Mizzou basketball has perfected its performance just in time to make the NCAA Tournament. The Tigers' win over Mississippi State solidified that.
Injuries and inconsistency have plagued Missouri basketball all season.
Jayden Stone and Trent Pierce both missed significant action in the non-conference slate. Team captain Anthony Robinson II was a shell of himself for much of conference play. The entire center rotation has struggled to string together consecutive positive games.
But at the perfect time, everything is coming up Missouri.
Centers Shawn Phillips Jr. and Trent Burns combined for 24 points and nine rebounds. Robinson dropped 13 points on 4-for-10 shooting. Stone and Pierce are the Tigers’ second and third-leading scorers and have played all 16 conference games.
Jevon Porter and Annor Boateng are now the only Tigers sidelined with injury.
Missouri just picked up the largest win of its grueling conference slate, beating the Bulldogs by 24 points on the road and building its case to dance in March Madness stronger than ever before.
The Tigers turned to 1990s Hollywood to act as their messenger to the NCAA Tournament Selection Committee.
In 1994’s “Pulp Fiction,” characters Vincent Vega and Mia Wallace are sitting in a 1950s-themed diner, Jack Rabbit Slims. The diner announces a dance competition is about to begin, to which Wallace turns toward Vega and presents her desires:
“I want to dance. I want to win. I want that trophy.”
And dance they did.
Missouri, now having won six of its last eight games and sitting as the No. 5 seed in the SEC, is ready to dance. It took months of battling unexpected adversities to get to where it is now, but it’ll be incredibly hard to deny a healthy Tigers team that has now won double-digit SEC games from the NCAA Tournament.
They’re ready to dance, and their stellar performance against Mississippi State proved it.
“We’re playing our best basketball at the end of the year,” Team captain Mark Mitchell said in the SEC Now postgame show.
Mitchell scored a game-high 17 points on 6-for-11 shooting, bringing his season average to 17.4 points per game on 53.8% shooting. Joining him in double-figures was Phillips (16), Robinson (13), Pierce (10) and T.O. Barrett (10).
Trent Burns scored the loudest eight points conceivable, as the breakout freshman sank in four hook shots, each of which more impressive than the last. His post-move repertoire has expanded exponentially in the last two weeks.
Stone, while struggling to find the basket, hauled in a game-high 10 rebounds and dished out four assists.
The Tigers’ offense as a whole shot 50.8% from the field, 40% from 3-point range and — perhaps most impressively — 83.3% from the free-throw line. Everything clicked.
So try telling these Tigers, who are playing their best basketball at the most important point of the season, that they don’t deserve to go dancing.
Doing so might be harder than it would have been for Vega to decline Wallace’s offer.
Missouri (20-9, 10-6 Southeastern Conference) will now play Oklahoma (14-14, 4-11) on the road at 6 p.m. Tuesday.