Missouri Tigers finish SEC basketball play winless, 0-18, after losing finale at LSU
That’s all of them.
Missouri basketball collapsed early in the second half in an 84-80 loss to LSU on Saturday evening in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. It was Mizzou’s 18th straight loss.
That’s all of its SEC games.
With the defeat, Missouri (8-23, 0-18 SEC) has gone through a regular-season conference slate without a win for the first time since 1908, and is the first team to go through an SEC regular season without a win since Vanderbilt in 2018-19.
Sean East II, as he often has been, was on an island in the second half, when Mizzou gave up a six-point halftime lead to fall … again.
Here are three takeaways from Missouri’s latest L:
Halftime lead quickly disappears
You could just about see the future.
Mizzou held an eight-point lead as the game clock hurtled toward zeros in the first half. LSU guard Mike Williams III took a desperation 3-point attempt. It didn’t go, but Missouri guard Nick Honor fouled him in the process. Williams made 2-of-3 to cut the lead to six points.
Missouri has made a habit of shooting itself in the foot through its historic run. That foul, whether the call was correct or not, was the latest case.
LSU (17-14, 9-9) came out hot in the second period.
Matt McMahon’s team erased MU’s lead by the 14-minute mark. Runs of 6-0 and 14-1, the latter of which came in a two minute, 16-second time span, gave LSU a seven-point advantage with a little more than 12:38 left in the half.
East was Missouri’s only second-half scorer until the 10-minute mark. He had 12 points in that span.
LSU had 27, enough to comfortably withstand a late Missouri push that saw the visitors cut a once-21-point deficit to three points with seconds remaining, which was too little, too late.
Can Missouri win a tournament game?
Dennis Gates said Thursday, while previewing the team’s trip to Baton Rouge, that Missouri will reevaluate its goals ahead of the SEC Tournament.
When MU settles and reassesses, it’ll start preparing for a bout with No. 11-seeded Georgia.
The Bulldogs kicked off MU’s run of 18 straight losses when they left Columbia with a 75-68 win back on Jan. 6. It’s been slim-pickings for UGA lately, however, as the Bulldogs have won just two of their past 12 games.
Clash of Titans … perhaps not.
But the matchup is about as favorable as Missouri could have drawn. MU led Georgia with less than 4:30 to go in the regular-season game, which stands among one of its best chances for a win all season.
If MU is going to spring a surprise, the Tigers need to find inspiration from a new outlet, because …
Supporting cast to East goes cold
East scored 27 points against LSU. That’s not a surprise, as he entered the evening with the Southeastern Conference’s fifth-best scoring average at 17.6 points per game.
The rest of the Missouri roster went blank until the result was a foregone conclusion. No player in a black and gold uniform scored in the second half until the 10-minute mark, when a Tamar Bates dunk cut the LSU lead from nine to seven points. In the following three minutes, LSU went on a 10-2 run, interrupted only by … an East layup.
Nick Honor was 2-of-10 from 3. Bates had a 1-of-5 mark from deep.
Gates had challenged Noah Carter to start knocking down open looks, which he managed outside of the disastrous opening to the second period, going 4-of-6 from beyond the arc. He finished the day with 18 points.
Missouri used six other players in its rotation. They combined for 16 points, several of which came during the late run.
The Star has partnered with the Columbia Daily Tribune for coverage of Missouri Tigers athletics.
