Missouri Rallies Past Huskers

Columbia, Mo. - Marshall Brown's basket with 3.3 seconds remaining capped a 16-4 Tiger run over the final five minutes as Missouri posted a 64-63 come-from-behind victory over Nebraska Sunday at the Mizzou Arena.

With the loss, the Huskers fell to 17-12 on the season and finished the conference slate with a 7-9 record. Nebraska is the No. 6 seed this week at the Phillips 66 Big 12 Championship and will face the Tigers for a third time this season, as MU finished with a 5-11 league mark (12-15 overall) and is the No. 11 seed.

It will be the second straight year and third time in four seasons the Huskers and Tigers face off in the league championship. Overall, this will be the fourth time the teams have met in the first round of the championship with Missouri winning in 1997, 2003 and 2005, by a total of 18 combined points.

Trailing by one, the Huskers ended a furious Tiger rally when Jason Dourisseau hit a pair of free throws with 41 seconds remaining to give NU a 63-62 advantage. On the following possession, Thomas Gardner and Jimmy McKinney misfired, but Wes Wilkinson's miss on the front end of a 1-and-1 gave the ball back to the Tigers with less than 20 seconds remaining.

After a timeout, the Tigers got the ball in the lane and looked to be bottled up, but Brown cut into the paint and put up a quick shot as soon as he touched the ball. Brown's shot fell in with just over three seconds remaining, and following a timeout, Nebraska's long inbounds pass was off target and went out without any time coming off the clock.

Missouri had the ball back under its basket, and after a quick foul, Brown missed the front end of a 1-and-1. Dourisseau picked up the ball and moved quickly near midcourt where his desperation heave was barely off target.

The Tigers got back into position for Brown's dramatic finish behind the play of Gardner. One of the leading scorers in the Big 12 Conference, Gardner scored 11 of his game-high 23 points in the final three minutes.

After Nebraska opened a 59-48 lead on Wilkinson's fourth 3-pointer of the game, Gardner began hitting on all cylinders, connecting on a pair of 3-pointers and three free throws after being fouled beyond the arc. He added a running jumper in the lane for his 11th straight point and put MU ahead 62-61 with 1:06 to play and set up Brown's last play.

After a slow start, Missouri quickly picked up steam in the first half, using a 7-0 run including a basket and free throw from Jimmy McKinney to take an 11-4 lead with 14:50 remaining in the period. Charles Richardson Jr. was then fouled on a 3-point attempt and hit his first two attempts before Wilkinson added the first of two 3-pointers in the opening frame to knot the score at 11-all.

The Tigers added a pair of baskets to move the lead out to four points and held off every Nebraska rally until the intermission as NU pulled within a point three more times before the break, but could not get over the hump. The last time came with the Tigers ahead 26-25 with less than a minute to play. MU added a basket for a three-point lead and Nebraska had possession twice in the final 30 seconds but came up empty. The Tigers added a McKinney 3-pointer with less than two seconds remaining to give them a six-point cushion, 31-25, at the half.

After the break, Nebraska made its big run as it began pounding the ball inside to Aleks Maric. The 6-11, 265-pounder scored Nebraska's first seven points of the half and went on to hit 7-of-10 from the floor in the second period. Maric produced all of his 16 points after the intermission.

Maric just missed his 11th double-double of the season as he finished with nine rebounds and helped NU to a 40-35 lead on the glass. Dourisseau tied his career high with 12 rebounds but had just four points while Wilkinson finished with a team-high 17 points. Jamel White, who had a career-high 28 points in the first meeting, finished with 14 points as Nebraska hit 41.0 percent from the field, including 37.5 percent from 3-point range.