Mizzou's Loss to Arkansas Makes 2023-'24 Season One of the Worst in Program History
This season of Missouri Tigers men's basketball has been rather uninspiring. Even in moments where they are creating history.
On Saturday, the team lost to Arkansas, extending the losing streak to 14. It's the longest losing streak in program history. Mizzou hasn't won since Dec. 30 of 2023 and is still winless in Southeastern Conference play. If the Tigers fail to win any of their last four games, it will be their first time going winless in conference games since the 1907-08 season.
When head coach Dennis Gates was asked whether on not he used the threat of the undesirable record as motivation for his team heading into Saturday, he restated his usual mindset.
"No, I focus on one day at a time, one game at a time," Gates said. "I've never done that in a winning streak (used records as motivations). ... I thought our guys mentally prepared in the right way. Our spirits are high. Our coaching staff is doing a great job. At the end of the day, what you see is a team playing hard and giving their very best no matter what our circumstances are and there's no excuses."
In the first half against Arkansas, Missouri fought through a slow start to trail Arkansas 36-34 at halftime. Graduate guard Sean East II scored 12 points in the last four minutes of the half. He and the rest of the Missouri offense found a good groove by driving inside and scoring in the paint.
But in the second half, the Arkansas defense adjusted by keying in on East and few Tigers were able to step up offensively. East ended with a career high of 33 points, making it his third straight game scoring over 20 points. But outside of East, the rest of the Missouri starters averaged just five points.
"You need that fourth guy to step up and Noah Carter wasn't able to do that tonight," Gates said. "He was 0-for-4 from the three and he missed some easy baskets in the paint so I just think that fourth guy would've given us balance and I credit Arkansas, they had 22 points off the bench to our seven."
The Missouri offense especially stalled in the final 10 minutes of the game, where they only made six field goals compared to Arkansas' 43. Gates chalked it up to getting away from the physical drives into the paint that worked in the first half.
"The first half of play we did a great job. ... Especially in the paint and the 2-point field goal area," Gates said. "I think we got away from making those shots once we got it. We did get the field goal attempts, the shots on goal but we wasn't able to execute in the paint and that part hurt us from scoring."
Gates, however, was pleased with the his team's ability to get to the free throw line. Four days after he used explicative language to describe his team's inability to draw fouls, the Tigers earned 30 free throw shots.
" I just think at the end of our day, our guys executed on the free throw line, they got to the line but we wasn't able to get the stops when we needed the stops in that second half," Gates said.
The Tigers also fell victim to senior guard Khalif Brown having one of the best performances in Arkansas men's basketball history. He scored 42, the seventh most in Arkansas history. Eighteen of his points came from 3-pointers.
"He made some tough shots from behind the arc, some step backs and obviously some deep," Gates said. "He's a good player and that was their chance of winning that game on a hot hand. I thought our chance in winning the game was off of a hot hand as well and Sean East did a great job but again, the other guys, when you look at our scoring grid, you look at Nick Honor, Noah Carter and Tamar Bates, we need those guys to be able to produce and carry the load when it comes down to our scoring."
In what feels like a nightmare season for Missouri only has four regular-season games remaining. The Tigers will travel to Gainesville on Wednesday Feb. 28 to take on the Florida Gators at 5:30 p.m.
