Missouri men’s basketball defeated the Southeast Missouri State Redhawks 96-89 at home Sunday evening, picking up its ninth victory of the season to remain undefeated.

The first half saw the Tigers dominate in the first 13 minutes of action. Offensively, senior forward Kobe Brown picked apart the Redhawks in the paint. Defensively, Missouri did a solid job of rotating and forcing turnovers despite allowing a few threes to fall. The Tigers lead the nation in steals per game and added to their total, registering 10 thefts in the first half — more than all but 13 Division I teams’ game average for the season.

It was at the 6:43 mark in the first half, however, when SEMO went on tear, outscoring the Tigers 20-6 in under five minutes. The Redhawks knocked down four 3s, while the Tigers only converted one field goal in that same stretch. For a brief moment in time, SEMO led 40-39; a similar situation to Missouri’s game against Penn, where its opponent led late in the first half.

However, the Tigers roared back with an 11-0 run to close the half — scoring a trio of transition buckets, two of which came off steals. A buzzer-beating 3-pointer from Brown capped off the Tigers’ response.

“I’m extremely proud of what they did,” Missouri head coach Dennis Gates said. “They navigated through a situation and closed [the] half a certain way, and I thought that gave us great momentum going into halftime.”

The second half was a similar story. The Tigers dominated the opening minutes, stretching their lead to 19 with eight and a half minutes to go. The Redhawks proceeded to outscore the Tigers 21-9 as a combination of hot shooting from SEMO and lacking offense from Missouri pulled SEMO within 6 with just under 60 seconds remaining. However, the Tigers held on in the final minute and closed out the win.

Brown led the way in scoring, finishing with 25 points. Senior guard Sean East II was the second-leading scorer for Missouri, registering 21 points and dishing out a team-high six assists. Missouri shot over 40% from 3, including 6 out of 12 in the second half.

Despite allowing SEMO to shoot 50% from beyond the arc en route to 89 total points, Gates was still pleased with his defense’s performance.

“You can play great defense in basketball and still give up a basket,” Gates said. “What I look at is how [our] guys are able to recover from their own mistakes. [I look for] how they can read the game and understand, ‘Okay, this is an opportunity for me to gamble.’ You have to allow them to use their instincts defensively.”

The Tigers now look ahead to Saturday, when arch-rival Kansas comes to town for the first Border Showdown in Columbia since 2012. Mizzou Arena has, predictably, sold out one of the most anticipated matchups in recent Missouri basketball history.

Edited by Matt Guzman | mguzman@themaneater.com
Copy edited by Mary Philip and Jacob Richey