Mizzou men’s basketball enters February with a game against South Carolina (11-12, 2-8 Southeastern Conference), but the bigger obstacle will be breaking through the mental block that playing on the road brings.
The Tigers have struggled against this road block again and again, as its first road loss of the season against Notre Dame at the wire set them down a road of hardships for the next nonconference matchups. The two rivalry games set them back further, losing handily to both Kansas and Illinois away from home ahead of SEC play.
Though the 91-48 loss to now-No. 5 Illinois stunned MU at a neutral site in St. Louis ahead of its SEC slate, the Tigers took their brief break for the holidays to set their minds straight before facing now-No. 17 Florida.
Mizzou coach Dennis Gates compared their midweek bye this week to the holiday break, saying the Tigers had “a lot of things to work on (and) a lot of time to work on it.”
If this break has the same successful result as the 76-74 win over Florida, then Mizzou is on track to break its three-game streak of losing on the road.
“We just have to figure out how to play better,” graduate guard Jayden Stone said of the Tigers’ road performances. “That’s what we’ve been trying to do in practice, you know, being more thorough with our sets, more strategic in our execution. And I think that’s putting us in good stead.”
Stone admitted to the tangible difference between the team MU is at home versus the team it is on the road and emphasized the importance of bringing that energy Saturday in Columbia, South Carolina.
“We’ve showed a bit of recklessness on the road,” Stone said. “So, just maintain. ... It’s a whole, like, slew of, you know, of things that we need to kind of amalgamate together and combine to be as consistent as we can be, because I really believe in this team.”
While the road mentality is one of its biggest obstacles right now, Missouri still has to focus on the opponent ahead of it.
The Gamecocks are second to last in the SEC rankings, only above an Oklahoma team that took Mizzou to overtime and forced senior Mark Mitchell to finish the game with a 3 at the buzzer.
Senior Meechie Johnson leads South Carolina in scoring, averaging 16.9 points per game. Three others from the squad are averaging double-digit scoring, all hovering around 10 points per game.
“(South Carolina’s) had battles,” Gates said. “They’ve done things in home court against some teams, and they are a well-coached team with a great, great roster. And we’ve got our hands full, and we’ve got to go out and give our best on this road.”
For Missouri, Mitchell continues his reign as the top Tigers scorer. He is averaging 17.5 ppg but has been consistently rounding out his stat line as the season has progressed. Mitchell is currently one of eight players nationally who has more than 375 points, 120 rebounds and 70 assists.
The Tigers will need that consistency against the Gamecocks when they play next at noon Saturday in Columbia, South Carolina.
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