Mizzou basketball: Tigers enter stacked Hall of Fame Classic

Mizzou basketball battles an undefeated Butler Bulldogs team Monday night. The other two teams that are in Kansas City this week also are undefeated.

The Mizzou basketball team is coming to Kansas City this week for the Hall of Fame Classic at the Sprint Center. Awaiting the Tigers are a trio of undefeated teams, and the Tigers will play two of them, win or lose.

Mizzou (4-1) first gets Butler (5-0). The other side of the bracket features Stanford (6-0) against Oklahoma (5-0). That’s a combined 20-1 record between the four teams, with the lone loss handed to Mizzou by No. 18-ranked Xavier in overtime.

Butler, Oklahoma and Mizzou all are receiving votes in the Associated Press Top 25. Stanford sits behind those teams without any votes, and the Cardinal also are farther back in the KenPom rankings. Bulter (22), Oklahoma (29) and Mizzou (30) all are tournament teams for now, according to KenPom, while Stanford is ranked 72nd.

Both Butler and Oklahoma have wins over Minnesota, which is right behind Stanford in the rankings. The Tigers don’t have that big of a victory yet, but they set themselves up for future possibilities.

To a pair with this week, Mizzou basketball gets Temple and Illinois before conference play. And Mizzou also will play West Virginia later on in the Big 12/SEC Challenge. Throw in their game against Xavier, and that’s six games where the Tigers will play top-100 teams out of conference.

But playing tough competition is one thing. Can this year’s Tigers win some of these games? They came close against Xavier, and now they have a second and third chance this week.

Monday’s game is a toss up. The Tigers are 1.5 favorites as of Sunday night, courtesy of the Action Network. Meanwhile, Oklahoma is 4.5 favorites over Stanford.

It makes for a fun and competitive four games over the next two nights in Kansas City.