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Braggin’ Rights brought a taste of spring to this year’s holiday dinner.

After two years of blowouts between Missouri and Illinois, Sunday’s nonconference rivalry game saw the Tigers and Illini trade blows until Mizzou’s last punches clanked off an Enterprise Center rim.

Neither team led by more than 10 points, and MU responded to that deficit with an 11-0 run to keep a tight game intact down the stretch.

There were hairs to split around free-throw shooting and the calls that led to them. But after Missouri (10-2) missed two 3-pointers in the final nine seconds of the game, Illinois (8-3) prevailed, holding on 80-77 for its second consecutive Braggin’ Rights victory.

The Illini have back-to-back wins in the rivalry played in ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ for the first time since games played in 2016 and 2017.

In its closing minutes, a contest played in late December displayed enough intensity to feel like something fit for the postseason.

“It was a March game,� Mizzou coach Dennis Gates said.

“After the last two years that’ve been pretty ugly basketball games for the fans, I think we gave them a pretty good show today,� Illinois coach Brad Underwood said. “That was two very good basketball teams.�

Point guard Kasparas Jakucionis led the Illini in scoring, as he has regularly this season. The Tigers threw a handful of different defenders at him — handsy guards and lanky wings at various times — but he still got to his spots, scoring 21 points while shooting 3 for 7 from 3-point range.

With just over two minutes left in the game and the score even, Jakucionis laced a side-step 3-pointer through the net for a vital lead. Then he got a fadeaway mid-range shot to roll in with 28 seconds to go for the game-winning bucket.

“I don’t feel any pressure — two minutes left in the game or it’s the start of the game,� Jakucionis said. “I’m just trying to make the plays for the team, make the right decision.�

A three-headed attack kept Mizzou in the mix despite spending five seconds short of half an hour playing from behind.

Point guard Tony Perkins matched his season high with 18 points, including a couple of statement dunks, and grabbed six rebounds. Forward Mark Mitchell also recorded 18 points and six boards.

He was a focal point of the MU offense, frequently driving from the perimeter into contact around the rim. That netted Mitchell a handful of free throws, but his charity stripe struggles led to him making only 6 of 12 free throws.

That was a differentiating factor. Mizzou made 28 free throws to Illinois’ 22, technically getting more points from the stripe, but the Tigers got there on 37 attempts while the Illini missed only one free throw — with eight seconds to go, giving the Tigers one final possession to try to tie.

And that was the differentiating factor: execution in the final minute.

After Kasparas’ fadeaway shot went in with 28 seconds to go, Missouri took the ball up the floor trailing 79-77 with the shot clock off but plenty of time to run its offense and generate a shot. That look wound up being a 3-pointer from the right wing for Mitchell, who hit a crunch-time 3 against Kansas a couple of weeks ago but is shooting 22% from beyond the arc this season.

Mitchell missed and the Tigers intentionally fouled to extend the game. Illinois’ Kylan Boswell, who’d made all 10 of his free throws to that point, went 1 for 2 at the line to give MU a chance at a tying 3-pointer.

The Tigers rebounded Boswell’s miss and took the ball up the court on a fast break. Forward Jacob Crews, one of the team’s better 3-point shooters, tried to slow his momentum enough to make a buzzer-beater from beyond the 3-point arc but missed that, too.

Gates could have called a timeout before that but didn’t like the idea of giving the Illini a chance to reset their defense and foul while leading by three points.

“We got a shot up, and you’re not going to get an open shot more than that,� he said.

Gates, coaching in his third Braggin’ Rights game, picked up a technical foul early in the second half for vociferously charging onto the court to yell at an official after a physical sequence sent Missouri’s Anthony Robinson II tumbling to the floor with no whistle.

Gates said entering the season he would take a technical foul if he felt that was necessary as a last resort to get the attention of officials who were missing too many calls.

“I didn’t mean to get a tech, but I had to,� Gates said. “I had to get a tech. Our guys responded from that technical foul. Because if I did not get a technical foul on that, Lord knows what would have taken place the entire game.�

Guard Tamar Bates was Mizzou’s other top performer, scoring 17 points while stealing the ball three times. He was involved in a late-game sequence that summed up the Tigers’ second half.

With the game tied 72-72 and two minutes remaining, MU was backed down on defense but knocked free the ball. Multiple Missouri players dived after it, including Bates — though it looked as if his dive also was partly a tackle on the part of an Illinois player. There was no foul called, and officials said the ball went out of bounds off of Bates.

One half of the Enterprise Center booed the decision, but out of the brief stoppage, Jakucionis hit his side-step 3-pointer that put Illinois in front.

Mizzou was close and just needed another moment to go its way.

“We just couldn’t get that,� Gates said.

Analytics corner

Missouri entered Sunday’s game facing an uphill battle on the boards — Illinois is a solid rebounding team while that’s one of the Tigers’ weaknesses. Key to how the game would play out was whether Mizzou could get enough production off the turnovers it forced to negate the Illini’s advantage on rebounding.

Illinois scored 13 second-chance points to MU’s eight, with its advantage materializing as expected.

And Mizzou forced 17 turnovers while coughing up the ball only nine times itself, the kind of margin that would usually bode well for the Tigers. But they scored only 12 points off turnovers while Illinois managed 11 — not enough ground made up.

In total, the Illini scored 24 points off of offensive rebounds and turnovers while Missouri scored 20. The margin between those key metrics was four points in favor of Illinois, which won the game by three.

Twelve points from 17 turnovers is far less production than Mizzou usually gets from those situations, plays that are a core tenet of Gates’ system. So what kept the Tigers from taking care of business in transition?

“It’s not more complicated than we just didn’t convert,� Bates said. “It could be a combination of us not running hard enough or just not making the ball change sides of the floor when we were able to turn them over or not getting the paint touches — combination of a few things. But at the end of the day, we just didn’t convert.