Missouri men’s basketball went back and forth with the Arkansas Razorbacks Saturday, but the Tigers fell short after a multitude of dry spells from field goal range. Missouri’s 88-73 loss at Bud Walton Arena set a school record for the most consecutive losses in a season, with fourteen.
For the second game in a row, Sean East II led the Tigers (8-19, 0-14 SEC) in scoring with 28 points total and 17 at halftime. This marks the third consecutive outing where East had over 20 points since returning from his injury he suffered against Vanderbilt. All of the Tigers’ 34 first half points came from its veterans with Nick Honor, Noah Carter and Tamar Bates adding on a cumulative seventeen points.
Khalif Battle entered the contest averaging 10.6 PPG, but went well over that margin against the Tigers. By halftime, Battle had 16, with the second highest Razorbacks (14-13, 5-9 SEC) scorers all locked at a three way tie at five points. He finished with a career high of 32 points, with the bulk of his scoring coming from 3-point-range. Battle shot four for seven and 62%from beyond the arch. The only other Razorback with more than five was Makhi Mitchell.
Despite the game starting off in a similar fashion to the Tigers’ contest against Tennessee, with both teams not hitting a field goal until Battle’s 3-pointer at the 15:53 mark, the rest of the game was a back-and- forth. Eleven lead changes occurred between the two teams.
The Tigers came into this matchup at the bottom of the SEC in drawing fouls. Head coach Dennis Gates said the team is “terrible at drawing fouls, and we gotta do a better job at it,” following the Tigers’ last defeat against Tennessee. The Tigers were able to draw 11 in the first half, converting all of them, but Missouri drew just twoin the second stanza.
Despite a lack of free throws, the Tigers still remained in the rock fight, down by one with 10:14 in the second half. But a sizzling Khalif Battle threw a couple of gut punches the Tigers’ way, hitting two threes in less than a minute, jumping the Razorbacks’ lead 59-52 with 9:13 to play. Simultaneously, Missouri was on a 3:05 streak of no field goals, a trend that underscores n a continuous recipe of multiple Tiger losses throughout the season.
Once again, the U8 mark for the Tigers proved to be a crucial deciding factor in games decided by single digits. The field goal drought kept extending to over five minutes and the grill kept hot for Battle. A big play in the second half to cap off the Razorback resurgence, came at the 6:58 mark. Battle, once again found an open three, took the foul from Bates and converted once again on a falling deep three, extending the Razorbacks’ lead to eleven, their largest in the contest.
Arkansas didn’t look back after this moment. Another opportunity for Mizzou to get their first conference victory faded away into the Fayetteville afternoon. A familiar story marred the Tigers in these last few minutes, a couple key plates with four or more fouls, a late costly six minute field goal drought and another conference game unraveling in the final ten minutes.
“I focus on one day at a time, one game at a time,” Gates said. “I thought our guys mentally prepared the right way. Our spirits are high; our coaching staff is doing a great job. At the end of the day, what you see is a team playing hard and giving their best no matter what the circumstances are.”
The Tigers will look to break their historic losing skid in a road matchup against the No. 24 Florida Gators next Wednesday. Arkansas will remain in Fayetteville next Tuesday to host the Vanderbilt Commodores (7-19).