November 20, 2017-Emporia State led by as many as seven points in the second half and were within two with the ball and under a minute left before falling 67-62 at Missouri on Monday night in Columbia, Mo. It was an exhibition game for the Hornets but a regular season game for the Tigers.
Mizzou jumped out to a 7-0 lead in the first two minutes of action, forcing Emporia State into a timeout. The Hornets broke the run with an old fashioned three-point play by Hassan Thomas out of the time out and a Brandon Hall fast break layup off a turnover got the Hornets within two points. The Tigers would take their largest lead of the night at 19-11 with 10:22 left in the half before the Hornets answered with a 12-4 run and tied the game on Isaac McCullough's three-pointer with 4:28 left. Another old fashioned three-point play, this time on a dunk by Stephaun Limuel pushed the run to 15-4 and gave the Hornets a 26-23 lead with 3:13 left in the half. The two teams went to the locker rooms tied at 28.
The Hornets only shot .321 from the field in the opening 20 minutes while Mizzou shot .367 but only made one of 13 three-pointers.
The second half saw Emporia State go on a 11-4 run over the first five minutes of action. Brian Morton got back to back layups and Malik Hluchoweckyj nailed a three-pointer with 15:14 left to give Emporia State a 39-32 lead. The Tigers answered with an 11-2 run to retake the lead a 43-41 with 10:46 remaining. They would eventually build the lead back to seven at 54-47 with 6:37 left. But the Hornets would not go away as they cut the lead to 57-54 on a three-pointer from Morton with 3:52 remaining. Back to back buckets inside gave Mizzou a 61-54 lead with 2:26 remaining.
Duncan Fort got a putback with 2:06 left and and Grant Shell nailed a three-pointer with 1:49 remaining to cut the lead to 61-59. Kassius Robertson hit one of two free throws and Jontay Porter scored inside to give the Tigers a 64-59 lead with 1:05 left. Danny Hodge hit a three pointer to pull the Hornets back within two with 46.1 seconds left but Robertson hit three of four free throws in the final 24.3 seconds to seal the win for Missouri.
Emporia State was led by Brian Morton with a game high 21 points on seven of nine shooting as all 11 Hornets who made the trip scored. Stephaun Limuel had eight points and nine rebounds for the Hornets who had one player foul out and six with four fouls at the end. For the game Emporia State outscored the Tigers of the SEC by three from the field but were outscored by eight from the free throw line. The Hornets converted 11 of 12 charities while the Tigers were just 19 of 34 from the stripe.
The Hornets return to regular season action on Wednesday night as they play host to Northwestern Oklahoma. Tip-off from Slaymaker Court in White Auditorium is set for 7:00 p.m.
