss and Auburn.
The Rebels have lost three of their last four, including a 16-point loss at Oklahoma, and represent a clearly winnable game on the road — a rare opportunity in the SEC.
Auburn has also gotten off to an 0-2 start in the conference with narrow losses to Georgia and Texas A&M, but should present a tougher challenge. Mizzou will hold home court advantage, though, and might be catching Steven Pearl’s squad at the right time.
That’s followed by a crucial Quad 1 road game at LSU. The Bayou Bengals started the year 12-1 with the help of a weak schedule but have dropped games to Texas A&M and South Carolina since, making them another team trying to get back on track in this stretch for MU.
The toughest matchup over Mizzou’s next five contests will likely be in Columbia against Georgia, a top-20 squad that lost by double digits Tuesday to Florida in Gainesville. And the Tigers round out the stretch with a home matchup against another bubble team, Oklahoma, in a game that could be valuable if they both sit on the bubble in March.
The next five games for MU show the blessing of the SEC this season: there are plenty of opportunities for the quality wins valued highly by the selection committee, but the conference will not be the gauntlet it was last season. That mixture might be exactly what the doctor ordered for the Tigers, who need both quantity and quality in their wins over the next few months.
Two games is a small sample size, and plenty of work remains for Mizzou. But the Tigers may have righted the ship at the precise moment they needed to, re-opening their postseason path that seemed like it had nearly closed.
“I think obviously we’re ascending, just trying to get better. I think we have a long way to go,” Mitchell said, “These last two games have been really good, but I’m glad the growth we’ve shown and how much room we have to improve.”
Continued improvement, and stacking up wins, will be crucial in what’s quickly turned into a potentially season-defining month of January. For the first time since early in the season, there is a palpable energy surrounding MU men’s basketball — energy sparked by the Tigers’ electric start to conference play.
