Tales from Mizzou Arena on the last night of a lost season

Missouri played its final home game of the basketball season on Tuesday night. It was a loss, the same as the previous eight had been. The victor this time was Auburn, 101-74. Missouri finished the season 6-11 at home. That ties the 2016-17 for the fewest home wins since the Tigers moved to Mizzou Arena. In fact, the last time the Tigers won fewer than a half dozen on their home court was in 1967-68 when they were still playing in Brewer Fieldhouse.

There were 10,041 brave sounds in the new black seats to watch this one. It was the second-smallest crowd of the conference season to watch the Tigers play. But perhaps the most remarkable thing about this nightmare campaign that’s now just 40 minutes away from the first winless conference season at Missouri in 116 years is that the fans for the most part have still been showing up.

The season featured just one sellout (a 70-55 loss to Memphis in the second game of the season) but had ten other games of more than 10,0000 fans. For the year, Missouri averaged 10,855 fans per game.

“We all know that it has not gone how we wanted it to,” head coach Dennis Gates said to the fans that stuck around after the game for Tuesday night’s senior ceremonies. “You guys, just like our players, have given your very best, so I appreciate you. We love you.”

Is there some inflation in those numbers? Maybe a little. But I’ve been at the vast majority of the games. If Mizzou was pumping up the numbers, it wasn’t egregious.

“I just love their consistency. I wish I could give them the same sacrifices back somehow some way,” Gates said after Mizzou’s loss to Ole Miss on Saturday. “Our fans are basketball educated, and I just appreciate them understanding that the best thing you can give young people is support and that's what they're doing, being able to be in the seats.”

Normally in a season gone this far south, people stay home. There are other things to do. Or maybe it’s just not worth the time and the investment and the heartache. But this season, Missouri fans have still shown up.

The Tigers’ average attendance would have ranked 26th in the country last season (numbers aren’t yet reported for this year). It would have come in behind only Tennessee, Alabama, Arkansas and Kentucky in the SEC. It's an average of just 716 fewer fans than came for Mizzou's 25-win campaign a year ago.

So on the last miserable day of a lost and miserable season, I had one question for those that are still showing up: Why?

I didn’t mean it in a negative way. I was honestly curious. With so much competition for time and money and entertainment, what has kept people coming back night after night to watch a team that has been, unfortunately, as consistent as its fans?

“Good question,” John Clowe said. “Part of it is that I paid for season tickets and feel like it’s a waste not to go. But really, I love rooting for Mizzou. This year has been a total disappointment, but the team doesn’t seem like it’s given up. I like seeing the young guys showing improvement.”

Clowe lives in Columbia. He admitted he might not have made the trip from Kansas City or St. Louis for an 8 o’clock start. But he has missed only two home games this year and made up for one of them by going to St. Louis for the Braggin’ Rights Game two days before Christmas. He has two tickets. His wife usually goes with him, but sometimes it’s one of his two sons. They go because, well, they always go.

That was the most common answer I got. Why are they going? Because that’s what they do.

“It’s our town, our team,” Cody Morgenstern, who has been to seven games with his girlfriend this season, said. "You become attached to the players. I still follow everybody that’s put on a Tiger uniform.”

“I've gone for years,” Zach Hobbs said. “As a kid, I got suckered in by Quin Snyder’s Elite Eight team and then the same when Mike Anderson did it, too. Since I've had money, I've been going ever since the last Kim Anderson year. Back then, it was pretty cheap entertainment even if they lost, and I just liked supporting my team.”

Hobbs said he’s missed two home games this year due to the birth of his son. He can’t wait for next year.

“He'll be right in there with us next football and basketball season since he will be big enough with hearing protection,” Hobbs said.

“Mizzou’s my ride or die team,” Skyler Thomas said. “If you can’t support them when they’re bad you don’t get to claim them when they’re good.”

Columbia native Bryant Vessell: “Mizzou basketball was the first thing I really enjoyed with Mizzou athletics. I’ve sat watching through some rough years so I think it’s important to support every team even if the season isn’t going so well, like this season. That makes the good seasons just that much better.”

“I was enjoying last year when they won a bunch of games so as a fan you have to go even when they don’t win too,” Mizzou student Matt Freedman said. “It’s just part of being fan. Have to suffer through this in order to enjoy the success that will hopefully be coming in the next few years.”

That’s part of it. Fandom doesn’t die with losses. It might wane. It might ebb and flow. But it never truly dies. They’re here because they’ve always been here. And they’ll keep coming back.

But it’s not just that. Old habits die hard, but some of them do die. Even those who have always come admit they might have stopped under some circumstances. Most of the fans I asked told me that despite the losses, the team’s play is part of the reason they’re still showing up.

“The players are still playing hard and I still have faith in Dennis to turn it around next year,” Levi Dial, who drives up from Wardsville said. “If the team was showing that they had phoned it in for the year and we all knew the coach was being fired, I wouldn’t be going to watch this team. I think our guys deserve to have a few fans at the game.”

“I believe in Dennis’ vision,” Clark Henderson said. “We saw what he could do last year, and unfortunately this year he is just a star player or two away from having a good squad. We’ve been on the bad end of close game luck this year, so I’m going to root on Mizzou no matter the record.”

Henderson’s an outlier in those I heard from. This is the first game he’s been to at Mizzou Arena this year. He moved to St. Louis for work after graduating last May and hasn’t been able to get back. But he’s got a friend at work who’s an Auburn fan and they came to Columbia together to see their teams play.

