COLUMBIA, Mo. — Missouri men’s basketball has spent almost all of 2024 on some kind of significant streak.
To start the calendar year, the Tigers suffered through 20 consecutive losses — all 19 games against Southeastern Conference opponents last season and this season’s opener against Memphis. But since that defeat, Mizzou has pieced together a 10-game winning streak.
The streak hit the double-digit mark Tuesday with MU’s intense, nervy 83-72 win over Jacksonville State.
It took a chippy turn in the physical contest to trigger an overdue 13-0 run for Mizzou that secured the victory in the final six minutes.
Forward Jacob Crews made three vital 3-pointers during that decisive stretch of the second half, part of another key bench performance for the Tigers. His hot shooting night — 6 for 10 from beyond the arc — produced 19 points, making him the eighth player to lead MU in scoring during its first 11 games of the season.
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“Now that we’re rolling and now that we’re beating teams and we’re on a streak, everybody’s going to want a piece of us,” Crews said. “They’re going to always give us their very best. I think they came in tonight with a different will, so credit to them. But we got some things we got to clean up.”
The last time Missouri won 10 straight games was in the 2013-14 season, when the Tigers started 10-0.
But the losing streak that came just before this run of wins makes for some unprecedented historical context. Mizzou has enjoyed a handful of double-digit winning streaks in program history. Yet none of them were preceded by more than two consecutive losses — much less 20 — according to MU records that date back to 1957.
So 20 defeats in a row followed by 10 straight victories? Unprecedented.
It took the Tigers a bit to get going against the Gamecocks. The visitors scored the first seven points of the game as Missouri settled for jumpers and missed a couple of early free throws.
Point guard Tony Perkins was the first MU player to remove the lid from the basket and scored the team’s first eight points of the night — two 3-pointers and a nice finish at the rim.
It took more than 10 minutes of game time for somebody not named Perkins to make a field goal for Mizzou: Center Josh Gray made it happen by going up high for an offensive rebound and putting it back off the glass for some second-chance points to cut a Gamecocks lead to five points.
Missouri got its first lead of the night through some defense, breaking up a Jax State baseline out of bounds play and funneling the ball quickly down the floor for forward Trent Pierce to drain a transition 3. Picking up from a hot shooting game during MU’s last outing, Pierce’s second transition triple of the day created a 24-23 lead with 7:15 to go in the first half.
The Gamecocks and Tigers traded buckets down the stretch toward halftime, with Mizzou unable to establish any lasting separation.
A 3-pointer from point guard Anthony Robinson II put MU up by four points — its biggest lead of the first half — with less than a minute on the clock, prompting a Jax State timeout. But the visitors got a 3 to drop out of the reset and Robinson settled for a step-back jumper on the last possession of the half, leaving Missouri up just 41-40 at halftime.
Eleven of the Gamecocks’ first-half points had come off of offensive rebounds.
“We were getting stops, you know, getting them late in the clock,” forward Mark Mitchell said. “Just second-chance points were something that really hurt us in the first half. We did better in the second half, but it was still there.”
Jax State retook the lead within the first five minutes of the second half, knocking down back-to-back 3-pointers for a 48-47 advantage. Crews bagged a side-step 3 just a couple of minutes later to put the Tigers back in front, keeping the basket trade alive and flourishing.
Crisis mode loomed more concretely with less than 10 minutes to go when the visitors opened up a four-point lead — their largest of the second half — by blocking a Crews layup attempt and speeding down the floor for an and-one on the other end.
Then the Mizzou Arena crowd woke up. Its noise seemed to help the Missouri defense buckle down for a stop, which led to a home run pass down the length of the floor for a dunk from guard Tamar Bates that tied the game at 63-all with 8:33 to go.
The game turned chippy when the Tigers scored on a five-on-four fast break created by a Jax State player staying down after a block. That got Gamecocks coach Ray Harper livid at officials, who went to the review monitor and called an “administrative technical foul” on MU.
It might have been just what Missouri needed. Crews hit a deep 3 from the left wing, Robinson stole the ball and dumped it off to Mitchell at the rim, and Crews hit another 3 for a quick eight-point run that put Mizzou up 75-68 with less than four minutes to play.
Out of the final media timeout, the Tigers forced a steal that led to two made free throws from Mitchell, who scored 18 points and a nine-point edge. Another Crews 3 extended the lead to a round dozen with less than two and a half minutes left.
Analytics corner
Missouri’s rebounding efforts were subpar against the Gamecocks and hampered the hosts for much of the game. Jax State grabbed 39 rebounds to MU’s 28, and had 16 offensive boards to the Tigers’ nine.
That’s not great, and Missouri coach Dennis Gates called it out as such. But a completely different part of the game helped the Tigers, analytically speaking, make up ground: ball security.
Mizzou turned the ball over just three times — and one of those was a garbage-time giveaway, so it was effectively only two turnovers — while forcing 12 Jax State turnovers.
“That’s where you can make up that possession difference in analytics that allows a team to out-rebound you, and then you come up with some extra possessions somewhere,” Gates said. “Those extra possessions for us came from our offensive rebounds, our skills, but also our ability not to give that ball back.”
The math, in terms of “extra” possessions, shakes out like this: The Gamecocks got 16 from offensive rebounds and two, functionally from takeaways for a total of 18. Mizzou got nine from offensive boards and 12 from turnovers for a total of 21. That’s an advantage.
It’s not just about possessions either — those lead to concrete, meaningful points. Jax State scored 19 second chance points but nothing off turnovers, while the Tigers got 14 second chance points and 14 off turnovers, a nine-point margin of victory in extra possessions.
“That bridged that gap a little bit,” Gates said.
