3 Takeaways from Mizzou's loss to Miami in March Madness

ST. LOUIS — Missouri basketball's tumultuous, rollercoaster, hot-and-cold season has reached its end, and it's finale was a microcosm of all the adjectives listed above.

The Tigers fell 80-66 at the hands of the Miami Hurricanes in the First Round of the NCAA Tournament, extending their drought of March Madness wins to three seasons. Mark Mitchell, Jayden Stone and Shawn Phillips Jr. have all played their final games as Missouri Tigers, while the rest of the organization now turns to the offseason to focus on reloading for 2026-27

Before moving on to the offseason, here's what stuck out in Missouri's chapter-closing loss.

Inconsistencies shine through

Missouri stormed back from a deficit to close the first half, exploding for a 9-0 run in the final 2:54. But due to prior droughts — which have plagued the it all season long — Missouri still trailed 27-26 at halftime.

Earlier in the period, the Tigers went on two different scoring droughts, going scoreless from the 11:54 to the 9:46 mark and the 7:54 to the 3:54 mark. Perhaps the most damaging of scoreless droughts occurred late in the second half, when failed to score a point from the 7:50 mark to the 4:04 mark, allowing a 12-0 Miami run in the process.

That's 9:54 minutes of scoreless basketball between the three droughts — nearly a quarter of the game spent under an ice-cold spell.

"The guys" change too much

On top of the scoring droughts, players who had once become regular contributors were nowhere to be found in Missouri's season finale. Along with Mitchell's struggles, third and fourth-leading season scorers Trent Pierce and T.O. Barrett collapsed, combining for 7 points on 2-for-15 shooting.

Those who struggled in recent games, like Anthony Robinson II and Stone, put together some of their best performances of the season — Robinson poured in 11 points while Stone racked up a game-high 21.

Missouri's top guys changed on a game-by-game basis for much of the season, crafting quite the difficult method for rotations — it's hard to keep rotations consistent when the play isn't. The difficult recipe for success didn't suffice in Missouri's finale.

Mitchell returns to Earth, temporarily

Miami's hybrid zone defense, which dared Missouri to shoot and emphasized on shutting down the All-SEC forward in Mitchell, worked to a tee. The extra Hurricane bodies on Mitchell made life extremely difficult for the Tigers' season-leading scorer, who was fresh off back-to-back 32-point games.

Mitchell did not make a field goal in the first half, and didn't score his first points until there was 2:54 remaining in the period, knocking down a pair of free throws to get his name on the board. He finished with a season-low four first-half points.

He did ramp up in the second half, pouring in 15 points in the period including a career-high three triples, although his late-game heroics were ultimately for not.

Missouri will now shift its focus toward the offseason, which will hold a plethora of acquisitions and departures on the staff and roster alike.

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