Give Kansas an inch, Missouri coach Quin Snyder said, and the Jayhawks will take a mile. Or perhaps even a 5K.
"It's a prerequisite you have to fight," Snyder said. "For some guys it's hard to fight for 40 minutes. And if you have a lapse against Kansas, it's a 10-0 run."
By fighting, Snyder meant competing, not the fisticuffs that have characterized a handful of past KU-MU basketball battles of yore.
In the wake of Monday night's 105-73 flogging by the Jayhawks MU's worst defeat in 15 years senior guard Clarence Gilbert was also questioning some of his teammates' fighting spirit.
"We didn't deserve to wear our jerseys," said Gilbert who scored only three of his 19 points in the one-sided second half. "You've got to give more. It's on TV and mom's watching."
Junior Kareem Rush, the other half of Mizzou's potent 1-2 scoring punch, wasn't critical of anyone, however. He came to praise the Jayhawks in his postgame interview, not bury his teammates.
"They played great," Rush said of the Jayhawks, "and we didn't have the firepower to stay with them. It just didn't go our way. Hats off to them."
Rush, the Big 12's preseason player of the year, continued to have shooting woes. The 6-foot-6 guard-forward went into Monday's game as a 44-percent shooter and slipped below that by missing 13 of 19 shots against the Jayhawks.
KU defenders mostly Kirk Hinrich were all over Rush all the time. He rarely had an open look and settled for 13 points.
"Hinrich did a good job," Rush said. "He's more athletic than I thought he was."
Hinrich also had 23 points and six assists. In fact, the KU junior guard played so well that Snyder couldn't help but mention him when a reporter asked the MU coach about Drew Gooden, who recorded his umpteenth double-double with 26 points and 10 boards.
"Gooden is terrific," Snyder said. "If he isn't the best player in the league, Hinrich is. I think Hinrich is underrated because the other guys are so good."
Still, it wasn't just Hinrich and Gooden. When a team shoots 61.9 percent and is credited with 26 assists, it's more than a two-man effort.
"Kansas is terrific. No question about it," Snyder said. "Give credit to them. This shows where we are. We need to get better. That was us out there. We looked lost at times."
Mizzou big men Arthur Johnson and Travon Bryant, a former KU recruit, were in a double-post wilderness, contributing only 11 points and six boards between them.
"Without any post game," Snyder said, "it makes it hard for our perimeter guys, and it looks chaotic."
Nothing looked worse than Johnson's errant jam in the second half. With an opening along the baseline, the 6-9, 270-pound Johnson drove, jumped, smashed the ball off the side of the rim and the abrupt stop caused him to fall to the floor in an embarrassing heap.
Afterward, Johnson was able to shrug it off.
"I thought I had it," Johnson said, smiling, "but the top of the rim caught me."
Meanwhile, the Tigers were caught in a Kansas whirlwind, looking at times helpless as the Jayhawks scored 62 points in the last 20 minutes.
"The second half they just ran us out of the gym," Rush said. "That's the kind of team they are. They're good they're really, really good."
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