Mizzou basketball’s losing streak hits 9. This may have been the worst loss to date
Nine straight games for Missouri basketball.
That’s the updated losing streak for the Tigers (8-14, 0-9 SEC) following Saturday’s performance. Missouri traveled to Vanderbilt (6-15, 1-7) as a road favorite in search of some momentum in the month of February but instead came away with a 68-61 loss.
Victory seemed in Missouri’s grasp early as it raced out to a double-digit lead, but behind Isaiah West, Tyrin Lawrence, and Ezra Manjon — all double-digit scorers for the Commodores — Vanderbilt surged back to claim its first conference victory.
Up next: Missouri returns home to face Texas A&M on Wednesday. The game will be shown on ESPN2 at 8 p.m.
Until then, here are three takeaways from Saturday’s game...
Noah Carter provides an early spark
The first four minutes were crucial as they propelled Missouri to a lead. And Noah Carter —who had his third 20-point game this season — was the driving force.
Six seconds in, Carter gave Missouri its first points with an alley-oop dunk off a pass from Nick Honor. On the next offensive trip, Carter collected an offensive board off an Honor miss and followed it up with his third and fourth points.
The Tigers led 9-2 following a 3-pointer and layup by the graduate student from Dubuque, Iowa. By the time the under-16 mark hit, Carter was 4-of-5 from the field for nine points to go along with three rebounds.
Carter snapped a four-game streak of not reaching double figures. He finished with 20 points, a team-high for the Tigers, to go along with six rebounds.
More first-half struggles for Mizzou
Much like previous games, Missouri struggled through the midway and latter parts of the first half.
Over the final 16 minutes of the first stanza, the Tigers shot 8-of-27 from the field, including a stretch where the Tigers didn’t score a field goal for almost six minutes until Aidan Shaw snapped it on a driving layup.
This resulted in Missouri losing the grip of a 20-9 lead in the first half. Vanderbilt took advantage of the Tigers’ scoring drought. The Commodores took their first lead of the game at the 4:53 mark and held a 32-29 advantage heading into the break.
Vanderbilt used the first-half momentum to extend its second-half lead by forcing the Tigers to play a game of catch-up.
The bottom of the SEC
Both teams were fighting to get out of a position they didn’t want to be in. Heading into February, Missouri and Vanderbilt were the two remaining teams in the SEC without a league victory.
Now it’s just the Tigers.
Missouri’s nine game-losing streak in SEC play matches the 2015-16 squad, which lost nine in a row after starting 1-1 in conference play. The 2016-17 squad also lost nine straight SEC games.
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