King's Court: Predictions on the SEC tournament
I’ve made the Sisyphus comparison with this Mizzou team a handful of times this season. And it never felt more accurate than it did on Saturday.
For the first time in a long time, the team looked better than its opponent. LSU genuinely struggled to get going in the first half of the regular season finale. Missouri’s defense was solid and the offense was getting propped up by players who rarely help on that end of the floor. That six-point lead wasn’t a fluke. That’s what the black and gold look like at their best.
Their best never lasts, though. And, sure enough, they fell apart in the second half and became the program’s first team to go winless in conference play in more than a century.
MU’s going to roll the rock up the hill one more time on Wednesday in Nashville, Tenn. A win isn’t going to magically right all the wrongs of this year — nothing will, barring a miraculous run in which the Tigers win an SEC championship and wind up going dancing (oddsmakers give Mizzou a 1-in-1,000 chance to pull it off, which seems high).
But a victory would, at least, show that the Tigers didn’t wait to break whatever curse was put on them this year. It would mean the seniors who helped deliver the program its first NCAA tournament win in 13 years finally figured it out after months of searching for solutions.
There is quite literally nothing left to lose this season except one more game. Whether it all comes to an end on Wednesday or sometime after that, the good news for Mizzou is that, unlike Sisyphus, it’s not doomed for eternity. Missouri can go get a win this March. Or it can schedule a matchup with School for the Left-Handed Typewriter Technicians in the 2024-25 season opener in November to put an immediate end to the losing streak.
Either way, the Tigers will get over the hump again, someday.
Anywell, I’m dropping this column a couple of days early because I’ll be in Nashville all week. Here are my predictions for the SEC tournament:
First Round, Wednesday, March 13
-No. 13 Vanderbilt vs. No. 12 Arkansas, 6 p.m.
This is a surprisingly tough call. The Razorbacks went 4-5 in the second half of conference play, with most of its losses coming by just one or two scores. But the Commodores beat Arkansas on the road two weeks ago, 85-82, and also edged out Florida for a Senior Night win on Saturday, 79-78. I think I lean with the Hogs, though — Kentucky is the only team Arkansas has lost twice to this season and I think Eric Musselman makes the adjustments to get the job done in this rematch.
-No. 14 Mizzou vs. No. 11 Georgia, 8:30 p.m.
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