Pourover: Maybe they’ve figured it out

STARKVILLE, MISSISSIPPI - FEBRUARY 28: Head coach Dennis Gates of the Missouri Tigers congratulates Jamarion Davis-Fleming #0 during the first half against the Mississippi State Bulldogs at Humphrey Coliseum on February 28, 2026 in Starkville, Mississippi. (Photo by Jason Clark/Getty Images) | Getty

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What is the story about?

At the start of the new year, I published my annual new year’s day post regarding Mizzou Hoops, and things were very different than they are right now. People were down on the Tigers. They were 10-3, and ranked 65th in KenPom.com. They were predicted to finish outside of the NCAA Tournament conversation, and people were vocal in the comments about their displeasure with the state of Mizzou Basketball.

I was more cautious in my criticism. I wasn’t happy about the state of the team this season. But

I’d seen enough of the SEC to know there was still a path forward for the Tigers if they could just figure out what the best version of themselves would be this season. The league was still a quality league, but it wasn’t the murderers row from last year. There were a lot of wins on the table.

Perhaps the timeline grew thanks to injuries to Trent Pierce and Jayden Stone. Maybe the regression of Anthony Robinson threw a bigger wrench in the plans than Dennis Gates expected. It’s possible seeing some kind of positive version of Annor Boateng gave the coaching staff confidence they couldn’t redeem. For whatever reason you want to prescribe, Mizzou went from a preseason top 30 team, to one struggling to find any level of relevance in early January.

But then they beat Florida. The Gators weren’t what people thought they would be at that point, but they were still top 15 in most of the analytics services. The Gators have since climbed to 4th in KenPom after a 30 point shellacking of the Arkansas Razorbacks last night, and are now 23-6, winning 14 of 15 games since losing in Columbia.

Then they beat Kentucky, and while the Wildcats aren’t the title contender some envisioned, Mizzou had never won in Rupp. So the win mattered.

But losses in three of the next four games made everyone question if the first two games were a fluke, and the Tigers were returning to their December woes after a dead cat bounce?

It hasn’t been perfect. Mizzou needed two miraculous three point makes by Pierce and Mark Mitchell to beat Oklahoma at home in late January. They got pantsed pretty hard in a road trip to Tuscaloosa, giving back many of the gains they’d made in early January. Even the last time Mizzou played Mississippi State they had an uneven performance, they won, but allowed State to get back into the contest after extending their lead to 15 points multiple times.

I feel it’s safe to reiterate, before we proceed, this SEC is not last year’s SEC. The league is still quality, however. It’s still the top ranked conference in the country, which is a measurement of what the resume metrics of a team going 9-9 would look like. There is no atrocious team in the conference.

“But South Carolina!” You say.

Yes the Gamecocks are 95th in KenPom, which would’ve been 8th in the league in 2013. Mississippi State dropped to 96th after getting bombed out by Mizzou yesterday, that would have finished 9th in 2014. Basically every SEC team is in the top 100, and there are 11 teams inside the top 50, with another two in the top 60. That’s most of the league.

The metrics for the Tigers are still lagging a bit, they did underachieve through the first two months of the year. That’s hard to shake for services that insist on using all of your possessions to judge who you are.

But that’s why BartTorvik.com is a helpful website, the site allows you to search over periods of time. I mentioned the Tigers monthly analytics rankings in yesterday’s GameDay post. Using Torvik, I know that since the month of February began, there are only 13 teams who have played better basketball than Missouri. That encompasses the last 7 games, where the Tigers are 5-2.

BartTorvik.com’s GameScore metric for each game has the Tigers scoring no lower than 89 in every game save for the home game against Texas.

They’re playing well, in a good conference, and it’s put them in position to know they will be playing basketball in the NCAA Tournament. And, maybe just as important, they’re playing for a potential double bye in the SEC Tournament.

With all the results in, and only two games left to play, the Tigers are in control of their own destiny for a double bye.

If Missouri wins at Oklahoma, and beats Arkansas at home next Saturday, they will finish conference play 12-6. The only teams who can finish tied or ahead of the Tigers are Florida (can finish 16-2 — MSU and Kentucky await), Alabama (can finish 14-4 — Georgia and Auburn await), Arkansas (can finish 13-5 — Texas and Missouri await), and then Mizzou, Kentucky, and Tennessee are all tied at 10-6.

Mizzou is at Oklahoma and home versus Arkansas.

Kentucky is at Texas A&M and home versus Florida.

Tennessee is at South Carolina and home versus Vanderbilt.

Mizzou has beaten both Kentucky and Tennessee, but they’ve also beaten Florida. So far the only teams to have beaten UF are Mizzou and Auburn. Kentucky played them already once, so the best they can hope for is a .500 record against the Gators.

Obviously there are a lot of scenarios involved in all of this. But you can’t get there if you don’t win in Norman. And Mizzou should be all too familiar with plans gone awry after a road game at Lloyd Noble. A win in Norman would mean that Missouri has figured it out.