3 Takeaways From Mizzou's Regular Season Finale Loss to Kentucky

Initial thoughts on Missouri's loss to the Wildcats, dropping its third-straight game and slipping down the conference rankings.

March 8, 2025; Columbia, Missouri, USA; Missouri Tigers head coach Dennis Gates addresses an official while playing the Kentucky Wildcats Mizzou Arena. | Amber Winkler/Missouri On SI

The Missouri Tigers dropped their third-straight loss of conference play to the Kentucky Wildcats, losing 91-83 and falling to 21-10 overall.

The comeback effort was quite impressive by the Tigers. They didn't show many signs of hope until they did late in the second half, thanks to a scoring spark from Marques Warrick. There's a shortlist of guys that kept Missouri in the game and he was certainly one of them.

That being said, Kentucky did just about everything right for most of the game. Its trio of guards and forward Andrew Carr, who was arguably the best player on the court for both teams, led the Wildcats on offense and defense. That group made too many winning plays to count, even when the momentum wasn't in their favor.

The defeat has plenty of implications for the Tigers. For starters, it's their third-straight defeat. They'll surely drop down in the seeding for the SEC tournament, as well as March Madness. Missouri is also playing its worst basketball of the season at the worst point of the season.

Here are three takeaways from Missouri's disappointing home loss to the Kentucky Wildcats in its regular season finale.

100 mph

Out of the gate, it looked like both teams were operating at 10-times speed. Whether it was on fast breaks, defensive rotations or just pure hustle, it was apparent that this was a high-stakes game for both squads.

For the Tigers, it showed the most while moving around on defense. Kentucky's ball movement had the home team running in circles while rotating around on defense. For the most part, Missouri was able to get some of those stops or force turnovers. That being said, that level of intensity would only be sustainable for so long, especially if Kentucky continued on its same path.

The opposite could be said for the visiting team, who never stopped moving on the offensive end. The Wildcats excelled at forcing turnovers and getting out in transition, beating the Tigers on fast breaks where they had the numbers to do so. Kentucky forced five first half turnovers and 10 by the end of the game, while also beating the Tigers 14-8 in fastbreak points.

A key to Kentucky's success was Missouri's inability to get out and run on offense. The lack of fast break points, which was shut down by Kentucky's ability to rebound well and also make more shots, threw off Missouri's offensive tempo. It was a great gameplan from the Wildcat coaching staff to take away one of the Tigers' best tools to success and they executed it perfectly.

Kentucky's hot first half

You wouldn't have guessed based on the opening few minutes of the game, but the Wildcats had an offensive explosion at around the halfway point of the first half. The main culprit of it was guard Koby Brea, who struggled to miss with 11 points on 4-for-5 shooting. Carr also got out to a hot start, recording eight first half points on 3-for-5 shooting.

As a team, the Wildcats shot 44.8% from the field and a shocking 58.3% from the three-point line, with seven makes on 12 attempts. Kentucky is a 37.3% perimeter shooting team, which is tied for the best in the conference with Missouri, but they far exceeded that number in the first half and in the game itself.

In even more impressive fashion, the Wildcats would go on to carry that hot shooting momentum into the second half. It didn't matter who had the ball in their hands at any given time, whether it was Brea, Otega Oweh or someone else, there was always the feeling that it was going in. For the most part, that was true.

Mark Mitchell puts the team on his back

There weren't many positives on the offensive side of the ball for the Tigers. In fact, there's an argument that the only one was from forward Mark Mitchell, who was the only offensive spark the Tigers had throughout the game. He finished with 22 points, leading Missouri in scoring by a significant margin.

It was more so how Mitchell was scoring that made it so impressive. Most of his buckets came against Kentucky big man Amari Williams, who has three inches of eight and at least 30 pounds on Mitchell. Like usual, he was patient and physical down low, waiting for Williams to jump or drawing contact and getting to the free throw line.

His efficiency and reliability, which has been counted on during multiple games this season, was huge for the Tigers as the clock inched toward zero. Even when he wasn't scoring, Mitchell minimized his mistakes on offense. He didn't turn the ball over once and for the most part, his shot selection wasn't anything to complain about. Without his scoring contribution, the final score would have been much different.