COLUMBIA, Mo. (Columbia Daily Tribune) – No Sophie, no problem.
With its superstar sophomore sidelined with a lower back injury, the Missouri women’s basketball team nonetheless prevailed in a 72-60 victory over Southern Illinois-Edwardsville on Wednesday night at Mizzou Arena.
Senior guard Sierra Michaelis drained 3-pointers on each of Missouri’s first three possessions to stake her team a 9-0 lead, and, although it wasn’t always pretty, the Tigers never trailed.
“I was making them in warmups, so I was like, ‘Why not shoot it right now?’ ” Michaelis said. “With Sophie out, I just knew I had big shoes to fill in scoring, so I let it fly.”
Sophie, of course, is Sophie Cunningham, last season’s Southeastern Conference freshman of the year and the team’s leading scorer, averaging 15.2 points.
Coach Robin Pingeton said Cunningham is day-to-day, and she’s unsure of Cunningham’s status for Friday’s game against Wichita State.
Cunningham jarred her lower back toward the end of Missouri’s Nov. 29 game against Western Illinois, Pingeton said. She played the two games after that but wasn’t herself in Missouri’s 73-45 loss to IUPUI on Sunday.
“She’s just been really in a lot of pain and very uncomfortable,” said Pingeton, whose team improved to 7-3. “She had very minimal practice time but continued to play for us, but it seemed like it was getting worse with more repetition, … and we felt like, for the big picture of this season and what’s in front of us, we’ve got to make sure she’s got time to let that calm down. We’re still evaluating to see whether it’s muscular or skeletal.”
Cunningham watched on the bench in street clothes with her inactive teammates. Forward Jordan Frericks, a two-time all-conference selection, is out for the season rehabbing a torn anterior cruciate ligament. Forward Bri Porter is also out for the year with a torn ACL. Lauren Aldridge is redshirting after transferring from Kansas. Forward Kayla McDowell returned to play two games after missing the season’s first seven games with a left hamstring injury, but she was out again Wednesday, this time after waking up experiencing discomfort in her left knee. That’s the same knee McDowell tore the ACL in two years ago, and she’s experienced sporadic trouble with it since then.
“She just was having a hard time extending her leg,” Pingeton said.
The injuries left MU with eight available players, something it experienced earlier this season.
The injury-riddled nature of this season is reminiscent of two seasons ago, when a rash of injuries limited Missouri to nine active players for a string of 10 games.
Pingeton isn’t opposed to adding a walk-on if there’s someone who can help her team, but she doesn’t want to add just any warm body.
“If you guys want to put a plug for us out there in the media, we’d be interested in taking names of anybody that might be interested in walking on,” Pingeton said. “I mean that with all sincerity. But it would have to be pretty unique. It would have to be the right fit.”
For a short period during the first half, Missouri was down to two reserves after Lindsey Cunningham took a knock to the face and had to be evaluated. She returned a few minutes later, and the senior guard finished with 11 points and 10 rebounds for her first double-double of the season.
SIUE trimmed Missouri’s lead to 30-27 early in the third quarter before Michaelis drained a 3-pointer off of Doty’s inbounds pass. That sparked a 23-13 run that put the game away.
“She can score in bunches. That’s what she does,” Doty said of Michaelis, who has been a streaky scorer throughout her career.
Doty’s passing helped Cierra Porter get ample touches in the post. SIUE (2-6) frequently fouled Porter, and she made 10 of 12 free-throw attempts. She finished with 18 points and 13 rebounds for her fourth double-double of the season.
Michaelis, Doty and Lindsey Cunningham each played at least 36 minutes, topped by Michaelis’ 39 minutes.
“I’m proud of our seniors,” Pingeton said. “I thought they really stepped up.”
The Tigers wiped away a bit of the bad taste they were left with after getting trounced on the road by IUPUI in what was their most lopsided loss since falling 84-39 to Tennessee on Jan. 10, 2013.
“It was very disappointing and embarrassing, honestly, for us going down there and just really being taken to the woodshed there,” Doty said. “Coach took a lot of responsibility there, but we all just flat-out didn’t bring it. We’re seniors. We know what it takes every day to bring it, and we didn’t bring it. We knew we couldn’t look back and dwell on that, but we really had to pick up the pace and bring it the next day in practice and really shore some things up.”
Photo credit – Timothy Tai / Columbia Daily-Tribune / Columbia, MO