Career night for Trent Pierce leads Mizzou to blowout win over Long Island

Returning to Mizzou Arena for the first time after upsetting the former top-ranked Kansas Jayhawks, the Missouri Tigers had a little more momentum on their side than usual.

Missouri carried it fully into Saturday against the Long Island Sharks, completing a convincing 88-61 win to mark its ninth streak of the season.

In the first half, it was pretty much the Trent Pierce show. Although the sophomore only got eight minutes of action before halftime, he already tied a career-high 17 points by knocking down 4-of-7 triples. By the end of the afternoon, he had 24 on 8-of-14 shooting from the field.

The confidence that Pierce showed right away gave the Tigers a big boost on offense and helped them finish the game with an impressive 14-of-28 clip from behind the arc. Marques Warrick added 16 points with four 3-pointers of his own, while Jacob Crews and Tony Perkins each added two.

It was the opposite result for Long Island, which shot just 8-of-24 as a team from 3-point range. Its offense struggled to find any sort of clearance from the Missouri defense, preventing it from getting quality looks.

Mark Mitchell did much of the work inside the paint, finishing the game with 15 points, seven rebounds, five assists and three blocks on 7-of-9 shooting. The Sharks had little answer for his strength and power down low, making for some pretty easy looks. However, his free throw output left a lot to be desired, knocking down just 1-of-5.

The Tigers got to the free throw line at a strong pace, but did not convert as many opportunities as they would have liked. As a collective group, it shot a total of 12 of 19.

First, Long Island jumped out of the gate with some confidence. It got an 8-7 lead over Missouri with 15:31 left in the first half, but pretty quickly the home team took hold of the direction the rest of the game would go.

From the 15:29 to 11:14 mark of the first half, the Tigers went on a 14-0 run started by Bates at the charity stripe and finished by Robinson at the same spot. To fill the gaps, Mitchell finished two layups in the paint, while both Warrick and Aidan Shaw knocked down 3-pointers of their own.

Thanks in large part to Pierce, Missouri kept that momentum building until halftime to take a 45-24 lead. An 8-3 run to the Sharks at the start of the second half provided a little bit of a scare, but the Tigers were able to avoid a major slip in the second half and began to push the pace offensively once again.

Never shy about shooting it from deep, Missouri continued its dominance in non-conference play — even if the outcome was largely predictable.

The Tigers will have a short break before taking on Jacksonville State at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday in Columbia, Mo.