Let's talk about Missouri
A brief post for the historical record on the soon-to-be forgotten '24 Tigers
It looks like we’ll finish the regular season with four teams going winless in conference play. Three of them were truly non-competitive - we do not need to name them. And then there’s Missouri, who’s 0-16 in the SEC with two games remaining.
It wasn’t supposed to be this way for Missouri. My computer had them 55th in the preseason, which was actually more pessimistic than the consensus. The H.U.M.A.N. poll had them 43rd and three AP voters gave them a vote in the preseason top 25. But injuries and general ineffectiveness have led Dennis Gates to roll out 11 different starting lineups and the season has fallen short of preseason expectations to put it extremely kindly.
The thing is, while Missouri is not a very good basketball team by SEC standards, they do not actually suck. They beat Minnesota and Pitt in true road games. Those will be better true road wins than a lot of tournament teams. Of the Tigers’ 16 SEC losses, nine have been by single digits, and one was in overtime - to South Carolina. As it stands now, Missouri will be the highest-ranked winless team for as long as I have ratings for.
Even with nothing to play for in recent weeks, the Tigers have not given up. They are losing with dignity. In their last game, against Ole Miss, they trailed by as many as 21, only to close within 2 in the final minute. On February 20, they were leading Tennessee with 11 minutes to go. On February 17, at Ole Miss, they lead by 11 in the second half. On January 27, they were tied at South Carolina with 14 minutes left. On January 16, they trailed by four at Alabama with eight minutes left.
The problem with Missouri is that they have perfectly timed their worst performances for their worst SEC opponents. They failed to take advantage of two games against Arkansas and a game against Vanderbilt1 - the weakest teams on the schedule. Missouri’s conference scoring-margin has been better than 24 other teams, 21 of whom have won at least one conference game, and one of whom (Portland) has won five. But in sports, you often don’t get what you deserve.
In fact, Missouri’s average margin of defeat of 10.1 points per game ranks second-lowest among the 58 teams that have gone winless since 1997:
That includes the four winless teams this season, three of whom have games remaining. But the other two winless teams with games left have very little chance of winning another game. Missouri, on the other hand…
Well, Mizzou doesn’t have much hope, but I’m intrigued by Tuesday’s game against Auburn. It’s senior night for Missouri and they’ll be double-digit underdogs against a team that will be a trendy pick to make the Final Four. Not only that, but Auburn has yet to win a game by single digits. Each of their 22 wins have been by at least 11 points.
My computer says Missouri has a 10% of pulling off the upset, which is low. But that’s actually impressive considering it’s an 0-16 team facing a team that has the sixth-best odds to win the national title per FanDuel. DePaul or Cal Poly - I mean the other unnamed, winless teams - would love to have that kind of chance in either of their last two games, and they are playing significantly less skilled teams!
Whether the Missouri players know it or not (and to be sure, they don’t), there is something to play for this week. A win in one of their last two games - their regular season concludes with a game at LSU on Saturday - is surprisingly within reach. The Tigers have about a 3-in-10 chance of at least one victory. But failing that, with two competitive losses they’ll go down in history as the best team to not win a conference game.
The Vanderbilt game was an under-publicized contest of East vs West: Missouri’s Sean East vs. Vanderbilt’s Isaiah West.