MU christens arena with exhibition win

COLUMBIA, Mo. -- Missouri put its NCAA troubles into the background Thursday night. It's a new season, and there was a new arena to christen.

Linas Kleiza had 19 points and four assists, helping open the $75 million Paige Sports Arena with a 100-73 exhibition victory over Central Missouri State.

The 15,000-seat arena that replaced the 32-year-old Hearnes Center was about three-fourths full at game time and much emptier as the game progressed, with an announced attendance of 10,328.

That was more a reflection of the opposition being from NCAA Division II than the Tigers being hit with three years' probation a day earlier. The players showed no signs of a hangover from the sanctions for a program that lost two assistants during a probe and will be barred from off-campus recruiting for one season.

"What happened yesterday?" Kleiza said. "It was never a concern for me. I'm just happy it's behind us now and we can fully concentrate on basketball."

Missouri coach Quin Snyder was happy to be in his element, too.

"Yesterday is behind us, so yes, it was really good," he said. "And I think our team feels good about playing and the timing of that situation is good. It was good to play."

Snyder was effusive in his praise of the new arena, which needs some fine-tuning. It was a race to get the arena ready even on a bare-bones level.

"Everybody is kind of living here because there's still so much going on," Snyder said. "But you realize what a monumental thing it was to get this thing together."

Jason Conley added 14 points and Jimmy McKinney had 13 off the bench for Missouri, which was 16-14 last year while playing under the cloud of possible sanctions.

The exhibition opener was a clear mismatch, with the Tigers running a 17-1 lead, forcing turnovers on Central Missouri's first six possessions and leading by 30 at halftime.

Kleiza was playing for the first time since separating his shoulder in January.

"We're just excited to get out there on the court," Kleiza said. "Especially me, being out for a while. It was really exciting."

The highlight of the second half was a scrum that ended with the ejections of Central Missouri's Mike Suggs and Missouri freshman Marshall Brown with 4:05 to go.

Michael Hicks had 21 points for Central Missouri, which was 18-10 last season.

Snyder will lose three scholarships the next two seasons, but at least in Thursday's game he had plenty of depth. At one point in the first half he had four freshmen in the lineup, and one of them, guard Jason Horton, was a surprise starter ahead of McKinney.

Former Missouri coach Norm Stewart, who sat in the front row behind the court named in his honor, received a standing ovation when he was introduced midway through the first half.

Three members of the opposition had ties to Stewart. Central Missouri coach Kim Anderson was the Big Eight player of the year at Missouri in 1977 and was Stewart's top assistant for 11 seasons. Assistant coach Lamont Frazier was a starter on the 1993-94 Missouri team that went undefeated in the Big Eight. And Mules center Pat Schumacher played for Stewart at Missouri from 1998-2000.

Schumacher started on Thursday, but he has a back injury and was removed about a half-minute into the game.

Missouri has one more exhibition -- Nov. 10 against Northwest Missouri State -- before beginning the regular season Nov. 15 against Brown in the Guardians Classic.