Missouri men’s basketball’s magical season ended in a disappointing fashion Saturday evening, as the Tigers lost 78-63 to Princeton, the South region’s No. 15 seed. 

Missouri senior forward Noah Carter started off the game hot with 7 points, but Princeton senior guard Ryan Langborg answered with 11 of its first 15 points to take an early lead on the Tigers.  

Outside of Carter, the Missouri offense was slow in the first 10 minutes of the first half, starting out 5-9 before going on a 0-11 shooting drought. Princeton took advantage with a barrage of 3-pointers, increasing its lead to 24-14 with seven minutes to go in the first half. 

Princeton’s size and shooting gave the Missouri defense problems, prompting Missouri coach Dennis Gates to give junior forward Mohamed Diarra increased minutes to match up defensively with Princeton. 

The SEC’s Scholar-Athlete of the year, Kobe Brown, struggled immensely in the first half after a fantastic performance in the first round. The senior forward only scored 2 points on 1-5 shooting against Princeton, which hurt the Missouri offense that primarily ran through him all season. 

Missouri was able to cut the deficit to 33-26 in the first half, but there was a lot of work to be done in the second if it had hopes of remaining in the game down the stretch. 

The second half, however, was not much kinder to Missouri, as senior guard D’Moi Hodge had a scary fall early in the half that took him out of the game for several minutes. No foul call was made on the play — another issue all game for Missouri — and several no-calls on top of the Hodge fall caused Gates to talk to the referees and sort out the situation. 

The referee problem went away after the conversation for the most part, but it did not help Missouri get any offense going. The rest of the second half went just as poorly as the first half did for the Missouri Tigers, as they continued to get out-rebounded and shot poorly from the 3-point line. 

Both of those aspects told the story, with Princeton out-rebounding Missouri 45-30 — including 17 offensive rebounds — and Missouri shooting 6-22 from 3. Missouri was also crushed by second chance points, allowing 19 from Princeton. 

Langborg finished with 22 points for Princeton, in addition to sophomore guard Blake Peters scoring 17 points off the bench. 

The only bright spots for the Tigers were Carter — who finished with 14 points — and senior guard DeAndre Gholston, who scored an efficient 19 points. Brown and Hodge struggled shooting the ball and getting to their spots, unlike in the win over No. 10 seed Utah State. 

It was a tough way to end the season for Missouri, which had an otherwise fantastic year under a first-year head coach like Gates. 

The program saw the most success and fan support it had in years, thanks in large part to Gates’ change of culture and Brown’s excellence. Despite the disappointing conclusion, there is certainly much to look forward to in this new era of Missouri men’s basketball. 

Edited by Matt Guzman | mguzman@themaneater.com

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