Missouri men's basketball hopes to end regular season on a high note

Missouri may not be on the NCAA Tournament bubble, but that doesn’t mean there’s nothing to play for in the regular-season finale Saturday at Mississippi State.

With a win, it’s possible the Tigers could tie Auburn in the SEC standings and even improve to the No. 13 seed for the conference tournament, which begins Wednesday in Nashville, Tenn.

Georgia would have to win at Auburn to force a tie in the standings, while LSU also would have to win at Arkansas to give Missouri, 9-21 and 3-14 in the SEC, the tiebreaker in terms of seeding.

It’s not much, but beggars can’t be choosy.

“There’s still a mathematical chance we could move up in the seeding, so there’s always something to play for …,” first-year coach Kim Anderson said. “We’ve been stuck down there at the bottom the whole year, so certainly that would signify we kept playing and we improved and were able to win some games. It would be a small victory, but it’s certainly something.”

The biggest hurdle might be a road win for the Tigers.

Missouri snapped a program-record 13-game skid last week and has won two of three games, beating Florida and Auburn at home, but it’s been more than 13 months since MU’s last road victory.

The Tigers have lost 14 consecutive road games overall and 13 in a row in SEC play since a 75-71 win Jan. 28, 2014, at Arkansas.

“It would be great to get a road win before we go into the SEC tournament, so we go in … with some momentum and feeling good about ourselves,” said sophomore forward Johnathan Williams III, Missouri’s leading scorer.

The road has been particularly unkind lately to the Tigers, who lost by 23 on Feb. 21 at Vanderbilt and by 24 on Feb. 28 at Georgia.

“The last two games that I recall have not been good at all,” Anderson said. “Even Arkansas wasn’t great. … (But) the last two road games we just haven’t played very well.”

Poor starts have plagued Missouri in those recent losses.

“We have a young team, but that’s not really an excuse,” junior forward Ryan Rosburg said. “We have to realize that everyone there is rooting against you and you need to be for each other. Not that we weren’t, but we really need to come together and have those fast starts, because when you get down on the road it’s not easy to come back.”

This story was originally published March 6, 2015 at 12:37 PM with the headline "Missouri men's basketball hopes to end regular season on a high note."