Mizzou Tigers are a mystery as March Madness nears, as shown in OT Arkansas loss
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Reinforcements sparked a rebound, including a win over No. 5 Florida.
- OT loss leaves Tigers 20-11 and seeded between 5th and 10th in SEC tourney.
- Program on upswing but hasn’t advanced past opening rounds in recent Tours.
As Mizzou star Mark Mitchell on Saturday pondered life lessons from this fickle season, his immediate thought was the Illinois debacle: a 43-point loss on Dec. 22 that made it natural for anyone watching to question this team’s direction.
While MU coach Dennis Gates reckons everyone still was “excited from the inside looking out,” Mitchell on Saturday called it “a dark day” and said in the hotel afterward some players wondered, “Where are we going from here?”
Next thing you know, a certain resilience was catalyzed by reinforcements in the form of previously injured Trent Pierce and Jayden Stone. MU abruptly reset with a win over Florida — now ranked fifth in the country.
Over the last couple of months, Mizzou played its way back to being at-times tantalizing before settling into where it is after an 88-84 overtime loss to Arkansas on Saturday at Mizzou Arena — a defeat that felt like a microcosm of it all.
Mizzou is Winston Churchill meeting Forrest Gump: a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside a box of chocolates, with no way to yet know what you’re going to get.
A team still too intriguing to dismiss, but too confounding to have faith in its NCAA Tournament prospects — assuming the Tigers indeed are in the field as they enter this week’s Southeastern Conference Tournament 20-11 overall and 10-8 in the grueling SEC.
With the loss, the Tigers missed out on the opportunity for an SEC tourney double-bye and will be seeded eighth. MU will open the tournament Thursday against the winner of the first-round game between ninth-seeded Kentucky and No. 16 seed LSU.
Even after the loss, MU appeared in 100 of 101 bracket selections compiled by Bracket Matrix, and by most logic MU figures to make the field regardless of what happens in Nashville this coming week.
While Gates emphasized that no one writing stories or posting on social media is in the room with the selection committee and that “Selection Sunday is left for Selection Sunday,” he made compelling points about why MU belongs — starting with how the Tigers have changed since that shocking game against Illinois.
“Our team hadn’t started growing and developing until after the new year …” said Gates, who shrugged off the implication of MU’s largely soft non-conference schedule. “Our schedule is right where it needs to be. … Being able to get double-digit wins in this conference is an unbelievable accomplishment, and I’m proud of that.”
Gates also brought up MU’s “wins above bubble” rating of 36, and, quite saliently, how much better Mizzou has been overall since the return of key players.
“When we got 100%, what did our team look like,” he said, “and what did we accomplish?”
Just ask Arkansas coach John Calipari, who called Gates a coach of the year candidate because of how he kept a largely new team together and has figured it out along the way.
“Obviously (Missouri is) an NCAA Tournament team and a team that can advance,” Calipari said. “My guess is Dennis will push them that way.”
But making the tournament and advancing are two entirely different things, as MU fans know too well from a history of first-round losses.
And that’s where this team’s streakiness looms over the proceedings.
Almost exactly every time you might think Wow, a trap door seems to fall open. And every time you think they’re going nowhere, fresh hope emerges.
The Tigers opened the SEC season by beating Florida and winning at Kentucky, only to lose at Ole Miss — which finished the regular season 4-14 in conference.
They lost at LSU, which finished the regular season 3-15 in SEC play.
Conversely, they followed an 85-68 clunker against Texas with a win over a ranked Vanderbilt team.
Then they offset their first loss to Arkansas by beating ranked Tennessee and clobbering Mississippi State. It appeared the Tigers had found themselves, and just the right rotation, and were peaking at the right time.
And then, wham, they lost 80-64 at Oklahoma.
Saturday’s game featured a feverish but futile effort marked by a rally from 15 down in the first half, 12 ties and 12 lead changes. One more lead change, at the end of regulation, would have made this day land differently.
But T.O. Barrett missed a floater on the way to the hoop in the final seconds, and Trent Pierce hurried a would-be putback confused by the second or so difference between the shot clock and game clock.
In overtime, Arkansas fended off MU to eclipse a terrific day by Mitchell, the senior and Duke transfer from Kansas City, Kansas, who scored a career-high 32-points.
During Missouri’s senior day ceremony after the game, Mitchell almost immediately broke into tears over the finality of his last home game.
But while MU doesn’t want to tempt fate with a clunker in the SEC tourney, Mitchell’s chances for more remain intact: His legacy and that of Gates and this team has ample room to grow in the NCAA Tournament, which Mizzou and its fans can legitimately hope the Tigers will enter for the third time in four seasons under Gates.
“Obviously, I don’t make any decisions or anything like that,” Mitchell said, “but if you’re a basketball watcher, I think we’re definitely deserving.”
Even qualifying would make for a further foundational stepping stone for Gates’ program, which will bring in the nation’s top-ranked recruiting class next season — and up to this season has been on the upswing ... but prone to great pendulum swings.
In Gates’ first season, he guided the Tigers to their first NCAA Tournament win in 13 years. Then came an 0-18 SEC season before he coaxed the team back into NCAA play in 2025, only to lose in the first round.
Mizzou hasn’t won more than one game in the NCAA Tournament since 2009, and that 2023 win under Gates is the school’s only one at all since 2010.
This team seems to have the goods to make a dent but also the capacity to fall right away.
The positive difference would mark a fundamental shift in perception of the program, which has progressed but awaits a dynamic next step.
So, albeit in an entirely different context than after the Illinois game, the question very much remains … Where are they going from here?
This story was originally published March 7, 2026 at 5:00 PM.