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Missouri coach Dennis Gates sent a message to junior forward Mark Mitchell during and after the Tigers’ matchup with Texas A&M on Saturday.

“I was not happy with his performance at all (against Texas A&M),” Gates said. “And he witnessed sitting on the bench and I think he got the message to be able to come out and respond.”

And respond Mitchell did as he poured in a career-high 25 points, brought down seven rebounds to nearly tie his season high and added two steals and two assists while leading the Tigers to a dominant 82-58 win against the Oklahoma Sooners at Mizzou Arena on Wednesday.

“I had some talks with my coaches and some of the people around about being more aggressive,” Mitchell said. “I knew that they were going to try to fan out the shooters because we have such good shooters, so I was going to be able to attack.”

Mitchell got started early as he grabbed a defensive rebound and went coast-to-coast to hit a layup, then dished an assist to Caleb Grill cutting along the baseline for a layup.

“He came out and was aggressive, the very first play he went right at us,” Oklahoma coach Porter Moser said. “... He was a load to handle today.”

The Tigers led 13-8 after Tamar Bates drove the baseline for a double-pump, two-handed dunk, then got running as a 10-0 Tiger run, ending with Marques Warrick finding Mitchell in the post for a dunk, put the Tigers up 23-11.

Missouri kept building its lead through the first half, extending to a 13-point lead on a left-corner 3 from Grill off a Marcus Allen assist - three of Grill’s 15 points - then reaching a 15-point advantage when Warrick turned a Tony Perkins steal into a fastbreak layup to make it 37-22 with 1:38 left before halftime.

A Mitchell and-1 layup extended the Tiger lead to 18, and put Mitchell at 17 points in the first half, surpassing 1,000 for his career.

“It’s a blessing, obviously,” Mitchell said. “I’ve had a good college career, just both places. It’s just been a blessing to experience both sides of college basketball, just being at two great programs.”

Mitchell then added two free throws with 1 second on the clock to send the Tigers into halftime leading 44-24.

“If he’s aggressive, he’ll play and we’ll continue to keep him in the game and we’ll have the production that we saw tonight,” Gates said. “I’m just proud of how he responded.”

But as Mitchell was running the offense, the Tiger defense produced a fantastic first half, holding Oklahoma to just 7-of-32 (21.9 percent) shooting overall, 3-of-13 (23.1 percent) from 3 and 7-of-10 (70 percent) from the free-throw line.

“Ultimately, the defense won the game,” Gates said. “... That’s where I look at the advantage tonight.”

The only issue was the Sooners were able to grab 10 offensive rebounds, leading to an eight-shot advantage, but 13 first-half turnovers somewhat made up the difference.

The second half was more of the same.

After Oklahoma cut the lead to 15 at 53-38 with 13:14 left, the Tigers scored 17 of the next 21 points to build out to a 70-42 lead after an Allen and-1 layup with 9:09 left to play.

Missouri never hit a 30-point advantage, as an Anthony Robinson free throw with 7:54 left made it 73-44 before Oklahoma cut the lead back to 21 with a 6-0 run.

But the Sooners never got back within 20 as the Tigers finished off their second-largest win in conference play, behind only a 27-point beating of Mississippi State.

Along with Mitchell, Grill added 15 points and five rebounds, while Perkins had 12 points, four boards and a career-high five steals. Robinson got back in double figures for the first time since Jan. 14 with 10 points and three rebounds.

The Tigers shot 26-of-48 (54.2 percent) from the field, 4-of-12 (33.3 percent) from 3 and 26-of-35 (74.3 percent) from the free-throw line.

Missouri won the rebounding battle 35-32, the battle for points in the paint 40-24, fastbreak points 10-2 and led for 39:28 of 40 possible minutes.

“Our guys, they accept the medicine from watching film and they don’t run from their mistakes,” Gates said. “If it’s shown in film session, they don’t cringe. They try to understand it in a more, you know, basketball lens, in a coach’s perspective and then they apply it right then and there.”

Missouri (18-6, 7-4 SEC) will look to take their new momentum on the road as they face Georgia at 2:30 p.m. Saturday.

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