BOISE -- Matt Lawrence was just a second-grader at the time, but the senior guard remembers what happened the last time his Missouri Tigers visited this Idaho town for the NCAA tournament.

The 1994-95 version of the Tigers, an eighth-seed, held a 1-point lead vs. top-seeded UCLA with just under 5 seconds remaining in their second-round matchup. Then, in a play made famous by a CBS Sports highlight, guard Tyus Edney took an in-bound pass, drove the length of the floor and hit a shot at the buzzer to give the eventual national title-winners a 75-74 victory.

Lawrence recalls the feeling among fellow Tigers fans in his hometown of St. Louis.

"A lot of people back there were really disappointed," said 6-7 Lawrence, who averaged 9 points a game for Missouri (28-6) this season. "It was kind of heartbreaking to lose in that fashion.

"There's definitely a history with us coming back here and we're not trying to repeat that. We're trying to go out and have some success here."

That success will need to begin at 4 p.m. EST Friday when the third-seeded Tigers face 14th-seeded Cornell (21-9) in a first-round matchup.

Missouri brings an uptempo offense, led by senior forwards DeMarre Carroll (16.8 ppg and 7.3 rpg) and Leo Lyons (14.2 ppg and 6 rpg) and an active, pressing defense led by junior guards J.T. Tiller and Zaire Taylor against the Ivy League champs.

"We just have to make sure that we don't play into their hands of speeding ourselves up and rushing our style of play," said Big Red senior guard Adam Gore. "We just need to play at our pace."

That might not be easy to do against a Missouri team that captured the Big 12 tournament after finishing third in the conference during the regular season. A victory against Cornell would tie the Tigers, with the 1988-89 squad, for the most wins in school history.

While most experts picked Missouri to finish sixth or seventh in the conference, coach Mike Anderson felt early on he had something special.

"I thought that we had an opportunity to be a pretty good basketball team if we continued with the attitude of working and bonding and pushing one another," he said of the squad that won 12 more games than last season, "and look where we are now."

Anderson, in his third season at Missouri, is one of the few Tigers with tournament experience after winning a national championship as an assistant at Arkansas. It's Missouri's first trip to the tournament since 2003 when it lost to Marquette in the second round. Conversely, Cornell is back in the tournament for the second consecutive year.

Big Red, led by junior forward Ryan Wittman (18.5 ppg) and senior center Jeff Foote (11.8 ppg and 7.1 rpg), lost to Stanford in the first round a year ago.

"We were here last year and we kind of let all the surrounding environment kind of play into that," Foote said. "I think the experience this year (is that) we have been more focused mentally."

In Cornell, Anderson sees a team that is "very dangerous" and "very good at what they do."

One thing he's not worried about is the legend of Edney.

"That has nothing to do with this team," he said. "I came here in '98 with Arkansas, I came in 2001 with Arkansas. I came in 2005 as head coach with UAB.

"I think the committee looked at it and basically said 'It's time to send Mike Anderson back home.' "