Late season swoon keeps Mizzou out of NCAA Tournament
Missouri women’s basketball came so close to extending its season, but fell just short of an NCAA Tournament bid when the field was announced on Sunday night. Mizzou will miss the NCAA Tournament for the third straight season under Robin Pingeton.
The Tigers stumbled to the finish line after a hot start to the season. They won their first eight games of the season and knocked off No. 1 South Carolina to open conference play, but following that historic upset — the first time the program had ever defeated the AP No. 1 team — Missouri won just six of its final 16 games.
Depaul, Dayton, Missouri State and Florida State locked up the spots in the First Four--in other words, those were the last four teams in the field. Of those teams, Dayton finished the highest in the NET rankings (No. 43), directly followed by Missouri State (No. 44). Missouri (No. 49) finished ahead of both Florida State (No. 51) and DePaul (No. 52).
ESPN.com's final Bracketology on Sunday morning had the Tigers in the field and DePaul out of it. When it was announced, those teams were reversed.
There are a couple reasons why the selection committee likely left the Tigers out despite the higher NET ranking. Head to head, the Tigers lost to Missouri State by 28 back in December.
Secondly, Missouri crawled to the finish line while other teams didn’t. Florida State won seven of its last 10 games, including against No. 22 Georgia Tech and No. 20 Notre Dame. Dayton made it to the Atlantic-10 Championship game and had won 19 of its prior 20 games. DePaul struggled more than the others, but still managed to go .500 over the final 10 games and finished 22-10 while Mizzou was 18-12 overall.
There were multiple games that ultimately cost the Tigers more than they may have thought at the time. Beating Missouri State, of course, would have been huge. But Missouri also lost to Arkansas three times this season. The Razorbacks are a 10 seed. Winning just one of those games — especially if it were the game that went to overtime in the SEC Tournament — would have gotten them in. The Tigers also lost to LSU and Baylor in overtime. The Bears are a two seed and the Tigers are a three seed.
Instead, Missouri waits to find out what comes next. In all likelihood, the Tigers will receive an invite to the WNIT. Those invitations come out later tonight, and Missouri will likely accept an invitation if one is extended.
Whatever happens, it’s safe to say that a season that began with such promise, that included an epic win against the best team in the country, will now end in disappointment.
Missouri did not make Robin Pingeton or any of the Tiger players available for comment on Sunday evening.
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