After 669 days, the Missouri Tigers have beaten an SEC team.

They broke a 19-game regular-season and 21-game overall losing streak to SEC teams with an 83-67 win against the LSU Tigers on Tuesday night at Mizzou Arena.

It was the first SEC win as a Tiger for every player on roster except Aidan Shaw.

“Simply put, yes, ya’ll was here, so yes, it definitely meant a lot,” Missouri guard Tamar Bates said. “And I mean, my teammates probably could realize why I was so fired up. No matter how much we were up, because, like, we just wanted to get that first win.”

The Black & Gold didn’t have a normal lead up to the game as the snowstorm that swept through Missouri the past few days stopped the Tigers’ return trip from their SEC opener at Auburn in St. Louis.

Missouri’s team was held up at a hotel near the airport, unable to practice, but that didn’t affect Missouri’s ability to open the game fast.

The home Tigers sprinted out to an early lead, getting stops on five consecutive LSU possessions after giving up a game-opening dunk.

“Before we came out to start the game, we wanted to start with three stops in a row,” Bates said. “... Defensively, like we say, we want to be tough, physical and disruptive, so we were definitely able to execute that tonight.”

In that span, Missouri had jumped ahead 7-2, then Trent Pierce, starting in place of Josh Gray as Missouri adjusted its starting lineup to fire up the big man, hit a 3 after handing the ball to Tony Perkins on the left wing and collecting a pass back from Perkins in the left corner. The shot put Mizzou up 10-4 before a Mark Mitchell layup off another Perkins assist, a Bates 3 off a toss-back assist from Mitchell and an Anthony Robinson 3 from the left corner off a drive-and-kick from Marques Warrick extended the lead to 18-9.

Warrick hit two free throws to push the lead to double digits for the first time with 11:16 left in the first quarter. Then hit a 3 to make it 14.

Missouri maintained a lead of about 8-14 points for the next seven minutes, then a Caleb Grill 3 from about 5 feet beyond the arc put the home Tigers ahead 34-17 with 4:16 left before the break.

The Black & Gold lead extended to 19 after Robinson directed traffic to feed Bates in the left corner for a 3, then Shaw hit a second-chance tip-in to put Missouri in front 42-23 with 56 seconds left.

LSU was able to hit a layup, then turn a steal into two free throws to cut the lead to 42-27 at halftime.

“Our team can play in different situations,” Missouri coach Dennis Gates said. “We took 17 3s in the first half and were able to knock down some shots that helped us. We were able to get to the free-throw line. … But defensively, that’s what I’m proud of. Our guys defended, they communicated, their energy was available tonight.”

Missouri opened the second half quickly on offense, but LSU did as well, keeping the home advantage between 14-17 points for the first three minutes before Bates turned a steal into a dunk to extend the lead to 20 for the first time at 16:43.

The lead hung around 20 points for the next six minutes, but then the home Tigers started to get sloppy.

A missed Missouri layup turned into an LSU 3 before a turnover gave Cam Carter a layup to cut the home lead to 14.

Gates called timeout to try to halt a 7-0 run and Grill did just that with a 3 from far past the top of the key, ending a 3:22 scoreless stretch for Mizzou.

Then the home Tigers started doing what they have done better than almost any team in the country this season, get to the free-throw line.

Two Bates free throws extended the lead to 66-49, but LSU was able to cut the advantage all the way down to 12 with 7:40 left to play.

Then Robinson got to the line for two free throws and Mitchell hit two more to create a 70-55 advantage with 6:39 left.

Grill hit a 3 and Mitchell threw down a dunk in transition to extend back to an 18-point advantage and essentially seal the game with 5:10 left to play.

The home Tigers got back to a 21-point lead when Warrick hit a 3 with 3:29 left but LSU was able to cut it back to 13 with 1:28 remaining.

Grill added a free throw and Shaw hit another second-chance tip-in to create the final margin as Missouri walked away with a conference win.

Missouri shot 26-of-54 (46.3 percent) from the field, 12-of-25 (48 percent) from 3 and 21-of-27 (77.8 percent) from the free-throw line. It was the best the Black & Gold had shot from beyond the arc since shooting the same mark against Jacksonville State on Dec. 17.

Bates led the way with 20 points to go with eight rebounds, while Robinson had 16 points, four rebounds and four assists after a scoreless performance in the SEC opener Saturday.

Warrick added 12 points, while Mitchell had 11 points and three rebounds and Grill added 10 points. Gray grabbed 10 rebounds in just 16 minutes played.

“The young man can impact the game without even having a basket being made,” Gates said of Gray. “Tonight he had 10 rebounds and zero points. I’ll take that any day of the week. If he can do that every night, there will be a lot of coaches voting for him (for SEC all-defensive team) because he’ll impact our team’s ability to win.”

Missouri out-rebounded LSU 37-29, scored 20 points off 14 LSU turnovers and held the lead for 38:09 out of 40 minutes.

“I’ve not one time brought up last year to this team at all,” Gates said. “I’ve learned as a head coach what I needed to learn. … We didn’t put that on them, they weren’t responsible even Ant and Tamar, they’re not the same players they were last year. They are the new version of them. They’re not responsible for that either and right now, I just want them to focus, continue to move forward.”

Missouri (12-3, 1-1 SEC) will remain in Columbia to host Vanderbilt at 2:30 p.m. Saturday.

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