Mizzou Tigers basketball climbs up AP Top 25 poll and is the top ranked team in SEC
The Missouri men’s basketball team had arguably one of its most important weeks of the conference season. The Tigers welcomed Kentucky and then-No. 10 Alabama, both formidable foes vying for road victories.
Mizzou emerged 2-0 against the Wildcats and Crimson Tide (aside from late-game drama), improving its record to 6-3 in the SEC and 13-3 overall. That boosted the Tigers’ ranking to No. 10 in the Associated Press Top 25 poll released Monday, the highest of any SEC team. Bama dropped to No. 11; Tennessee came in at No. 16.
The Tigers boast some of the impressive wins in the country, beating three top-10 teams at the time of the game. They’ve downed Illinois and Alabama at home, along with a road win at Tennessee.
That bodes well for NCAA Tournament Selection Sunday. Mizzou is well on its way to earning a bid to March Madness for the first time since the 2017-18 season, MU coach Cuonzo Martin’s first season with the program.
A quick look at the NCAA Evaluation Tool, or NET, rankings show some solid signs but also some confusion. Mizzou is No. 24 in the NET, which the selection committee uses to determine seeds and who makes the tournament.
Another factor of the NET rankings is the quadrant-style wins. Each game is put into one of four quadrants, a snapshot of how tough each game is based on opponent, venue and more. For example, a Quadrant 1 win is a home game vs. teams ranked 1-30, neutral games vs. teams 1-50 and away games vs. teams 1-75.
The Tigers are 4-3 in those Quadrant 1 games ... but what gives? They were just recently jostling for tops in those nation for those types of wins.
The answer lies in how their past opponents have fared. Mizzou’s neutral site game vs. Oregon had been considered a Quadrant 1 game. But the Ducks have dropped to 58th in the NET, which bumped that game down to Quadrant 2 for Mizzou’s purposes. Same deal with the road game at Wichita State. The Shockers are 76th, right outside the cutoff of a Quadrant 1 game.
Mizzou’s other Quadrant 1 wins are unlikely to be affected much going forward. The No. 4 Illinois (home), No. 10 Tennessee (away), No. 8 Alabama (home) and No. 29 Arkansas (away) victories are comfortably within the top tier window.
Most bracketology predictions have Mizzou hovering from around the No. 4 seed line for the NCAA tourney. There’s still some work to do and the Tigers can pad their resume with more wins. They also have an outside shot of catching Alabama in the SEC standings, especially now that they have the head-to-head tiebreaker.