Mizzou basketball fell 76-69 to Ole Miss. Anthony Robinson's poor performance, struggles from the free-throw line and Sebastian Mack's disappearance highlight the game.
Missouri basketball had a chance to move to 3-0 in Southeastern Conference play for the first time in program history with a win over Ole Miss. After knocking off Kentucky and Florida the two games prior, handling the Rebels seemed like an extremely climbable mountain.
Missouri began the climb, holding a 22-12 lead with 12:19 remaining in the first half and looking like it would breeze past Ole Miss. But the Tigers slipped, and stumbled all the way back down and lost 76-69 to move to 2-1 in conference play.
Here's three takeaways from Missouri's first loss of 2026.
Anthony Robinson's Stats Correlate with Winning
This is pointing out the obvious, yes, but it's become incredibly apparent that Robinson needed — not a nice bonus— for Missouri to win quality games. If he had a bad game last season, Tamar Bates and Caleb Grill could pick up his slack as top scorers, but both are now out of the picture, leaving their weight to fall on his shoulders.
The team captain had one of his worst performances of the season at an unfortunate time. The starting point guard finished with six points, three rebounds, six assists, two turnovers and five fouls while shooting 2-for-9 from the field and 2-for-4 from the free-throw line in 35 minutes of action.
Missouri needs Robinson to produce at a high level to compete against Power Four teams. In its four losses against P4 opponents, he's averaged 5.8 points, 2.8 turnovers and four fouls per game on 9-for-34 shooting. In its three wins against P4 teams, he's averaged 12.7 points, 1.3 turnovers and 2.3 fouls per game on 15-for-29 shooting.
That's quite a stark contrast.
Free Throws are — and will be — a Problem
"You don't magically turn into a great free-throw shooting team in game 17," play-by-play commentator Mike Morgan said as Missouri missed it's 12th free throw of the night.
The Tigers 12 missed free-throws made all the difference in their first SEC loss of the season, given they lost by seven points.
Missouri ranks dead last in the SEC in free-throw percentage (67.4) and 12th in total attempts (341). It joins Mississippi State as the only teams with two conference wins shooting worse than 70% from the charity stripe. Jacob Crews (81.1) and T.O. Barrett (84.6) are the only Tigers shooting above 70% from the free-throw line and combine for 3.4 attempts per game, which would rank No. 35 in the conference in attempts per game if they were one player.
Sure, Missouri could have a miraculous mid-season turnaround — Mark Mitchell did so last season — but it's highly unlikely for an entire team to do so.
Sebastian Mack is Cut From the Rotation
Mack capped off non-conference play averaging 9.1 points in 20.4 minutes per game, and was fresh off a season-high 17 points against Illinois. However, his seemingly-positive raw stats didn't reflect his on-court impact — Mack's sub-par jumper clogged Missouri's spacing, and his short stature didn't help make up for it on the other end.
His clunky offensive fit and little positive impact were early indicators of what his role would be when SEC play came around: minimal. Mack played seven minutes in the Tigers' SEC opener against Florida before playing a combined zero minutes between Missouri's victory over Kentucky and loss to Ole Miss.
The Tigers' loss to Ole Miss could cause Gates to turn his head Mack's way once more and offer a second chance at becoming a lineup regular, but for now it seems Mack's time as a heavy contributor is done.