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COLUMBIA, Mo. — When the ice clears from the hilly streets around Mizzou Arena, Missouri men’s basketball will kick off the two-game homestand that will define its NCAA Tournament aspirations.

A season-long goal, set to be determined less than a week into Southeastern Conference play and with 15 regular-season games on the other side of this stretch. Normal, right?

Yes, it’s dramatic to say that the Tigers’ hopes of making the NCAA Tournament are on the line during home tilts against Louisiana State and Vanderbilt. But that’s closer to the truth than suggesting that MU will have nothing to lose this week.

Mizzou could very well make the 68-team field. It could very well be one of the teams barely on the outside looking in. The Tigers are on the proverbial bubble, and it’s still too early to know much about how the NCAA Tournament bracket will come together.

Still, a few things seem to be on track for the SEC: It’s going to get a bunch — think a dozen, give or take one — of teams in. That means the league will probably send a few programs to the postseason with sub-.500 records in conference play. And that, in turn, means eight wins might be enough. Seven could, possibly, make the cut.

So 8-10 is the loose benchmark for Missouri to get to. After getting smacked around at No. 2 Auburn over the weekend, MU is 0-1, as predicted.

Now for why these games against LSU and Vanderbilt are critical:

Those are two of the six matchups on the schedule the KenPom computer projects Mizzou will win. Some of that is because the games take place in Columbia.

If you’re looking for a takeaway from the first round of SEC games, home-court advantage just might be the bottom line. Of the conference’s first eight games, home teams won seven.

Auburn, of course, beat Missouri by 16 points. Then-No. 17 Mississippi State manhandled South Carolina to win by 35. No. 5 Alabama sent a previously undefeated No. 12 Oklahoma packing with a 28-point shellacking. Then-No. 13 Texas A&M beat old pal Texas by 20. No. 1 Tennessee, still unbeaten, controlled then-No. 23 Arkansas for a 24-point margin. Then-No. 10 Kentucky held off then-No. 6 Florida for a six-point track meet win. And then-No. 24 Ole Miss’ big second half was enough to get past Georgia by eight.

Big weekend for the home teams, eh?

If the overall strength and depth of the SEC translates to parity, home floors might wind up being a significant separating factor between the league’s teams, which makes taking care of business at home a priority for bubble teams like Mizzou. When winning on the road becomes more difficult, winning at home becomes all the more valuable.

Interestingly, the only home team to lose its SEC opener was LSU, which is scheduled to play MU at 8 p.m. Tuesday. (The state of LSU’s travel plans following the weekend storm that deposited ice and snow across Missouri was not clear on Monday afternoon.)

The Bayou Bengals fell 80-72 to Vanderbilt, which Mizzou will face at 2:30 p.m. Saturday.

Both teams should be beatable within confines that are unfriendly to them. LSU, ranked 61st in NET and 60th on KenPom, seems to be a tier below Missouri within the SEC. The purple-and-gold Tigers aren’t out of the NCAA Tournament picture themselves, but they’re now quite disadvantaged by their home defeat.

Guard Cam Carter, a transfer from Kansas State who started his career at Mississippi State, is leading LSU with 17.3 points per game while shooting 42.5% from the 3-point line. He still put up 22 points in the weekend loss to the Commodores but clearly relies on volume to produce: Carter took more than one-third of LSU’s shots in that game.

Vanderbilt’s prospects are better than Mizzou’s, with the Commodores sitting 31st in NET and 46th in KenPom — slightly above MU’s spots, at 44th and 53rd, respectively, in those rankings.

Vandy is an odd team this year, relying almost exclusively on guards. Jason Edwards, a North Texas transfer, is averaging 18.3 points per game. Against LSU, five Vanderbilt players scored in double figures, led by returner A.J. Hoggard’s 17 points.

LSU is the kind of team Missouri needs to beat to stay out of the SEC’s basement level. Vanderbilt is the kind of opponent that MU needs to topple to be relevant in bracketology blogs and tournament debates.

You can look at it this way: If Mizzou beats both, it has a quarter of the league wins it’ll need for a solid resume. The Tigers would then only need to win the games they’re favored in and spring one or two upsets to get to eight SEC victories — a relatively simple path in a minefield of a conference.

Lose one, and Missouri’s margin for error — which might not even exist at the moment — disappears. Most home games become must-wins to stay alive, and a few upsets will go on the shopping list.

Lose both, and a grim reality sets in. MU would probably need a miraculous 8-7 record to avoid a letdown. Crazier things have happened, but who wants to rely on that?

It’s a tone-setting week for the Tigers. Mizzou’s spring semester hasn’t started, but its hoopers are in for a high-stakes test.