Mizzou's unselfishness leads to three game winning streak on historic night

It was all Mizzou on Thursday night as the Tigers routed Mississippi Valley State 111-39, securing a three-game winning streak.

Arguably the most impressive feat was Mizzou's unselfishness and ability to find the open man with "one-more" passes.

Mizzou did a great job taking care of the basketball, turning it over only five times.

“Being able to swing one more is just a level of unselfishness,” Mizzou's coach Dennis Gates said. “But the other unselfish play is those guys being able to cut and sprint and open up opportunities and put pressure on the basket. ... But I thought that allowed us a presence to have that assist-to-turnover ratio that I’ve been looking for the past three games.”

For the second straight game, the Tigers ran an 11-man rotation, but it didn’t seem to matter which combination was on the floor tonight.

“Seeing everybody get to eat like that is amazing,” Jacob Crews said. “Everybody is just happy for everyone.”

According to the KenPom rankings, Mississippi Valley State is ranked No. 364 out of 364 teams in college basketball. That said, this was by far Mizzou's most complete game of the season, as they seemed to execute whatever they wanted.

Not one player stood out, and part of that was a barrage of beautiful passing. The Tigers finished the game with 19 assists on 37 made field goals, moving the ball efficiently all night.

Whether it was outlets into transition offense or finding cutters at the rim, Mizzou's ball movement stood out on Thursday.

One play that summed up the night came with just over 5 minutes remaining in the second half. Annor Boateng made a beautiful backdoor cut, and Marques Warrick found him at the rim for an alley-oop. This gave the Tigers a 98-35 lead, before they quickly reached the century mark just one possession later.

The win ties the largest victory in program history with a 72-point margin, previously achieved over MacMurray in 1976 and Chicago State in 1995.