Study Hall: Braggin’ Rights Annihilation

I wasn’t watching the game 20 years ago. I don’t remember why, exactly, as I usually found time to make sure I watched the annual Braggin’ Rights game. It was the first season I was coaching with the varsity at Webster Groves, so perhaps we had some game or practice or something going on. It probably didn’t help that the Tigers were already 4-4 before the game with losses to Sam Houston State and Davidson, plus they had barely beating Texas A&M Corpus Christi and Furman the preceeding two games. The omens were there it was going to be a tough season in Columbia.

So an ugly loss to an Illinois team who would start the season 15-0 and were ranked inside the top 10 of the AP poll wasn’t all that surprising. That it was ugly enough to cause a fan to dump popcorn on Quin Snyder’s head was, perhaps, the only thing that made it more remarkable than it was.

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This isn’t any advocation for dumping popcorn on anyones head. It’s just a recollection of the worst loss in Braggin’ Rights’ history… until last night.

Missouri lost by 43 points last night, in their second worst non-conference loss in the history of the program. And the 7th worst loss overall. It was about as bad of a performance as I’ve watched. Coupled with about as good of one from Illinois.

Mizzou sucked. They struggled to generate any kind of offense, and they left all kinds of Illini shooters open on defense. When they did get Illinois to miss a shot, they didn’t collect the rebound. It was as complete of an ass-whipping as there is in College Basketball.

Because I’m a weirdo I looked it up. There have been 588 wins of 20 or more points involving two D1 basketball teams so far this year. 35 of those games involved a high major team as the loser. Missouri’s 43 point loss to Illinois ranks as THE WORST loss of any high major team this season. Only 12 other teams have lost by 30 or more. The good news (if there is any) is there’s a list of some pretty decent teams: Kentucky, Auburn,…

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Publish date : 2025-12-24 19:30:00

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