Previewing How the Tigers Match Up with Miami on the 'All Things Mizzou' Podcast

Missouri will step into the madness Friday night, with the No. 10 seed Tigers set to take on No. 7 seed Miami in St. Louis.

To prepare for the matchup, Missouri basketball reporters Joey Van Zummeren, Michael Stamps, Killian Wright talked with Miami basketball reporter Justice Sandle to get some insight on the Hurricanes.

The group discussed the similarities between the two teams, the role each teams' bigs will play, what each team will need to do to win, and more.

You can watch or listen to the episode via YouTube with the link below, or through Spotify, ApplePodcasts orAmazon.

This will be the third NCAA Tournament appearence for Missouri under head coach Dennis Gates. The challenge for Gates will be improving from a 1-2 record in the first two appearences.

"If I stood on the podium (at his opening press conference) and said, 'I guarantee you we will go to the three out of the four next NCAA tournaments,' there would be many people that would say it's never happened in the history of our school while we've been in the SEC, there would be plenty to say that no coach has done it like that (in Missouri's time in the SEC). There would be many to prophecy failure. There would be many saying it's not possible," Gates said when speaking to reporters Sunday night.

What jumps off the page for this meeting is how similar the two teams are. Led by first-year head coach Jai Lucas, the Hurricanes' identity has a lot of overlap with the Tigers. Both teams attempt north of 20 free throws a game, but near the bottom of their conference for free-throw shooting percentage. Both teams' offenses are led by big forwards, and neither team is built around frequent 3-point shooting.

Additionally, there's several ties between the two programs. Lucas was an associate head coach at Duke when Missouri forward Mark Mitchell played with the Blue Devils for the first two seasons of his career. Missouri guard Anthony Robinson II was high school teammates with Miami guard Tre Donaldson. Miami guard Marcus Allen spent the first year of his career with Missouri. Finally, Miami associate head coach Charlton Young joined the Hurricanes' staff after three seasons with Missouri.

The two familiar teams will meet 9:10 p.m. Friday at the Enterprise Center.

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