Mark Mitchell carries Tigers in last game at Mizzou Arena, but Arkansas wins in OT
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Mark Mitchell scored a career-high 32 points and surpassed 1,000 for Missouri.
- Missouri totaled 18 fouls and committed two turnovers in final 25 seconds.
- Arkansas won 86-84 in overtime; Mizzou now awaits SEC tournament seeding.
The Missouri Tigers men’s basketball team played the equivalent of a heavyweight fight to close out the 2025-26 regular season on Saturday afternoon in Columbia.
The Mizzou Arena court even resembled an MMA mat at one point, as noted on the ESPN broadcast. MU’s Jayden Stone cut his head open on the backboard after hanging on the rim following a dunk against Arkansas; a brief delay ensued as blood was cleaned from the floor.
In a game that had all the makings of March Madness, Missouri (20-11, 10-8 SEC) ultimately beat itself in the final seconds of a 86-84 overtime loss to the Razorbacks (23-8, 13-5). MU turned it over twice in the deciding and last 25 seconds, the game’s physicality catching up with the Tigers.
Down by two, Mizzou fouled Arkansas’ D.J. Wagner and sent him to the line with eight seconds to go. Wagner missed both free throws, but Malique Ewin grabbed the rebound and was shoved out of bounds by Tigers guard T.O. Barrett for another Mizzou foul.
That sent Ewin to the line, where he coolly sank both free throws to make it a two-possession game. Then Barrett hit a layup, but Anthony Robinson II committed his fifth infraction to send Ewin right back to the line, where he again made both shots.
“We had multiple opportunities in the end,” Missouri coach Dennis Gates told reporters in Columbia. “We just didn’t close it.”
Mizzou totalled 18 fouls as a team in its regular-season and Southeastern Conference finale. Along with Robinson fouling out, Shawn Phillips Jr. finished with four fouls, Trent Pierce three.
Mark Mitchell celebrated Senior Day accordingly, pouring in a career-high 32 points. He went 11-for-20 from the field and was a factor at the free-throw line, going 9-of-11. MU was 17-for-22 as a team from the stripe.
“I thought he did a great job from a distribution standpoint ...” Gates said of Mitchell, who also recorded four assists and four turnovers. “That’s an unbelievable stat line for anybody.”
Mitchell, from Kansas City, reached the 1,000-point plateau as a Tiger on Saturday despite being with the program for just two seasons. He reflected on his time with Gates’ team in his postgame interview with reporters in Columbia.
“Mizzou is everything I could have asked for and more,” Mitchell said. “So I’m just forever grateful that I could find such a great place. I came from a great place (he trasferred to MU from Duke), so just to find somewhere this genuine with the people, the community, somewhere I can really feel comfortable, just a great program — it’s just a blessing.”
Phillips and Trent Pierce had 13 points apiece, Jayden Stone 11 and T.O. Barrett 10 to round out the Tigers’ list of double-digit scorers. Phillips led Missouri on the glass with 10 rebounds.
Coach John Calipari’s Razorbacks got it done without likely SEC Player of the Year Darius Acuff Jr., who averaged 22.4 points per game this season. Arkansas still led by as many as 15 points in the first half.
Early on, it looked like the game had gotten away from Mizzou. But the Tigers went on a 16-4 run in the final 5 minutes, 30 seconds of the opening half. It was a one-possession affair when Mitchell made a layup with 3 seconds left before intermission.
Missouri had the lead at times in the second half but never went up by more than five.
“We got stops,” Gates said. “We stopped that team from being in the fast break, we took care of the basketball. We were able to rebound and I thought we were organized, from the standpoint of offensively being able to execute.”
Meleek Thomas led the visiting Hogs with 28 points. Former Tiger Trevon Brazile had 19 points plus a team-high nine rebounds. Ewin finished with 17 points.
“He’s just really good,” Mitchell said of Thomas. “He’s kind of been doing the same thing with Acuff playing. Obviously, with Acuff out, he had some tough ones, man. He’s a really good player.”
Now MU awaits other final-game results, from elsewhere in the SEC, to learn its seeding for the coming week’s conference tournament in Nashville.
After that, the NCAA Tournament awaits.
This story was originally published March 7, 2026 at 2:17 PM.
