The Missouri Tigers (13-3, 2-1 SEC) didn’t just end their SEC losing streak last week, they started a two-game winning streak. Now they will take those consecutive wins into a matchup against the No. 5 Florida Gators (15-1, 2-1) in a game without much to lose, but a whole lot to gain for the Tigers.

Tipoff is set for 8 p.m. (CT) in Gainesville, which feels insane to have a 9 p.m. local-time start, but I guess that’s where we’re at for the high-quality TV slot on SEC Network.

Here’s a scouting report, some notes and what I’ll be watching tonight.

Florida enters on a two-game winning streak after taking down then top-ranked Tennessee in a blowout, dropping the Volunteers all the way to No. 6 with the loss, then beating Arkansas 71-63 on the road on Saturday.

Florida played a handful of tough opponents in non-conference play, beating all of them. The Gators beat Florida State 87-74, Wake Forest 75-58, Wichita State 88-51, Virginia 87-69, Arizona State 83-66 and North Carolina 90-84.

The Gators’ lone loss came 106-100 on the road at Kentucky to open SEC play.

Florida is averaging 86.3 points per game, while allowing 64.8, so averaging a 21.4-point margin of victory.

The Gators shoot 46.7 percent from the field, 34 percent from 3 and 72 percent at the free-throw line, while allowing opponents to shoot 36.9/27.0/71.2.

Florida attempts 15.3 free throws per game and allows only 13.0.

The Gators are out-rebounding opponents 46.1-33.4 on average.

Senior guard Walter Clayton Jr. (6-foot-3, 195 pounds) leads the Gators at 17.2 points per game and dishes out a team-high 4.0 assists per contest, while graduate guard Alijah Martin (6-2, 210) averages 15.9 points, 5.6 rebounds and 2.69 assists per game.

Senior guard Will Richard (6-4, 206) scores 13.3 points per game, while bringing down 5.2 rebounds and poking away a team-high 2.0 steals per contest. Sophomore forward Alex Condon (6-11, 230) scores 11.0 points and brings down a team-high 8.1 rebounds per game, while blocking 1.63 blocks per game and sophomore center Rueben Chinyelu (6-10, 260) rounds out the Starting 5 that Florida has used in every game this season.

The Gators have used sophomore forward Thomas Haugh (6-9, 215) off the bench in all 16 games this year and junior forward Sam Alexis (6-8, 240) and junior guard Denzel Aberdeen (6-5, 190) in 15 each.

That’s the main rotation the Gators use.

Florida leads the all-time series 11-4 and has won the past four matchups dating to a 72-70 Mizzou win on March 3, 2021. Every matchup has come since Missouri joined the SEC.

Mizzou notes: Missouri rose to No. 34 in the NET rankings after the Tigers’ win against Vanderbilt, Florida is No. 5 … Mizzou has won the rebounding battle in all three SEC games it has played … The Tigers are 2-1 in SEC play for the fourth time in school history, they have not started 3-1 or better … Mizzou is going for its first top-5 true-road win since 2012, when it beat No. 3 Baylor … Tamar Bates enters the matchup with 978 career points, while Caleb Grill has 970 … The Tigers are 10-0 this season when scoring 80 points and 3-3 when held under the mark. Mizzou is 12-0 when holding opponents to less than 80 points.

Backcourts

The Gators are powered by a strong set of guards in Clayton, Richard and Martin. Those three all average at least 30 minutes played per game, so get ready to see them on your screen a lot.

Florida only has one guard who regularly plays off the bench and a very tight bench rotation. With more than 41 of the Gators’ 86 average points coming from that set of three guards, defending them will be the key to the Tigers getting another signature victory for their tournament resume.

Ant Robinson is going to have his hands full staying with them depending on the defenses Dennis Gates decides to go with tonight.

Rebounding

I’m interested to see if the Tigers can keep up this focus on, especially, the defensive boards. Everyone has talked about how Mizzou currently leads the SEC in defensive rebounding percentage, which is wonderful, but the Tigers have also played two very short teams in the past two games.

Will Mizzou be able to keep that up when there are other 6-10, 6-11 players on the floor?

I think that’s a route to a win for Missouri, the Tigers are back to shooting about 25 3s per game and have had a lot of success there the past couple of games, going 12-of-25 (48 percent) against LSU and 10-of-24 (41.7 percent) against Vanderbilt.

The Vanderbilt game didn’t feel like a great shooting performance from deep after the Tigers hit their first four shots, since they then hit just 6-of-20 (30 percent) but you can’t take off the first four just because they all came in about a three-minute sequence.

If the Tigers can continue to shoot 40-45 percent from deep the will go a long way to at least keeping tonight close.

As I said at the beginning, there’s not a lot for Missouri to lose tonight.

A loss on the road to the No. 5 team doesn’t drop Mizzou at all in tournament predictions, it’s expected so long as it’s not a drubbing.

But pulling off a win starts a lot of new conversations about just how good the Tigers are this season.

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