Defense proves costly as Mizzou men's hoops loses at Oklahoma, drops out of SEC double-bye race

Eli Hoff, St. Louis Post-Dispatch on Mar 5, 2025

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Say goodbye to the double bye.

No. 15 Missouri men's basketball took itself out of contention for a top-four finish in the Southeastern Conference and extended a three-game road losing streak in a 96-84 loss at Oklahoma on Wednesday.

Freshman sensation Jeremiah Fears scored 26 points to lead Oklahoma (18-12 overall, 5-13 SEC), which entered the game fighting to stay alive in NCAA Tournament discussions and played with the requisite urgency.

Mizzou (21-9 overall, 10-7 SEC) looked more like a team sputtering into the postseason. Forward Mark Mitchell scored a team-high 18 points on 7-for-8 shooting, while guard Caleb Grill added 16 points. The Tigers will finish the season 3-7 in true road games.

The Sooners opened the game by scoring their first 20 points in the paint, a sign of both their game plan and the efficiency with which they would control the game. Oklahoma finished the night shooting 57% from the field with 48 points in the paint, compared to MU's 47% shooting from the field and 34 paint points.

OU's interior attack — and the Tigers' absent ability to keep the hosts from getting downhill — led to 50 first-half points, which was just the second time this season and first in SEC play that Missouri conceded 50 points in a first half. Mizzou has, however, given up four 50-point halves in its last five games after allowing just one in its prior 18 games.

That crystallizes defensive concerns that now seem rather pressing for MU, which is now trending in the wrong direction during the most critical month of the season. A favorable finish to the regular season that included rematches against three teams that the Tigers beat handily in Columbia, Mo. — Arkansas, Vanderbilt and Oklahoma — has turned into three defeats and no season sweeps.

OU's lead swelled to as much as 18 in the second half, when it led 66-48 with 11:22 left in the game. A big Grill triple cut that to eight points inside the final five minutes, but Missouri didn't have enough left in the tank to complete the comeback. Any time the Mizzou offense seemed to gain enough ground to even begin to threaten the Sooners' lead, a defensive breakdown snuffed out the rally.

Takeaways

— With Wednesday's loss, MU is officially out of the mix for a double bye in the SEC Tournament. The best the Tigers can now finish in the regular standings is fifth, though they slipped to sixth at the present after Texas A&M — which holds a head-to-head tiebreaker over Missouri — toppled Auburn to match Mizzou's 10-7 conference record and move up one spot. Auburn, Florida, Tennessee and Alabama are locked into the top four spots, though the latter three will work out their finishing order on Saturday. Missouri could conceivably finish as low as seventh in the regular season standings, depending on Saturday results around the SEC. The Tigers lost control of their own destiny in the double-bye race with the weekend's loss to Vanderbilt, though results around the conference kept them very much alive until tonight's defeat relinquished any remaining opportunity.

— How different was this game from the first time this teams met this season? Back on Feb. 12 in Columbia, Oklahoma scored 58 points in the entire game. It took only 25 minutes of game time for the Sooners to eclipse that mark in the rematch.

— Gates put 13 different players into the game, trying to find some sort of spark or production. That included true freshmen T.O. Barrett and Annor Boateng, who play infrequently, but it was to no real effect.

Key moment

With seven minutes and change to go in the first half, a familiar tale unfolded on the painted hardwood in front of Missouri's basket. The Sooners sent the Tigers' guards into rotation, then guard Jalon Moore drove downhill to finish over Mitchell. Grill threw the ball away on the other end, which sent OU charging back down the court for another layup. That burst gave the hosts their first 10-point lead of the game.

Key stat

96-140: That's the differential between Mizzou and its last three road opponents in points in the paint, a 44-point gap across those outings. Interior defense has been a concern, and Oklahoma's willingness to attack the rim early on showed that other teams have caught on.

It isn't just that stretch either that is prompting some statistical concerns, either. Mizzou has given up 40-plus points in the paint in just seven of its 30 games this season. Five of those occurrences have come in the last seven games — Feb. 15 at Georgia, Feb. 22 at Arkansas, Feb. 25 at home against South Carolina, over the weekend at Vanderbilt and Wednesday at Oklahoma — which suggests a significant crack has emerged in the Tigers' armor.

Up next

Missouri will continue its push for SEC and NCAA Tournament seeding in its home finale at 11 a.m. Saturday against No. 19 Kentucky (20-10 overall, 9-8 SEC). The Wildcats are in a similar tier of program as the Tigers and only one game behind in the conference standings, so the winner of this matinee will pick up a key win for postseason seeding purposes.

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