Can Missouri basketball still hang with the best? Tigers gear up for Selection Sunday
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — A lot changed in a year for Dennis Gates.
The Missouri basketball coach sat in a postgame press conference Friday night after a first-round exit at Bridgestone Arena, winless in 19 games, and started panning forward and planning ahead. In his mind, he was thinking of the moment he’ll face this upcoming Sunday.
Gates was planning for the moment Missouri’s name is called out on Selection Sunday.
Fast forward one year (and a couple days, if you want to get specific) and he’s looking ahead again, but not quite as far into the future.
“We had that in mind, that in the forefront, making sure that we sat in Mizzou Arena on Selection Sunday watching our name being called,” Gates said Friday. “I think our guys accomplished that goal.”
Missouri’s SEC Tournament is over after a 95-81 quarterfinal loss to Florida that got a lot closer down the stretch than the final score represents. After giving up 10 straight points to open the game, Mizzou pulled Florida back within four and five points in the second half before a late push from the Gators saw them through.
The Tigers (22-11) are moving on to Selection Sunday and March Madness, where the Tigers absolutely will find themselves despite Gates’ lingering skepticism.
Missouri’s head coach was bullish about what his team has accomplished this season.
He pointed out that Missouri had the same number of Quad 1 victories — seven — as the nation’s No. 1-ranked team, Duke. He said no team played more Quad 1 games than MU’s 18, although Arizona did play its 19th in the Big 12 semifinals Saturday. Still, the point stands — Mizzou was tested by the college basketball elite plenty.
And he’s bullish about where Missouri can still go.
In every team meeting, he repeats what he first discussed with his new-look team last June: Missouri’s end goal is to end up in San Antonio, Texas, for the Final Four.
So, where is Mizzou on the path to achieving that?
“At this moment, we won't know anything until Selection Sunday,” Gates said. “As you know, the tournament is about matchups. It's about paths. It's about the madness that actually upsets teams in that journey. … I don't know if the fact that we're not a No. 1 seed means that we can't get to the Final Four. Historically, the Final Four has been all kinds of numbers and seeds. It's about matchups. It's about getting on a winning streak.”
Let’s talk about paths, and paths that facilitate a winning streak.
The biggest question facing the Tigers now is whether Mizzou has that in it — whether it has the chops to take down a similarly ranked opponent in Round 1 and potentially a protected seed in the second round.
Mizzou’s loss to Florida wasn’t damaging in the big picture. The Tigers played without their top scorer and an All-SEC honoree in Mark Mitchell, and the impact was immediately apparent. Florida is certainly in the conversation for a 1-seed Sunday.
Josh Gray took Mitchell’s spot in the starting lineup and gave away an early flagrant foul that led directly to five Florida points. Gray fouled out with 7:20 remaining in the game — a spell the Gators outscored MU by eight points to pull away. Gates said Mitchell wanted to play but that it was the head coach who made the final decision to leave him out of the lineup.
Would Missouri have beaten Florida on Friday with Mitchell available? There’s no way of telling, but MU felt his absence and spent the game chasing because he was absent out of the gate.
“As it relates to the silver lining (of losing Saturday), we'll see what it does,” Gates said. “But I do know we were able to win a game yesterday against a tough NCAA tournament team. And today we played a game without an All-Conference player. I thought we did pretty well. Last night, our all-conference player only played 10 minutes, … 25% of the game, right, a quarter of the game.
“Our guys moved forward. We had unsung heroes. Aidan Shaw played unbelievable basketball. Josh Gray rebounded the heck out of the ball. Tony Perkins and Tamar Bates had great games, but collectively as a unit, we played some great basketball. We saw ourselves do that in a neutral site, which is great. We'll be at a neutral site playing basketball somewhere.”
Wherever Missouri goes for March Madness, it now a few rungs lower than it looked like it would be one month ago. The Tigers have lost five of their past seven games and are now likely to see their name and logo flash alongside a 6 or 7 seed Sunday.
That means a matchup with another highly ranked squad, a 2 or 3 seed, potentially awaits in the second round.
Will that hurt Mizzou’s prospects?
Can Mizzou still hang with the top dogs, like it did against UF and Alabama and Kansas earlier this year?
Has Missouri got a run left in it, or is the NCAA Tournament going to go the way of five of the past seven games?
Missouri will host a watch party open to the general public beginning at 4 p.m. Sunday at Mizzou Arena. It will learn its seed and opening weekend destination at approximately 5 p.m.
Whatever comes after that is for March, and all that billed madness, to sort out.
“The next part of it is the psychological part. We'll wait around. We'll work on us in these next couple days,” Gates said. “I just thank our fans for coming here supporting us. I thank them for what they've done throughout this season for us because they did make a difference. We'll be able to answer that question when our season's over.
“Hopefully it's not over anytime soon.”
This article originally appeared on Columbia Daily Tribune: What's in store for Missouri basketball on Selection Sunday?
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