“We are lifelong Mizzou fans and can see that Coach Gates is building something special here at Mizzou,” Nathan Schutte, who attended his last game as a Mizzou student, said. “I am grateful to be able to watch the beginning stages of a great program that Dennis is building.”

“I keep going because I know this is a temporary setback season,” Rex Dickson said. “I want to be there in future seasons when it turns around and say that I was there when it was rough and when it mattered.”

Hope, as Ellis Boyd Redding said in Shawshank Redemption, is a good thing. Maybe the best of things.

And then there’s the FOMO. When everyone I talked to got ready for the game on Tuesday evening, Missouri hadn’t yet won a game since the calendar turned to 2024. But streaks are broken all the time and nobody wanted to be sitting at home watching on TV in case tonight was the night this one ended.

“Hey, you never know, they may pull off a win at some point,” Mason Arnzen said before attending his fifth game of the season.

“It’s my senior year at Mizzou, and I don’t want to regret not going to games,” Brandon Nimmons told me.

“It’s gotten to the point where it’s sort of a spectacle,” Davonte Easton, a junior at Mizzou, said. “Every game is basically us saying ‘surely they win this one right?’ And it’s something that we don’t want to miss if we don’t go to a game.”

“This is my senior year and the last season I’ll be able to watch Mizzou hoops in the student section,” Zach Boyer said. “I’d love to see an upset.”

“I don't want to miss the one SEC win they have this year,” Hayden Salmons said.

He’s missed just three home games in two years and went to Nashville for last year’s run to the SEC Tournament semifinals.

A few other people mentioned Senior Night as a reason they wanted to go to this game specifically.

“I’m a sucker for senior nights. Even though seniors are seldom four-year Mizzou guys anymore, I appreciate athletes who compete as Tigers,” John Clowe said. “I appreciate the contributions Nick Honor and Noah Carter made to last year’s Mizzou season despite not being able to lead this year’s team to success.”

“I’m going because of senior night,” Cole, a Mizzou student, said. “It’s not been an ideal season, but I still want to show support to the seniors. Especially those that have been with the program for both of Gates’ seasons.”

“I think it’s really important to show up tonight to show appreciation for the seniors especially Sean (East), Noah and Nick,” Mizzou student Cole Heinisch said. “Sean’s done so much for the team this year and although the other two haven’t had the years many expected, they still were really important pieces a year ago.”

Everyone has his or her reasons. But almost all of them share one. The games aren’t so much about the games as about the people with who you share them. Mothers and sons, fathers and daughters, husbands and wives dot the crowd at every arena in America. Today, they go for the game. Years from now, they cherish the memories.

“I grew up in Columbia, so lifelong Mizzou fan, been going since I was 10 with my grandpa,” Josh Capron said. “My 6-year old doesn’t get that their record is bad and losing has no meaning to him at this point but he enjoys the entertainment of the light show, Truman, Star Wars Day.”

"Taking my kids,” Joe Germano, who drove about two-and-a-half hours from Leawood, KS, said. “It’s the only game we’ve been able to get to with their sports schedules."

“The game I took my nephew to was a game where Aidan Shaw had three or four dunks,” Adam Harris said. “He ended up asking for a basketball goal for Christmas.”

“My dad and I both live in Columbia,” Jacob, who didn’t want his last name used, said. “We have a pretty solid routine down of having a beer at the Berg to drop one of our cars off, then head up to the stadium.”

“I go with my teenage daughter, who is just starting to appreciate basketball,” Rex Dickson said. “It's been a great time for the two of us to spend together.”

“I have been to every single home game this year and I go with my mom to all of them,” Kevin Almora said. “It is something that my mom and I can bond over always and will always have a great time. We have had Mizzou football season tickets for the last 20 years so we understand how it feels to struggle, but that doesn't mean we quit on them. Something about sports in general that brings people together and I love that.”

Why are they still coming? They’re Mizzou fans. To the core.

"I go because I’m grateful to be able to watch kids living a dream of theirs representing a school that has meant so much to me,” Matt Torres said. “Not a lot is better than that.”

“Mizzou fan my whole life,” Josh Arnold said. “Mom went to grad school here, and just my whole life grew up watching Tiger football and basketball. Was about 10 when the 2007 team came around as well as the Mike Anderson Elite Eight squad.

“It was always the cool thing to not go to games because ‘Mizzou sucks’ but that wasn't me. You tailgate because there's a football game. You gather at a bar for Happy Hour because there's a basketball game. Not the other way around."

“I think the reason we still go to games is because Mizzou is built in to who we are,” Michael Schauwecker, who attends games with his girlfriend, said. “Sometimes I think it would be nice to be an Alabama football fan or a Kentucky basketball fan in some ways, always knowing you have a top team before the season’s started. But I feel like as a Mizzou fan going through all these highs and lows with football and basketball makes those years we are a top team mean that much more and that really came to fruition with football this year. My friends and I all agree that when (Harrison) Mevis hit that field goal (against Kansas State) it was probably a top five moment in our lives. My dad was right next to me when that happened and that feeling of jumping up and down hugging him and everyone around us was really irreplaceable. That may seem funny to some, but all those years of mediocrity really make those moments so special when they happen. So, yeah, I'm just weathering the storm right now.”

This storm has been a bad one. Some day, the clouds will break. When they do, the die-hards will be there. Still.

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