Game at a Glance
After each Tiger game, we take a look at the highs and lows. Here's the report from Wednesday's 89-74 loss to Mississippi State.
TURNING POINT: Halftime. Missouri was up 43-39 at the break and seemingly playing quite well. Apparently Ben Howland said something to his team. Either that or reality set in that Missouri hasn't put two halves together all year against a decent team and wasn't likely to choose this night to do so.
IT WAS OVER WHEN: Bulldog freshman Lamar Peters turned into the second coming of Steph Curry. Peters had 23 points, 19 of them in the second half. He hit his first four three-pointers of the second 20 minutes and Mississippi State at one point made six in a row as a team. That helped MSU outscore Mizzou 50-31 in the second half and turn a game it once trailed by nine into a laugher in the final minutes.
CAUSE FOR OPTIMISM: Missouri took Xavier to overtime earlier this year.
CAUSE FOR CONCERN: That was the third game of the season and the Tigers haven't come close to being that good since.
STOCK UP: 20-minute games. Missouri has led at halftime in four of its seven SEC games. Should Greg Sankey pass an off-season rule to shorten games to 20 minutes (and let's be honest, given the state of SEC basketball the last few years, a lot of people might thank him), the Tigers would be right there in the middle of the pack.
STOCK DOWN: 40-minute games. Unfortunately, last we checked, it is still an SEC rule that games must last this long. As long as that's the case, Missouri's chances seem low. It would be hard to imagine a team that can turn a decent performance into a blowout as quickly as the Tigers seem to do with regularity.
UP NEXT: Missouri (5-14, 0-7 SEC) plays South Carolina (16-4, 6-1) at 7:30 on Saturday night at Mizzou Arena. The Gamecocks beat Auburn 98-69 in their last outing. After that is a trip to Florida next Tuesday, exactly 1,101 days after Mizzou will have last won a true road game.