By IlliniGuys Staff

December 22, 2022

(Cover photo courtesy Courtney Bay/Illinois Athletics)

ST. LOUIS, Mo. - You could argue that Missouri could play an intrasquad gold and black scrimmage and the score would not have been this lopsided.

Kobe Brown scored 31 points and D'Moi Hodge added 20 as the unranked Tigers pummeled 16th ranked Illinois 93-71 in the annual Braggin' Rights game.

Illinois (8-4) had a 12-10 lead at the 14:05 mark.  Little did they know that would be little more than disinterested spectators the rest of the way.

Yet again, Illinois put together a lengthy scoreless streak.  Against Texas earlier this month, the Illini fell into a hole thanks to a nearly six-minute scoring drought before rallying to win in overtime.  In Saturday's 68-47 win over Alabama A&M, the Illini failed to score for 8:05 in the second half to see a 17-point lead whittled to one.  But the Tigers used an 8:46 stretch with no Illinois field goals to build a 32-15 lead and they never looked back.

Missouri shot a blistering 59 percent for the game, including 10 of 20 from three-point range.

Terrence Shannon Jr. scored 22 points while Matt Mayer added 16 and Jayden Epps had 12 off the bench.

Turnovers were a problem again for Illinois, as they committed 17 in the game, leading to 33 Missouri points.  While the Tigers dished out 22 assists with only ten turnovers.

Illinois takes the holiday weekend off before returning to campus next week to prepare for their final non-conference game against Bethune-Cookman at State Farm Center on Thursday night (7:30pm, FS1).