COLUMBIA, Mo. — There’s history on the line for Missouri men’s basketball, and it’s not the good kind.
This season, of course, has been a rough one. Mizzou is last in the Southeastern Conference, winless through 13 games and two games behind 13th-place Vanderbilt. With five games to go, KenPom now says the Tigers’ odds of going winless in conference play are up to 25.7%.
There have been injuries, blown leads, and an explicit but effective summation of where things stand from second-year coach Dennis Gates.
Yes, reinforcements are on the way in the form of a highly ranked recruiting class. But far more pressing is Saturday’s game against Arkansas, which presents a significant chance of MU posting an all-time run of futility.
The storyline for the showdown between Mizzou and Arkansas is simple: Missouri has never lost 14 consecutive games. In nearly 120 seasons of play, the Tigers have lost 13 in a row three times, all within the last decade. One of those times is this season, and a potential 14th consecutive loss Saturday is a potential entry into the record books.
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Mizzou will look to avoid disaster against one of the league’s more favorable opponents, the Razorbacks, who are 12th in the SEC with a 4-9 conference record. In a sign of the times for MU, though, it lost 91-84 at home to the Hogs three weeks ago, a game that was more lopsided than the final score suggested.
And this time, the Tigers will have to do it on the road. They’ve won just two times in Fayetteville since joining the SEC, and Arkansas is 9-5 at home this season.
But in the two previous seasons in which Missouri was on a 13-game skid, it found a way to right the ship before it spiraled to 14.
In the 2014-2015 season, Kim Anderson’s first at the helm in Columbia, Mizzou finished with a 9-23 record and a 3-15 run in SEC play. MU won its SEC opener that year before beginning its losing streak.
In the 13 defeats that followed, the Tigers ranged from scoring just 37 points on the road at No. 1 Kentucky to losing by one point to Arkansas. On Feb. 21, 2015, Missouri broke its previous record for consecutive losses, which had stood since back-to-back seasons with 12-game losing streaks in 1965-66 and 1966-67.
That day, Mizzou lost on the road to a lowly Vanderbilt team, falling behind by 27 points in the first half before succumbing to a 76-53 final result. Freshman Montaque Gill-Caesar led the Tigers in scoring with 11 points, and Anderson spoke with rhetoric that wouldn’t sound out of place coming from his contemporary’s mouth.
“I don’t know where that silver lining’s going to come, but I’ll also tell you that I’ll find one. OK?†Anderson said after that loss. “Sometime tonight or tomorrow I’ll find one. Because the only thing I can do is remain positive. That’s why you don’t see me going crazy on the sidelines, because I don’t think that’s good. Some day you may, but I’m not going to blame the referees for us. For God’s sake, they didn’t have anything to do with it.
“I have guys who are young and who struggle. … I’m trying to encourage. I’m trying to teach. Obviously, I didn’t do a very good job today. But by the same token, I’ll find something good. I’ll find some bad stuff, too. But I’ll find something good.â€
Something good came around a few days later when freshman guard Namon Wright scored 28 points to sink Florida and snap the streak.
“It sucks losing,†Wright said. “But we just try our best to stay together and keep playing hard every game. We knew we were going to get one eventually.â€
Two years after that streak came some déjà vu. The losing skid began earlier in the season, in mid-December, and a Feb. 2, 2017, loss to Florida was the pivotal 13th defeat. That 93-54 loss to the ranked Gators was also Missouri’s 31st consecutive road loss.
“We’re gonna burn the film because we don’t have time,†Anderson said that time around. “It won’t be burned in my house. I’ll see it, but we have to turn around and play on Saturday.â€
Playing on Saturday wasn’t really about the losing streak, or Anderson’s impending dismissal. In the second-ever Rally for Rhyan game — a fundraiser named for the 6-year-old, cancer-battling daughter of then-assistant coach Brad Loos — Missouri beat Arkansas in an inspired display to close out a narrow win.
“These kids take it personal,†Loos said after that win. “They see what my daughter goes through. They know how hard it is for her and they really wanted to win this game for her.â€
And, as then-Razorbacks and former MU coach Mike Anderson observed, “They seemed like they were playing for something. I guess they’re tired of losing.â€
Mizzou is surely growing tired of losing this time around. It will hold the ninth Rally for Rhyan game against Ole Miss on March 2.
The Tigers could have 15 consecutive losses by the time that game rolls around, if they succumb to two programs that popped up in the previous 13-game losing streaks, Arkansas and Florida.
Or Mizzou can end the skid and avoid breaking any records of futility with a win in Fayetteville on Saturday.