Turnovers prove costly in No. 15 Missouri men's basketball's road loss to Arkansas

Eli Hoff, St. Louis Post-Dispatch on Feb 22, 2025

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FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — Missouri turned the ball over until it was game over.

The No. 15 Tigers were sloppy in the first half but led thanks to 3-point shooting, then continued to cough up the ball over and over again, leading to a 92-85 defeat to the Arkansas Razorbacks.

By losing to Arkansas (16-11 overall, 5-9 Southeastern Conference), Mizzou (20-7, 9-5) slips to sixth in the conference standings — sitting on the wrong end of the tiebreaker with Tennessee and Texas A&M, both of which have beat MU.

Five Missouri players scored in double figures: Forward Mark Mitchell (17 points), guard Marques Warrick (16), guard Caleb Grill (13), point guard Tony Perkins (10) and forward Jacob Crews (10).

Four Arkansas players scored 14 or more points, led by guard Johnell Davis and center Zvonimir Ivisic, who scored 18 and 20, respectively.

The Razorbacks were the better team in the opening stages of the game, attacking switches down low and stagnating the MU offense by forcing turnovers and protecting the paint well. The Tigers' shooters loosened up that end of the floor, though.

Grill, Warrick and Crews each scored in double figures in the first half, shooting a combined 6-12 from 3-point range in the first frame.

The visitors held onto a seven-point lead at the break, leading 48-41 after Warrick made a deep 3 just before the buzzer and gave the Bud Walton Arena crowd the "shh" sign.

Arkansas stuck to its game plan to start the second half, turning MU over and charging right to the rim. That pattern got the Hogs back in front with 15:33 to go via free throws.

Neither team led by more than three points until Ivisic drained a corner 3 and Mizzou committed and over-and-back violation, setting up another Arkansas 3 for the hosts to go up 70-63 with eight minutes to go. Yet another Missouri turnover led to a layup down low that pushed the Hogs' advantage into double digits, the first time either team led by 10 or more.

From there, the closest the Tigers came to matching the Razorbacks was cutting the lead to five points inside the final minute with a possession to make it a one-score game, which saw a Grill 3 bounce no good off the rim.

Takeaways

— Mizzou was uncharacteristically turnover-prone. The Tigers entered the game coughing up the ball on just 15.1% of their possessions during SEC play, which was the fourth-best mark in the conference. Bu during the first half, MU posted a turnover rate of 30.8% in the first half — more than double the usual clip. The visitors mildly reigned in the turnover problems during the second half and took the ball from the Hogs more to even out the overall turnover numbers. Arkansas, critically, scored 16 more points off of turnovers than Missouri.

— Veteran enter Josh Gray missed Saturday's game with an illness and did not travel to Fayetteville. The Tigers planned on replacing him "by committee," coach Dennis Gates said before the game, and turned to a handful of forwards to fill the gap: depth piece Aidan Shaw, freshman Marcus Allen and freshman Peyton Marshall were among the replacements. The results weren't especially pretty: Arkansas scored 44 points in the paint to MU's 28.

— Former Mizzou coach Mike Anderson was in Bud Walton Arena as Arkansas honored its 1990 Final Four team. He was an assistant coach for that postseason run by the Hogs, which came more than a decade before his five seasons in Columbia. Anderson went 111-57 with the Tigers, including a 2009 Elite Eight appearance, before leaving to take the Arkansas head coach job in 2011.

Key moment

As Arkansas controlled the second half, Mizzou threatened for a brief moment to rally. Warrick knocked down a stepback 3 that cut the lead to five inside the final 40 seconds. Trying to trap the Arkansas offense, the Tigers got a steal and clean 3-point look for Grill, their sharpshooter. His jumper clanked off the front iron, and the visitors resorted to a fruitless rendition of the intentional foul dance.

Grill struggled from 3-point range, shooting 2 for 12 from beyond the arc.

Key stat

18: That's how many times Mizzou turned the ball over, which was the most for the Tigers in SEC play. The most they'd previously coughed up possessions to a league opponent this season was 16 times at Auburn. The season-high for turnovers is 20 against Lindenwood.

Up next

Missouri returns home for a tilt with South Carolina at 9 p.m. ET Tuesday. The Gamecocks were winless in conference play entering their Saturday game against Texas, which means the Tigers can spend their rebound year from a winless league pushing another program toward that.

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