Missouri Upsets No. 19 Kansas

Missouri seems to be the only team that knows how to win at Kansas.

Brian Grawer scored 16 points and Albert White had 15 as Missouri beat the 19th-ranked Jayhawks 71-63 Sunday, the first win by a league opponent on the Jayhawks' homecourt since the Tigers did it in 1994.

"The last couple of years we're the only ones to beat them," Missouri coach Norm Stewart said. "This morning coming over on the bus, I thought, `If we can't beat them, who's going to?'"

But Stewart, the dean of league coaches in his 32nd year, refused to put any special significance in winning at Kansas.

"Twenty years ago, 10 years ago, I might have reacted," Stewart said. "But we're talking about 18-year-old, 19-year-old kids. I'm just really pleased for them. Other than that, my feelings ... It really doesn't matter. As a coach, we look at the schedule as 16 pods. This is one of the pods. You play that one. You try not to let that one affect the next one."

Kansas (13-5, 5-1 Big 12) had won 35 straight conference games since an 81-74 loss to Missouri on Feb. 20, 1994. The Tigers (13-4, 4-2) are the only conference team to beat Kansas since the Big 12 was formed, winning once each in 1997 and 1998 at Columbia.

Iowa had broken Kansas' overall home winning streak at 62 games, then the longest in the nation, on Dec. 8, winning 85-81.

Grawer found White open under the basket for a dunk with 54 seconds left to give the Tigers a 66-61 lead. Kansas apparently was trying to trap at halfcourt but got its defense mixed up.

"We lost Brian a couple of times," said Kansas guard Ryan Robertson, a St. Charles, Mo., native who earned the ire of Missouri fans for choosing the Jayhawks over the Tigers. "He was making some 3s and I wasn't making mine. It is personally disappointing to me. I feel badly like I let my team down. It was my shots at the end that I didn't make that might hve made a difference. I've got to think on a different night, I make those shots."

Nick Bradford had pulled Kansas to 62-61 with 1:59 to play, but Jeff Hafer scored on a pass from White with 1:29 left, and White made an open shot after Jeff Boschee missed a 3-pointer for Kansas.

"It's a huge win for us. We had great defense," Hafer said. "We worked on it all week. It was one of those things where hard work paid off. We had blocks, steals -- those things are going to happen when you work hard at it."

Kansas scored the first basket, but Missouri led the rest of the way in averting a sweep of the season series. Kansas won in 73-61 at Columbia on Jan. 11, when the Tigers shot 16 percent in the first half.

Missouri then lost at Colorado on Saturday before coming back to beat the Jayhawks.

T.J. Pugh matched his career-high with 13 points, but had only two in the second half. Eric Chenowith also had 13 points and 13 rebounds.

Consecutive 3-pointers by Boschee and Kenny Gregory pulled Kansas to 57-55 with 5:20 remaining. The Tigers led 61-57 with 3:43 left when Keyon Dooling made an arching jumper over the 7-foot Chenowith, but Robertson put back a missed shot at the other end and Kansas closed to 61-59 with 3:08 remaining.

Robertson, who scored 17 points with a career-high nine rebounds in the game at Columbia, had missed all nine of his field goal attempts. Missouri did not lead by more than three the rest of the way until White's shot. The Jayhawks then were forced to foul in the last minute.

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