Mizzou basketball struggled offensively as Alabama's hot shooting dominated, leading to Missouri's largest conference defeat this season.
Alabama basketball earned a win. Missouri basketball suffered a loss. Annor Boateng took a trip to the free-throw line. And fans at Coleman Colesium got free french fries.
Missouri took the largest loss of its conference schedule Tuesday night, falling 90-64 to the Alabama Crimson Tide on the road. The Tigers drop to 14-7 on the season and 4-4 in conference play, putting them at No. 9 in the Southeastern Conference standings.
In fact, the 26-point loss was a bigger point differential than Missouri's previous three SEC losses combined.
74-72 loss to Georgia
78-70 loss @ LSU
76-69 loss @ Ole Miss
Missouri was outclassed all around the board, as the Tide led nearly every major statistical category. Perhaps the most stark of contrasts was the shooting discrepancies — Alabama converted 15 of its 39 3-pointers and 23 of its 26 free-throws. Latrell Wrightsell Jr. made a career-high seven 3-pointers.
Missouri shot just 4-for-21 from beyond-the-arc and 8-for-23 from the charity stripe — Wrightsell alone nearly doubled Missouri's made 3-pointer total.
Missouri's 34.8% was the worst single-game free-throw percentage with 20 or more attempts of the century. In addition, only one other Division I team this season shot lower than 35% from the free-throw line with 20 or more attempts this season (Air Force on Nov. 18).
Team captain Mark Mitchell was the main culprit of Missouri's free-throw woes. He shot 1-for-8 from the line, accounting for 33% of Missouri's misses. His poor performance was out of the blue, as he made 20 of his 25 free-throws between the previous three games.
While Mitchell was the main culprit, Annor Boateng was the Tiger who evoked the most cheers from the fans of Coleman Colesium. He missed a pair of free-throws late in the second half that awarded fans in attendance with free french fries, sending them home much happier than the Tigers.
Missouri's cold shooting allowed Alabama to go on many runs, the worst of which
- 15-2 run from 13:48 remaining in the second half to the 8:31 remaining in the second half.
- 12-2 run from 7:37 remaining in first half to 4:24 remaining of first half.
Alabama's Wrightsell, Labaron Philon, Aiden Sherrell and Charles Bediako each scored more than Missouri's leading scorer, T.O. Barrett.
Barrett, who was making his second career start, scored 13 points on 5-for-10 shooting, making two of his three 3-pointers to set a career-high for 3-pointers made in a game. He entered the road dual 2-for-18 on his career and having missed 11 consecutive deep balls.
Anthony Robinson II, who used to start over Barrett but was now participating in his second consecutive game off the bench, scored five points in 15 minutes — Barrett seems to have a steady hold of the starting job.
Other Tigers to score in double figures include Mitchell with 11 and Shawn Phillips Jr. with 10. Jayden Stone tacked on eight points and eight rebounds, while the other seven Tigers to take the court each scored less than five points.
Missouri will next host Mississippi State on Saturday at 2:30 p.m.