After Senior Night loss, Missouri Tigers are one game from winless SEC season
Missouri’s losing streak is now one NFL regular season long.
No. 13 Auburn defeated Mizzou men’s basketball 101-74 on Tuesday evening at Mizzou Arena in MU’s last home game of the season.
The MU fans haven’t seen a win in Mizzou Arena since Dec. 30, 2023, against Central Arkansas. Indeed, they haven’t seen a win — of any kind — since that Dec. 30 game.
Mizzou (8-22, 0-17 SEC) is now on a 17-game losing streak, extending the longest winless run in program history. Dennis Gates’ team only has one opportunity — Saturday on the road at LSU — to avoid the team’s first winless conference season since 1908.
Here are three takeaways from Missouri’s penultimate game of the regular season.
Auburn pulls away in the 2nd half
Missouri’s good work came undone early in the second half, as Auburn’s star cast came to play.
Jaylin Williams and Johni Broome missed just one shot from the field between the beginning of the half and the 11-minute mark, combining for 15 points on 7-of-8 shooting to put Missouri in a 16-point and unassailable hole.
The visitors’ 3-point woes from the first half — Bruce Pearl’s team went 2-of-14 — disappeared, as they connected on 5-of-8 in the second period.
Auburn (23-7, 12-5) shot 37.5% from the field in the first half. In the second period, it made 9 of its opening 12 shots and shot 75% across the half
UA relied on getting into the paint through Broome and Williams for much of the second half, and that’s where it saw most of its offensive success. Williams finished with 17 points, and Broome had 15.
Auburn outscored Missouri in the paint 48-20 and outrebounded Gates’ team 41-28.
MU competitive for one half, fades
Tamar Bates and Sean East II have been the offensive spark plugs for Missouri all season long. The problem is: They’re usually fending for themselves.
On Tuesday, they got a little bit of help — and that helped Missouri stick around ... for one half.
Bates still led the way, scoring 12 first-half points to lead all scorers. East was still excellent offensively, adding nine. But as MU stayed alive in a game it was predicted to struggle in, the supporting cast chipped in 18 to trail Auburn by just five, 44-39, at the half.
Indeed, Missouri did quite a lot of the things it has struggled with extremely well.
A consistent gripe from Gates has been MU’s inability to get to the line. On Tuesday, the Tigers had 16 first-half free throw attempts — more than they shot in 10 full games this season — and made 15.
Missouri had shot better than 40% from 3 in just four of its 29 games this season. At the half against Auburn, MU was 4-of-8, 50%.
But all that faded in the second period. MU made just one of its next six from 3 and by game’s end and finished just 33.9% from the field.
Hopping mad
Gates didn’t get called for a technical foul in his first 61 games as Missouri’s coach.
Now, it seems, he’s had two in the past three games.
After the Missouri bench appeared to protest what it contested was a shot-clock violation on Broome, Gates received a technical for his reaction. The stadium announcer said the technical was called on the Missouri bench, but it appears to have gone in the coach’s direction.
Mere minutes later, after play continued and Auburn guard Aden Holloway appeared to step out of bounds trying to save an errant ball, Gates was jumping up and down on the sideline while petitioning with an official.
A 17-game losing streak can do that …
The Star has partnered with the Columbia Daily Tribune for coverage of Missouri Tigers athletics.
