Missouri Tigers Season Has Earliest End In Decade

Wow.

Ouch.

Yikes.

So ends a terribly disappointing season for the 2015 Missouri Tigers basketball team. As the season withered away in the first round of the SEC tournament against South Carolina the other night, it became crystal clear. This is going to be a long road ahead.

Now, as Mizzou limps back to Columbia with salt in the wounds and little silver lining to lean on, one must be in a dark place as a Tigers’ hoops fan.

With that, the Missouri Tigers have a season end earlier than it has, date wise, since 2005. And they can’t even manage double digit wins.

Mar 11, 2015; Nashville, TN, USA; Missouri Tigers forward Johnathan Williams III (3) fights for a rebound against South Carolina Gamecocks forward Mindaugas Kacinas (25) during the second half of the first round the SEC Conference Tournament at Bridgestone Arena. South Carolina won 63-54. Mandatory Credit: Jim Brown-USA TODAY Sports

There was a lot of hype before the season began. Maybe not high expectations. But hype. People were excited about the new era, the new coach, the next step in a new direction. They were excited to have one of their own as head coach.

But the Kim Anderson era began with a loss.

A really, really, really bad loss.

Missouri got beat by UMKC. Not a soviet nation but University Of Missouri-Kansas City. Those not familiar with the Missouri area may not even have known that school had a basketball team, much less one that could beat Mizzou.

From there, it was all bad news bears.

The Tigers started the non-conference from there only slightly better before crawling into SEC play. Mizzou won just 2 games against conference opponents.

The Tigers lost a program worst 13 straight games.

They lost to Kentucky by 30+ points.

They reached a pinnacle of futility with every offensive statistic in the books—couldn’t shoot, couldn’t score, couldn’t rebound, couldn’t do anything.

It was painful to watch almost all of the time. And the team managed to turn a bad season into a worse one by losing to the other bottom feeders of the SEC down the stretch.

When we called Mizzou’s most important game of the year against Georgia, they responded by losing badly.

And then, off they went. A loss to South Carolina put the stamp on it. Mizzou finished 2015 at the lowest spot in years.

As a season with very few peaks and many valleys comes to a close, one can only wonder if this thing has any chance of improving in the near future.