COLUMBIA — Mizzou basketball (20-9, 10-6 Southeastern Conference) is playing its best ball of the season at the perfect time, steamrolling Mississippi State on the road to build onto its hot end of February. 

Mizzou is 6-2 in its last eight games with home wins over No. 19 Vanderbilt and No. 22 Tennessee. Its leading scorer, senior forward Mark Mitchell, just brought home SEC Player of the Week honors for his efforts in the Tigers’ success. 

Dennis Gates’ squad has stormed all the way back from a dreadful non-conference performance to in the top third of the SEC, holding the No. 4 seed in the SEC Tournament as of Monday. However, there’s still two games between Missouri and the postseason, each of which have implications on the Tigers’ SEC and NCAA Tournament seeding. 

The first of those games is against a scrappy Oklahoma team that — like the Tigers — played its best ball of the season to close February. Porter Mosier’s Sooners hold a 15-14 record on the season and 5-11 record in conference play, but neither record accurately reflects the challenge they present. 

Oklahoma is 4-2 in its last six games and nearly beat the Tigers at Mizzou Arena a few games before that stretch. It took two buzzer-beating 3-point shots from Mitchell and Trent Pierce to scrape by the Sooners at home — the Tigers’ scraping by on such a close margin in a second consecutive matchup is improbable. 

One could argue that Mizzou’s win over Oklahoma was the turning point of its season. T.O. Barrett made his debut as a starter, where he’s resided since. Pierce entered the starting lineup two games later, likely partially due to his big-time performance against the Sooners. 

Look for the Tigers to rely on those two and Mitchell as the top scoring options against Oklahoma, as they make up three of Mizzou’s top four leading scorers. Pierce is averaging 13.5 points per game while shooting 70.1% from 3-point range in his last four games, while Barrett is averaging 14.8 points per game and shooting 51.2% from the field in the same stretch. 

Oklahoma’s leading scorer, sixth-year senior Nijel Pack, should be at the top of Mizzou’s defense priorities in terms of. Pack is leading the Sooners at 16.1 points per game while shooting 46.9% from the field and 45.3% from 3-point range, which leads all SEC players to attempt five or more 3-pointers per game. 

Pack has scored single-digits just four times in conference play and has scored 17 or more points in eight of his last 10 contests — he’s one of the most consistent scoring presences in the SEC and dropped a conference play-high of 25 points against Mizzou in the previous matchup. 

Joining Pack in the backcourt is the efficient combo guard Xzayvier Brown, who averages 15.6 points and 3 assists per game while shooting 46.9% from the field, 35.9% from 3-point range and 91.4% from the free throw line. 

Senior big Mohamed Wague anchors the frontcourt, averaging 6.9 points, 6.8 rebounds and 1.5 blocks per game. The New York native has racked up seven blocks in his last two games and has shown a knack for drawing contact on the other end, knocking down 10 of his 12 free throws against Tennessee. 

The Tigers and Sooners both beat a ranked Vanderbilt squad in nearly identical fashion. Mizzou bested the Vanderbilt Commodores 81-80 in Columbia after fending off a 21-point comeback in the second half, while the Sooners escaped Nashville with a 92-91 win Feb. 7 by fending off a 21-point comeback of their own. 

Oklahoma’s two losses in the last six game stretch were at the hands of Tennessee (89-66) on Feb. 18  and Texas A&M (75-71) on Feb. 21. Mizzou beat Tennessee 73-69 Feb. 24 and beat Texas A&M 86-85 Feb. 11. 

Oklahoma is fresh off a 83-67 win over LSU on the road, a bottom-of-the-barrel SEC program that Missouri unexpectedly lost to 78-70 Jan. 17. It’s hard to imagine Missouri losing to that LSU team today, and that loss should be taken with a grain of salt. 

At the end of the day, what matters most isn’t the results against common opponents, but how the Tigers and Sooners stack up against each other. The rivals will square off at 6 p.m. Tuesday in Norman.