Take a look at what I’ll be watching in tonight’s Missouri (6-1) matchup with the California Golden Bears (6-1).

We’ve finally made it. It’s the tough part of the non-conference schedule starting tonight with the SEC/ACC Challenge.

Cal enters tonight’s matchup after after winning the Cal Classic the week before Thanksgiving.

The Golden Bears beat Air Force (78-69), Sacramento State (83-77) and Mercyhurst (81-55) in their home tournament.

Cal played and beat former Pac-12 rival USC 71-66 and the Golden Bears’ lone loss this year came on the road at Vanderbilt 85-69 on Nov. 13.

Cal averages 79.9 points per game and allows 71.1, while shooting 47.9 percent from the field, 36.1 percent from 3 and 71.5 percent at the free-throw line.

Cal sits at No. 116 in the KenPom rankings coming into the matchup, while Missouri is No. 54.

The Golden Bears are led by Andrej Stojakovic, son of Peja Stojakovic who played 13 seasons in the NBA including winning a title with the Dallas Mavericks in 2011 and making three All Star Games as a member of the Sacramento Kings.

The younger Stojakovic (6-foot-7, 205 pounds) scores 17.7 points per game, while bringing down 5.1 rebounds per contest as a sophomore forward.

The Golden Bears will likely be without second-leading scorer Jovan Blacksher (a 5-11 graduate guard) who has not played since the matchup with USC, same with third-leading scorer BJ Omot (a 6-8 junior forward) and junior guard DJ Campbell.

Without those three, freshman guard Jeremiah Wilkinson (6-1, 185 pounds) has performances of 23, 16 and 25 points off the bench, while Rytis Petraitis (a 6-7, 210-pound junior forward) and Joshua Ola-Joseph (a 6-7, 215-pound junior forward) have stepped into the starting five.

This will be the first time I’m actually looking at matchups this year, so bear with me a little.

The first and biggest one is definitely Stojakovic vs. the Tigers’ interior defense.

Stojakovic can shoot 3s, and does a lot if that’s what is called for with nine attempts against Cal Poly and seven against Air Force, but more often he’s getting to the rim and often the free-throw line.

Stojakovic has three games with at least six free-throw attempts, including 15 tries from the line against Sacramento State.

The interior defense is going to need to hold up without fouling for Mizzou. The Tigers have had a number of games now dominating the free-throw line totals because they’ve been facing undisciplined teams without the strength to attack the rim against an SEC team. Stojakovic has the strength and the will to go for it, if the Tigers get foul happy, it might be a long night.

The other big one will be Wilkinson vs. the Tiger zone.

Wilkinson has been the leading scorer for the Golden Bears the past three games replacing injured starters, he’s taken 12, 10 and 12 shots the past three games and hit six 3s against Mercyhurst on eight attempts.

If Mizzou is able to control his performance within the 3-point line and force him into longer attempts, I don’t think he’ll shoot 75 percent against better close-out defenses.

A full 40 minutes from the Tigers.

The issue of second-half flatlining has gone away for Mizzou the past couple of weeks because the Tigers have been so far and away more talented than the team they were facing that a lull here or there didn’t matter.

We’re back to opponents where it will matter.

The Tigers will be without Caleb Grill, so someone else is going to have to provide a spark that keeps the team from falling into long lulls. If I had to guess, it’ll be Marques Warrick.

This is still as easy as the tougher games will be and Vanderbilt beat Cal by 19, so this should still be a pretty easy win for the Tigers. We’ll see.

If it’s a dominant win, I’ll start feeling a bit better about Saturday.

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