Mizzou can boost its NCAA Tournament chances in SEC play

Mizzou’s most significant accomplishment of the season came on Wednesday, when the Tigers beat Georgia at home.

Seriously. Even though the Tigers had recently won their first conference road game in 33 tries.

That win over Georgia was their first win this season over a team ranked in the top 50 in the NCAA’s rating percentage index, or RPI, which comprises a team’s win-loss record and its strength of schedule. The game was a signifier of the opportunity ahead for Missouri. The Tigers next opportunity comes on Saturday at Arkansas.

After playing just one team with an RPI in the top 50 — West Virginia — during non-conference play, the Tigers have already played two such teams through three Southeastern Conference games. Florida’s RPI ranks 35th, and Georgia’s is 43rd.

The SEC is a good basketball league this season. Coaches keep saying it, and they are correct.

Of Mizzou’s final 15 games, 10 are against teams with RPI’s ranked inside the top 60 in the country, according to the NCAA’s Friday rankings. Four of the games are against teams with current RPIs at 14 or better: Tennessee (14), Auburn (11) and Kentucky (6, and on Missouri’s schedule twice).

Arkansas’ RPI of 26 is one spot ahead of Missouri’s, and the Tigers face the Razorbacks twice during their remaining 15 games.

“This league is very deep this year,” Missouri senior Jordan Barnett said. “There’s no giveaway games this year.”

The NCAA Tournament selection committee often makes RPI one of its primary considerations when deciding whether a bubble team joins the field of 68. So almost all of Missouri’s remaining games can provide significant help to the Tigers’ NCAA Tournament chances.

ESPN’s Joe Lunardi, a NCAA Tournament “bracketologist,” put Missouri as a No. 11 seed in his latest bracket, which has the Tigers facing Gonzaga in San Diego in the round of 64.

After a last-second loss to Florida, Lunardi dropped the Tigers’ seeding from his previous Jan. 4 bracket, which had them as a No. 9 seed in the Midwest Regional.

So Missouri is a bubble team, and according to ESPN’s rankings, the Tigers have played the 23rd toughest schedule in the country and the fifth hardest in the SEC.

Last season, five SEC teams made the NCAA Tournament. And three of them reached the Elite Eight, the most of any conference.

Now SEC coaches are saying this:

“You could lose six or seven (conference games) and win the league,” said Kentucky coach John Calipari, whose teams over recent years have often faced minimal resistance on their way to SEC titles.

Only two teams, Florida and Auburn, remain undefeated in conference play. All others have beat up on one another.

Ole Miss coach Andy Kennedy said a team with a .500 SEC record could end up in the NCAA Tournament. And for Lunardi’s latest bracket to be right — it included eight SEC teams — Kennedy’s prediction might need to be true.

This is true, too: Missouri would prefer to not be the test case.

This story was originally published January 12, 2018 at 6:43 PM with the headline "Mizzou can boost its NCAA Tournament chances in SEC play."