Missouri has enjoyed the strongest home court advantage in major college basketball this season while going 17-1 at Mizzou Arena.
The No. 14 Tigers (20-7, 9-5 Southeastern Conference) will look to maintain that edge when they face South Carolina (11-16, 1-13) on Tuesday night in Columbia, Mo.
Missouri will look to clean up its game after turning the ball over 18 times and committing 26 fouls during a 92-85 loss at Arkansas on Saturday.
“Self-infliction, 30 points off turnovers and again, 37 free throws,” Missouri coach Dennis Gates said. “That’s what we gave up.
“Those are things that you can’t do on the road and expect to win. But our guys did a great job executing down the stretch trying to get that lead. We had the best shots available. They just didn’t go in, and sometimes the ball bounces that way.”
Missouri’s balanced scoring is led by forward Mark Mitchell (13.7 points per game) and guards Caleb Grill (13.4) and Tamar Bates (13.3).
Grill’s 3-point shooting has cooled off lately, making just 7 of 30 shots in his last three games, including 2 of 12 at Arkansas.
“I thought he did a good job taking the ones that was open,” Gates said. “… But in that second half, I thought the ball just didn’t fall for him, and they were open.”
Missouri hopes to have center Josh Gray back in action. Gray, who leads the Tigers with 5.1 rebounds per game, didn’t play at Arkansas due to illness.
The Gamecocks snapped their 13-game losing streak by defeating Texas 84-69 at home Saturday for their first SEC victory. Six of their league losses came by five points or fewer, including one in overtime.
“They’ve been yearning to do this so many times,” South Carolina coach Lamont Paris said. “They’ve been on the doorstep so many times.”
Collin Murray-Boyles scored 22 points on 9-of-16 shooting to lead the Gamecocks past the Longhorns. He averages 15.7 points per game to lead South Carolina, but he found another level against Texas.
His ability to take over games could make South Carolina more dangerous down the stretch.
“I thought he was being really aggressive,” Paris said. “That was generation of offense. That was us having our offense generated, by and large, by Collin Murray-Boyles. I said coming into the season that would be the biggest challenge. It wouldn’t be, ‘What did he average? Can he score 17 points?’ This guy is very talented. He can score 17 in any system.
“But, what does it look like to score 17 when you have to generate the offense. They sent three guys at him at times tonight. Then, what does that look like? This was a good example of him being able to do that. The floor was really spread. I thought in the first half especially, we got to some really spread situations. He opted in instead of opting out from scoring. He opted in and attacked really hard. His moves were really aggressive.”
–Field Level Media
