Missouri basketball: Old habits cost Tigers in loss to Bulldogs
The Missouri basketball team had a little momentum heading into Tuesday’s game, but that quickly was taken away on the road.
Missouri basketball couldn’t overcome a slow start yet again as the Tigers fell to Mississippi State 72-45. The loss puts the Tigers at 9-7 for the season and 1-3 in conference, while Mississippi State won its first SEC game this year and now sit at 10-6 with an identical 1-3 record.
The Tigers fell behind 10-0 before they scored their first points. That came near the 15-minute mark when freshman Kobe Brown knocked down a 3-pointer. It took more than three more minutes for Missouri to score again when finally Reed Nikko dunked the ball to mark the score 16-5.
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By halftime, the Bulldogs doubled the Tigers’ output at 40-20 and they coasted the rest of the way.
Missouri struggled on offense all game, shooting 34 percent from the field while Mississippi State knocked down more than half of its shot attempts. Brown led the Tigers in scoring with 14, nobody else scored more than 10 points.
Dru Smith, who had his best game in a Tigers uniform last weekend in Missouri’s win over Florida, only scored two points on Tuesday. Xavier Pinson, who stepped up when Mizzou needed him last weekend, didn’t have any points. Those two will need to get back in their groove as Missouri plays Alabama on Saturday, again on the road.
On defense, Missouri struggled guarding Reggie Perry. The Bulldogs forward, who averages a double-double this season, scored 23 points and grabbed 10 rebounds to secure yet another double-double.
The Tigers aren’t 27 points worse than Mississippi State. They were playing a desperate team that was better than its winless SEC record and needed to prove that in front of its home crowd. In a way, it’s similar to why Missouri played so well against Florida last Saturday. But the Tigers needed this game to be closer from the start to have a chance, and they failed at starting fast. For that, it was a bad performance with not even having a shot to win.
They’ll want to do that against Alabama in just a few days.