Sports

Ricky Clemons, a former Missouri basketball player, reaffirmed on an HBO show Tuesday night that while playing for the Tigers, he and two former teammates received cash from coaches Quin Snyder and Tony Harvey.

“I never got more than $500 at a time,” Clem-ons said in an interview with James Brown, a correspondent for HBO’s Real Sports. “I never kept up with it. I just received the money.”

Ben Askren’s jovial attitude makes him lethal on the mat.

Askren, a redshirt freshman ranked fifth in the nation at 174 pounds, is known as the clown of the Missouri wrestling team. Askren said his lightheartedness helps him relax before matches.

ANN ARBOR, Mich. – Less than an hour’s drive from where two of Missouri’s brightest stars set out for Columbia with college basketball dreams spinning in their 18-year-old heads, Rickey Paulding’s and Arthur Johnson’s careers ended as a nightmare.

Johnson topped off his game-high 26 points with a basket that pulled the Tigers within 65-64 of Michigan with one-tenth of a second left to play, but time had run out on the Tigers in the first-round game of the National Invitation Tournament.

Finishing below .500 in conference play normally ruins a team’s NCAA Tournament hopes.

For Missouri, going 7-9 in the Big 12 Conference and finishing in a three-way tie for seventh are main reasons it is heading to Tempe, Ariz., to face Stanford in the first round of the NCAA Tournament at 10:30 p.m. Saturday.

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — Missouri fans are expecting a significant contribution from 2004 recruit Jason Horton next season.

Horton, a point guard from Cedar Hill, Texas, is touted as a true point, a player who can run the offense and shoot from outside. Horton led Cedar Hill High to a second-place finish in Texas’ Class 5A state tournament last weekend and will likely arrive in Columbia as the Tigers’ best point guard in August.

When Missouri was scrambling for a catcher, freshman Kathy Masterson was looking for a position.

She found it behind the plate.

Missouri right fielder James Boone was named the Big 12 Conference Player of the Week on Tuesday.

Boone, a sophomore, went 10-for-15 and had a pair of doubles at the Easton/USA Challenge last weekend. Boone is batting .383 and has 11 RBIs.

Missouri has come full circle.

After beginning its regular season with a reunion in Michigan, it will have another to begin its postseason.

Tyler Hansbrough doesn’t say much, but then, he doesn’t have to. His game speaks volumes.

The shrill sounds of Hansbrough’s talent reach a fever pitch as he scores at will in the post, rips down rebounds like a hungry beast and swats shots away with the greatest of ease. It is that kind of talent that has made Hansbrough become Poplar Bluff’s all-time leading scorer and the No. 2 junior in the nation according to Rivals.com.

Missouri needs its point players to produce if it wants to win.

Guards MyEsha Perkins and LaToya Bond are performing well for the Missouri women’s basketball team.

Colorado’s Ricardo Patton, the coach of one of three Big 12 Conference bubble teams not invited to the NCAA Tournament, spoke about his displeasure in Monday’s Big 12 conference call.

“We certainly have a great deal of regret that we weren’t selected,” Patton said. “I will always believe that the fourth-best team in the Big 12 is worthy of an NCAA bid.”

When Dedrick Harrington was recruited, he knew it was possibility.

He had the framework.

The wait is over and Missouri’s mission is accomplished.

What seemed almost impossible after the Missouri’s 0-4 start in the Big 12 Conference became reality Sunday when Missouri earned a trip to the NCAA Tournament.

Spring in Arizona is not just for baseball anymore.

The Missouri women’s basketball team is heading to Tempe, Ariz., to take on Stanford on Saturday in the first round of the women’s NCAA tournament.

After a disappointing season that ended with a 16-13 record, Missouri found itself outside of the NCAA Tournament for the first time in five years and took what remained.

The Tigers are one of five Big 12 Conference teams to accept a bid to the National Invitation Tournament, the postseason tournament that invites teams denied a trip to the NCAA Tournament, on Sunday. Missouri will face Michigan in the first round at 8 p.m. Tuesday in Ann Arbor, Mich.

There were many opportunities, but defensive miscues and poor offensive choices hurt the Kewpies.

The Hickman lacrosse team lost to Parkway South 5-3 on Saturday at Cosmopolitan Park.

The Missouri tennis team was close and, coach Blake Starkey knew it.

With the match on the line, Starkey took the bleachers at the Green Tennis Center and urged those in attendance to cheer louder.

DALLAS – The countdown to the culmination of the college basketball regular season, Selection Sunday, will certainly be an agonizing one for Missouri.

With their season complete, the Tigers have left their fate and NCAA Tournament hopes in the hands of the NCAA selection committee. The Tigers’ chances to join the 34 at-large bids appear bleak after an embarrassing 94-69 loss to Kansas in the quarterfinals of the Big 12 Conference Tournament on Friday in the American Airlines Center.

Saying Mike Hall is having a great time would be an understatement. Saying Hall’s life has become hectic would be a greater one.

Hall, who has made it to the final eight on ESPN’s reality series Dream Job, finds himself caught up in a whirlwind that deposits him in Columbia one day, in Florida the next and in New York for the weekend.

Senior goalie Kendall Gessling might have been wondering whether someone had painted a target on his chest. The shots kept coming.

The Hickman lacrosse team lost to Lafayette 11-5 on Saturday at Cosmopolitan Park.