The past 10 months of Missouri basketball have included a lot of changes in expectation.

From going 0-19 in conference play and people calling for Tiger coach Dennis Gates to be fired, to bringing in one of the best transfer classes and freshman classes in the country bringing hope.

The season-opener at Memphis both reminded people how different the team was, but brought back those same feelings from last season with a second-half collapse, then those same issues appeared in games against lesser opponents, dropping Tiger fan expectations again.

There was some developing hope with the repeated beatdowns of the worst teams in college basketball, but lingering fear that it was false and would be dashed as soon as Mizzou played some tougher opponents.

Then came the Border War, the first win against kansas since 2012 and a victory against the team ranked No. 1 in the country.

Even a loss in Braggin’ Rights did not dampen Tiger fans’ hopes of a return to the SEC tournament.

Mizzou was listed just in or just out of the tournament in early bracketologies, but the depth and talent throughout the SEC kept expectations from growing too high.

There were too many games on the road against top-tier opponents to think the Tigers were going to end in the top half of the conference standings.

Gates even went on a crusade across weeks of press conferences that an 8-10 SEC team should make the tournament.

Was that because he honestly believes the SEC is by far the best conference in college basketball and a team that goes just slightly under .500 should make the tournament?

Yes, I think so.

Was it also because he thought his team was likely to end close to 8-10 in conference play?

Yes, I think so.

And when conference play began, that seemed to be the case. The Tigers looked outmatched against an Auburn team that is clearly one of the best in the country, then Mizzou won its two must-win home games against teams that will likely end near the bottom of the conference standings.

All as expected.

Mizzou was 2-1, but had never started 3-1 in SEC play and was going on the road to face a top-5 opponent, another game that was an assumed loss with the chance to get back over .500 coming up when Arkansas comes to Columbia to end the week.

But the Tigers showed Tuesday night at 9 p.m. local time in Gainesville that when they are on, they can play with anybody.

They played arguably the best single-half of basketball of the Gates era as they jumped ahead by 19 in the first half, then they resiliently withstood every Florida run through the second half and hit the shots they needed down the stretch. Even though they lost a senior guard to an ejection and had their star sophomore guard sitting with four fouls, forcing a freshman who averages less than 5:30 played per game to guard the key players in the Florida offense for the final 7 minutes of the game.

They withstood a flagrant 2 and a flagrant 1 both coming in the span of less than two minutes that allowed Florida to cut the lead by eight points very quickly.

After leading for 37:47 out of 40 minutes against the Gators, the Tigers have held the lead for all but 5:11 out of 120 minutes the past three games (they also led for 39:03 against Vanderbilt and 38:09 against LSU).

And in doing so changed the expectations for this season once again.

No longer will the conversation be about whether Mizzou has done enough to be on the right side of the bubble, it has. The conversation around seeding in the tournament will shoot way up.

The Tigers obviously need to continue handling their business, but they showed on Tuesday with their first true road win since November 2023, their first SEC road win since March 2023 and their first true-road win against a top-5 opponent since a win against Baylor in 2012, before the Tigers were even in the SEC, that they are a threat to anybody at any time.

Let those hopes and expectations for this season rise, the Tigers have earned them.

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