COLUMBIA, Mo. — Less than four minutes in, it was functionally over.
It didn’t take long for Missouri men’s basketball to slip behind No. 13 Auburn in its home finale. And once it did, three minutes and 28 seconds into the first half, it never recovered.
There was a comeback that was close but not really that close, given that Mizzou has rallied plenty of times in its 17-game losing streak but never actually put itself in a real position to win a game.
Upon the conclusion of a quagmire of a game — a swampy mess of fouls and video reviews and a few technicals to go around — MU celebrated the careers of nine seniors, a generous but forward-looking estimate of how much turnover the 8-22 program will see during a pivotal offseason.
Standing between Missouri and a reprieve from its cruel, grueling Southeastern Conference streak of suffering, though, is one more regular season game and next week’s conference tournament.
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But back to the latest loss. The blue-and-orange Tigers won 101-74, twisting a relatively even first half out of hand down the stretch. The 27-point margin of defeat is the most lopsided of the season for MU.
Point guard Sean East II scored 21 points in his final home game but struggled from an efficiency standpoint, shooting 4-for-17 from the field and relying on 12 made free throws for his sixth consecutive 20-point game.
Missouri coach Dennis Gates kept his takeaways tied to the showing from a ranked opponent.
“What did the football coach from the Cardinals say? They are who we think they are?” he said, invoking a famous quote from the Arizona Cardinals’ Dennis Green famous assessment. “I mean, they are what we thought they were.”
Some quick scoring from guard Tamar Bates gave Mizzou a positive first couple of minutes, but then came Auburn’s run. Chad Baker-Mazara beat MU’s zone defense with a 3 to tie the game at seven apiece before his teammate Aden Holloway bounced a finish high off the rim and back down for the 9-7 lead that the visitors never relinquished.
In that early segment of crunch time — Missouri’s margin for error is so slim that no lapse can realistically go unpunished, no matter how expeditiously it occurs — a sloppy turnover and Auburn offensive rebound generated another 3-pointer for Baker-Mazara, and a quick five-point deficit for MU.
Mizzou coach Dennis Gates earned a technical foul midway through the first half for arguing that an airball caught by the same Auburn player who shot it should have been called as a travel — the infraction was instead ruled a blocking foul on Noah Carter. It’s Gates’ second technical foul in his two years coaching in Columbia, and his second in the last week.
A two-minute scoring drought for Auburn lured Missouri back within two points late in the first half. Needing a stop, MU conceded an offensive rebound and flung another rebound off a blocked shot out of bounds but got the stop on the visitors’ third crack at scoring. Two unproductive East-Jordan Butler pick and roll tries produced only a bricked pull-up from the point guard, the rebound of which was caught by Mizzou but thrown away.
On the other end, Auburn picked up an and-one to go up by five.
Still before the end of the half, MU got the requisite bucket to be back within a score, following an Aidan Shaw putback. But then Mizzou left a shooter open on the weak side, still gave up an offensive rebound and once again fouled.
That passing sequence of sputtering momentum was the last Missouri would be able to smell a lead. Though the hosts trailed just 44-39 at the half, Auburn opened the second frame with seven unanswered points and kept building.
"That second half, for us, we came out a little flat," Gates said. "I take full responsibility in that, as the head coach."
Fouls — and fouls and fouls — dragged the game on for two-and-a-half hours, drawing the ire of both teams, fans in the arena and even the SEC Network’s in-studio pundits, who made a spoof of the MU-Auburn officials’ infatuation with video reviews. In all, the referees called 50 fouls — or 1.25 per minute.
Since Missouri has already locked in the SEC Tournament’s No. 14 seed, Tuesday’s loss had no real implications other than putting Mizzou one loss away from a winless season in league play.
Following the game’s after-hours conclusion, nine players participated in Missouri’s senior day: East, Nick Honor, Noah Carter, Mabor Majak, Connor Vanover, Jesus Carralero Martin, Curt Lewis, John Tonje and Caleb Grill. Not all have necessarily played their last games inside Mizzou Arena, though.
East, Honor, Carter and Vanover have exhausted their collegiate eligibility and are done. Carralero Martin, Tonje and Grill — the latter having been expected to return from December wrist surgery but evidently no longer planning to — are expected to be able to return because of medical redshirts, should they so choose. Lewis and Majak will make the decision over whether to return during the offseason.
"I am absolutely proud of our guys," Gates said after the ceremony. "I am proud of each and every one of them. If you quote me, please quote that. I am absolutely proud of how they hold their head up, how they are standing … I am proud of how they react to adversity.”