After losing at Mizzou Arena for the first time this season, No. 21 Missouri will try to re-establish its home-court advantage when it faces Oklahoma on Wednesday.
The Tigers (17-6, 6-4 Southeastern Conference) were 15-0 at home before falling to then-No. 10 Texas A&M 67-64 on Saturday. That was Missouri’s second straight loss overall, following an 85-81 setback at then-No. 4 Tennessee on Feb. 5.
Those defeats dropped Missouri six spots from No. 15 in the latest Associated Press Top 25 poll.
“The ironic thing about this conference: You can play well and still lose a game,” Missouri coach Dennis Gates said. “That’s how good this conference is. We lost our last two games by a total of seven points — to two top-10 teams. One on a last-second shot, last-second 3.
“How much better do you want our guys to play?”
Missouri left much room for improvement against the Aggies. Jacob Crews made 3 of 4 shots from 3-point range coming off the bench, but his teammates combined to miss 15 of 17 shots from behind the arc.
The Tigers are averaging nine 3-pointers per game this season. Caleb Grill is shooting nearly 47.7 percent (51-of-103) from long distance, but he Aggies held him to 0-for-4 shooting on 3-point attempts.
“Caleb was able to get a couple looks, and those looks didn’t fall down,” Gates said. “He shot four threes, and I think all four of those threes were wide open. But the gravity of which Caleb Grill played and was on the court was more important than the points.
“He spaced the court for Tamar (Bates). He spaced the court for Crews to be able to operate, in addition to Marques Warrick, in addition to Tony Perkins. So those things helped our offense, him on the court.”
Bates leads Missouri in scoring at 14.0 points per game. Grill (12.6) and Mark Mitchell (12.3) are also averaging in double figures.
The Sooners (16-7, 3-7 SEC) are coming off two lopsided losses to Top 5 teams. They fell 98-70 at No. 1 Auburn on Feb. 4 and 70-52 at home against then-No. 4 Tennessee on Saturday.
After a strong nonconference showing that included victories over two ranked teams, the Sooners have struggled in league play.
“I thought what we were doing earlier in the year that we’re not doing right now is emotionally and physically fighting through hard times in a game,” Oklahoma coach Porter Moser said.
“I thought this team was really resilient. I was talking to you after a number of close games that we won, whether it was Providence, Arizona, Michigan, Louisville, just over and over. We were down at halftime (against) Georgia Tech. … We were down (against) Arkansas. We’ve had a lot of games where I’ve talked about resiliency, fighting through hard.”
Jalen Moore leads Oklahoma with 17.7 points and 5.7 rebounds per game. Jeremiah Fears averages 15.5 points and 4.0 assists, while Duke Miles contributes 10.3 points per contest.
After sustaining a thigh injury against Auburn, Fears was questionable to face Tennessee. However, he made his 20th consecutive start and scored eight points in 28 minutes.
“He hadn’t had any reps the last two days,” Moser said after the game. “He gutted it out and really tried to be there for his teammates to play in this big game.”
–Field Level Media
