Short-handed MU clobbered in Oklahoma

STILLWATER, Okla. -- Beating Oklahoma State on the road would have been a tall order for Missouri under the best of circumstances. Without their second-leading scorer, the 11th-ranked Tigers had no chance.

Playing without suspended point guard Ricky Clemons, Missouri fell into an early hole and couldn't get out as the 24th-ranked Cowboys easily won their 12th in a row 76-56 Saturday.

Oklahoma State (14-1, 3-0 Big 12) took a quick 14-2 lead, widened it to 40-16 later in the half and led by as many as 35 in the second half.

Victor Williams scored a season-high 24 and Melvin Sanders scored 15 while leading another stifling defensive performance for the Cowboys, who were coming off a 48-46 victory over No. 5 Oklahoma.

"Clemons is a great player, and that definitely hurt them on the offensive and defensive end," Williams said. "But not to take anything away from our defensive effort. I think if he was out there, we would have attacked him the same way."

The Cowboys held Missouri (10-3, 1-1) 24 points below its season average. The Tigers only had 36 points before outscoring Oklahoma State 20-5 in the final eight minutes.

Sanders, who shut down Oklahoma's Hollis Price on Monday, held Ricky Paulding to 10 points on 3-of-12 shooting. Paulding came in averaging a team-high 17.7 points per game.

Clemons was suspended after being charged Friday with second-degree domestic assault against a 20-year-old girl, which he has denied.

His suspension left the Tigers with nine players in uniform -- backup point guard Josh Kroenke didn't play due to tendinitis in his knees.

"Obviously we were short on personnel, but I'm not using that as any excuse," coach Quin Snyder said. "I thought Oklahoma State played terrific. When they jump on you like that with their shots, and you have some guys in unfamiliar territory to begin with, we were looking uphill the whole game."

Williams scored seven of the Cowboys' first 14 points. When Missouri tried going to a zone, Williams and Sanders hit back-to-back 3-pointers.

Arthur Johnson, who finished with 20 points and 14 rebounds, made consecutive baskets to get the Tigers within 14-6, but an 11-2 run that started with a Williams 3-pointer pushed Oklahoma State's lead to 25-8 with 10:30 left in the half.

The Cowboys went to halftime with a 43-21 lead and continued to roll after that. It looked for a while that Oklahoma State would eclipse the widest margin of victory in the history of the series -- 25 points -- but Missouri avoided that with its late surge.

"I thought the first 30 minutes was probably the best basketball we have played this season," coach Eddie Sutton said. "Our defense continued to be excellent and we executed offensively much better, took care of the basketball and we were able to hit some good shots."

Sanders smothered Paulding all day. Paulding didn't get a shot until he scored on a reverse layup with 12:42 left in the first half. He was 1-of-7 at halftime, then picked up three fouls in the first 3:22 of the second half.

"Going into this season, our motto was just defense, defense, defense," Williams said. "Sometimes we'll go three hours in practice and never be on the offensive end. That's just the way our mindset is -- scoring's going to come and go, but we've got to be able to stop the other team."

Clemons is averaging 17.2 points and a team-high 5.7 assists. His replacement, Jimmy McKinney, had 15 points -- just two in the first half -- and four assists.