Going into the last game of the season, the Missouri Tigers could finish anywhere between the No. 4 seed and the No. 10 seed. Hosting rival Arkansas, looking for revenge, they needed the win to keep the hopes of a double bye alive. Sadly for Tiger fans, T.O. Barrett missed a game-winning layup in regulation and would go on to lose 88-84 in overtime.
Despite the loss, the Tigers could still get the five seed if certain games went their way. Most of those games did not. Teams the Tigers needed to win went 2-3, dropping the Tigers down to eighth. Luckily, Texas and Kentucky both took Ls, giving Mizzou a single bye and a day off. Its reward? The Kentucky Wildcats.
Coming into the SEC tournament, Missouri lost its last two games against Oklahoma and Arkansas, but Kentucky had not exactly looked like world beaters either. It faced last-place LSU in round one and got pushed to the brink. 15 lead changes made the Wildcats antsy, but they squeaked it out 87-82.
Before that, they had also lost their last two as well as five of their last seven. Mizzou closed as a 2.5-point underdog, according to CBS Sports, but that was a far cry from the double-digit underdog it was when it faced off and beat Kentucky 73-68 in its first matchup.
The Tigers would have to channel that energy from Jan. 7
Mizzou would be the first to draw blood on the day, as after nearly 90 seconds of double zeroes, Jayden Stone would fire off a three to break the stalemate. Kentucky would start to show out, scoring nine of the next 13 points and having four turnovers, and would sit down 9-7 at the first media timeout. The timeout would help Kentucky much more as the Wildcats would hit their second and third dunk, forcing Missouri to go down 14-7.
After the timeout, Mizzou would show much more life and score nine of the next 11, ending with a Mark Mitchell and-1 to deadlock at 16. The game would continue close for the next few points and knot again at 20, but a 6-0 run would push up the lead for Big Blue and get the Kentucky favored arena on its feet. Kentucky would not slow down at all and would keep the run pushing and go up 38-26 for its biggest lead of the day against Mizzou. The Tigers would push hard, and Jacob Crews would heat things up and score a 3 to cut the lead to 38-29 at halftime.
Out of the gate in the second half, Kentucky looked fantastic. With just two three pointers in the first half, Colin Chandler drained one in under a minute to open the scoring and push Kentucky on a 7-2 run to push the Cats up 45-31. After the run, though, Mizzou started to tick the momentum back its way, back-to-back scores from Mark Mitchell and a lot of capitalizations off of Wildcat mistakes, including an and-1 dunk for Shawn Phillips Jr., cut the lead back down to nine, causing Pope to call a timeout.
With quick shots from Phillips and Pierce, Mizzou cut the lead down to seven points and the low represented started to make Kentucky sweat. In one of the most bittersweet sequences of the day, Barrett was fouled and made both shots to cut in; however, Phillips got hit with a flagrant and sat with four fouls with over 10 to go. Mouhamed Dioubate went 1-2 from the line to cut it to 60-53. While Kentucky would not concede, Mizzou refused to die. The 11-point cushion it seemed like Kentucky kept all day long shrank to five as the Tigers kept fighting. Clawing, scrapping, and fighting.
“It’s win or go home now,” T.O. Barrett said in his post-game press conference. “Back against the wall, we’re just fighting man, we don’t wanna lose.”
Mitchell drew multiple fouls, including getting the fourth off of Moreno, to make it a three-point game after being down by as many as 16. However, a Colin Chandler shot-clock-beating three-pointer injected some serious life and stretched the lead back up to seven with under seven minutes to go. However, once again, Mizzou refused to die, back-to-back threes from Pierce and Mitchell cut it down to a 1 point game. With just over 2 minutes to go in the game, Mitchell broke the ceiling. Going up and hitting a simple jumper, Mizzou took the 70-69 lead and would tie his career high.
Mitchell didn’t care about the points, though. “Second half, I was just trying to win the game, I don’t even think I knew how many points I had.”
However, the Tigers would go cold from there, a 6-0 run for Kentucky, and go up 75-70 with 22.5 seconds to go to all but wrap it up. Mizzou would not score for the rest of the day and would go one and done, taking the 78-72 loss.
While the loss is obviously disappointing for Tiger fans, the game definitely had its silver linings. Mark Mitchell had another career day and dropped 32, leading the team in points, threes, and was in a three-way tie to lead with rebounds. As said before numerous times, the Tigers never said die and clawed back from down as many as 16.
Even with the loss, Coach Dennis Gates is still confident about the team’s chances of making March Madness.
“It’s just facts, we’re in one of the best conferences in basketball, one of 36 teams with five quad 1 wins, we don’t have a bad loss at all, there’s no bad loss on our record,” Gates said. “I hope we have a shot, but we’ll see, we’ll see.”
Their fate now lies in the hands of the tournament committee, but considering the rest of the bubble, there should be a bit of a sigh of relief. Bubble teams are dropping like flies, with Miami of Ohio, SMU, Stanford, Texas, and various other teams all taking early losses in their conference tournaments. The Tigers will find out their fate on Sunday, March 15, at 5 p.m. on CBS when the full field is revealed.