Just for a moment, there looked to be a glimmer of light for the Missouri men’s basketball team. 

The seemingly unending darkness and struggle of the SEC grind has this team wandering around aimlessly, not quite sure where to turn to, no flashlight in hand. But at the one-minute mark of the most recent battle Saturday night in Oxford, Mississippi, there looked to be some crevice or faint air of hope. After being down nine points with four minutes left to play, the Tigers cut it to three at 71-68 Ole Miss. With sheer grit Mizzou found a chance to win the game. The Tigers committed fewer turnovers than the Rebels and shot at a higher clip. The Tigers even kept the rebounding differential close, a Herculean task for this undersized squad. 

If there was any basketball god that was just and fair, Mizzou may have squeezed their way out of that crevice and out of this sunken place.

But alas, that light was extinguished once again, just as it has been all season. The Rebels did not miss free throws down the stretch and defended home court with a 79-76 win, moving their conference record to 6-6. Mizzou’s conference record may be better left unsaid; the round number to start it speaks more volumes than its monotonous shape ever should. 

Matthew Murrell catalyzed the Rebels’ 3-point shooting a place Mizzou has so mightily struggled to guard this season. By the 18-minute mark of the first half, Murrell had nine points on three triples, two as a result of lazy transition defense and failure to close out on elite shooters. But after the first Ole Miss surge to build a 17-8 lead, the Tigers surprisingly punched back. 

Sean East once again was that guy, scoring 12 of Missouri’s points in a row to cut into that deficit. He ended the day with 25 points, and was a perfect 12/12 from the charity stripe. The rest of the first half was littered with triples from the Rebels and glimpses of the young guys for Mizzou finally taking some steps forward in their development. Aidan Shaw had a couple of nice buckets, one on a putback lay and the other a dunk off a baseline dump pass from East. Jordan Butler also had a couple nice moments in the first half and earned 10 points in the contest.

Jaylen Murray hit FOUR more triples for Ole Miss while Jaemyn Brakefield hit another to bring their team total to eight in the first half. A whopping 80% of the Rebels’ first half points poured in from behind the arc, a statistic so crazy you would think they weren’t even trying to score the ball inside. Mizzou led 33-30 at the half, but with Ole Miss scoring only six points inside, it could have been a much larger advantage.

The second half started out Mizzou’s way. They built a ten-point lead on the back of two Nick Honor triples, who finished with three on the game. With 12 minutes to play, the Tigers led 54-44. 

The next seven minutes quickly turned nightmarish. The Rebels sure were runnin’, a 25-6 run to be specific, to take a 69-60 lead with five minutes to go. Involved in the run was a thunderous Brakefield slam dunk on a fast break which ignited the crowd at the Pavilion at Ole Miss. 

The Tigers didn’t go away, even though they couldn’t score a point from the floor from the ten-minute mark all the way to the five-second mark of the game when Tamar Bates’ dunk cut the lead to one.

Yes, Mizzou did not make a field goal for 10 minutes straight in the second half. By some miracle, they weren’t defeated. They made their last 16 free throws over the last ten minutes to keep it close, but it wasn’t enough. TJ Caldwell and Matthew Murrell were also ice-cold from the line to hold the Rebels’ lead for the rest of the game after taking it with eight minutes to play.

Looking back, the one stat that defined the game was this: Mizzou shot 5-of-11 from the arc, and Ole Miss shot 11-of-21. Sometimes, it’s just that simple.

Now all that’s left for the Tigers, once again, is hope. Not hope for a postseason run, that was gone long ago. Hope that Dennis Gates can still manage to get this whole thing figured out. Hope that his system can work without Kobe Brown, D’Moi Hodge and the rest of those 2022-2023 Cleveland State transfers. Hope that this potentially great incoming freshman class doesn’t turn their noses at this school after watching these constant uninspiring performances.

That hope is all Missouri Tiger basketball fans can hold on to.