Missouri Tigers take care of business at Mizzou Arena, edging No. 19 Vanderbilt

The Missouri Tigers returned to the winning side of the ledger Wednesday evening.

They did it in impressive fashion, too ... for most of the game, anyway.

Mizzou led by as many as 21 points, then had to hold on for dear life in order to beat the No. 19-ranked Vanderbilt Commodores 81-80 in what became a Southeastern Conference nail-biter at Mizzou Arena.

The win came four days after the Tigers (18-8, 8-5 SEC) saw their three-game SEC win streak snapped with an 85-68 stumble at home against Texas.

In the end, there would be no such misstep against the Commodores (21-5, 8-5) — even if things looked pretty tenuous late, and especially after Mizzou had increased its lead and command throughout the game.

The Commodores mounted a furious comeback attempt, to be sure. But the Tigers were able to fend off their ranked visitors for a win that felt all the more important with the NCAA Tournament drawing near.

Jayden Stone, the senior guard from Perth, Australia, was instrumental to the Tigers’ efforts. He finished with a team-leading 19 points and seven rebounds.

“We just wanted to close it out well,” Stone said in a postgame interview on the SEC Network. “We’ve been working on it, and I am just grateful we got the dub.”

Tigers guard T.O. Barrett and Trent Pierce finished with 16 points apiece. Anthony Robinson II added 12 and senior Mark Mitchell, the Kansas City native, contributed 11 along with a career-high nine assists.

Vanderbilt’s Tyler Tanner led all scorers with 27 points.

Mizzou coach Dennis Gates executed a series of wise decisions in Wednesday night’s physical contest. One biggie occurred with just under 9 minutes remaining and resulted in Vandy’s Devin McGlockton being assessed his second flagrant foul of the evening.

Only upon Gates’ appeal of the initial foul call was the infraction upgraded to a flagrant 1 offense. That sent Robinson to the free-throw line and spotlighted a rule in college hoops that allows a player to accumulate two flagrants in a game (McGlockton was not ejected, but a third such offense would’ve sent him to the showers).

Stone and Barrett had 12 first-half points apiece as the Tigers led 36-30 at halftime. Stone hit three of his four opening-half 3-point attempts, while Barrett sank a pair.

Mizzou shot 38% in the opening half and hit six 3-pointers in 13 tries. For the game, MU shot 44% to the Commodores’ 43%, but Vandy out-rebounded Missouri 37-34.

Missouri returns to the court Saturday at 3 p.m. against the Arkansas Razorbacks in Fayetteville, Ark. The game will be televised on ESPN.

This story was originally published February 18, 2026 at 10:43 PM.