For the first time since 2018, Missouri men’s basketball is going dancing.
On Selection Sunday, the NCAA Selection Committee revealed its 68-team bracket for the 2021 NCAA Tournament. The Tigers are the No. 9 seed in the West region, set to face No. 8-seed Oklahoma in the first round.
Missouri will take on the Sooners on Saturday, March 20. Missouri coach Cuonzo Martin hopes the time and location will be announced Monday.
“The guys fought,” Martin said. “They fought hard. Went through some bumps in a road, stayed the course. Just to give these guys an opportunity to transition out of their careers from a college standpoint and be in the tournament is a great feeling.”
Missouri secured its at-large bid relatively early in the season thanks to its quality wins. The Tigers started 5-0 with a road win over Wichita State, a neutral-site win over Oregon and home wins over Oral Roberts, Liberty and Illinois.
All of Missouri’s opponents during that stretch also made the 68-team field. Illinois ended up winning the Big 10 championship and securing a No. 1 seed, led by player of the year candidate Ayo Dosumnu, monstrous center Kofi Cockburn and a host of scoring and defensive depth.
While the Tigers cooled off from their hot start, they continued to pile up the quality wins that ultimately got them to this point. Missouri comfortably beat Tennessee and Arkansas, who earned No. 5 and No. 3 seeds, respectively.
A dramatic home win over East No. 2 seed and eventual SEC champion Alabama on Feb. 6 all but locked in a bid for Missouri, and an equally down-to-the-wire road win over South region No. 7 seed Florida solidified it.
“We’ve been in those types of games,” Martin said. “We gotta be sound down the stretch of those games.”
Led by the two-way All-SEC play of redshirt senior guard Dru Smith, the explosive scoring outbursts of Xavier Pinson and the inside presence of senior forward Jeremiah Tilmon, Missouri was a No. 4 seed when the Selection Committee revealed its preliminary 16-team bracket on Feb. 12.
Since then, Missouri suffered bad losses to Georgia and Ole Miss, as well as close losses to good teams in Arkansas — twice — and LSU. The Tigers also failed to make waves in the SEC Tournament, losing to Arkansas in the quarterfinals.
“I just think tournament time is a fresh start for your team,” Martin said. “Oftentimes when you play in league games, teams get familiar with you. You have those same internal doubts that you played against a team and didn’t play well, whatever, good or bad. I just think this is a fresh start, exciting times, man, tremendous opportunity.”
Even as the AP Poll ranked Missouri as a Top-10 team in the country, analytics-based rankings like KenPom and NET didn’t buy it. Missouri got lucky in a couple of its close wins — like when Dosunmu inexplicably took an off-balance three with time to spare in the Illinois win and when SEC Player of the Year Herb Jones missed an open layup that would have given Alabama the lead.
The Tigers finished 16-9. Their seven NET Quadrant-1 wins were more than enough to earn them a bid, but legitimate questions remain about how far Missouri can and will go in the Tournament.
For now, Missouri turns its attention to the Sooners, who come in at 15-10 after a second-round loss to Kansas in the Big 12 tournament. The Tigers played Oklahoma last year and lost, 77-66.
“That was a good, scrappy team,” Tilmon said. “They have some good shooters on their team… I have to go back and watch the film to get all in-depth with it, but they have some good shooters on that team and they got a nice point guard.”
The Tigers will likely match up Dru Smith with six-foot-five Oklahoma senior guard Austin Reeves, who leads the Sooners in points, rebounds and assists. Much like Missouri, the Sooners were ranked No. 7 in the AP Poll as late as late February before struggling down the stretch.
The Sooners stacked back-to-back-to-back then-Top-10 wins in late January over Kansas, Texas and Alabama, respectively. But as February rolled into March, they lost four in a row leading into the Big 12 tournament.
If Missouri gets past Oklahoma, it will almost certainly face overall No. 1 seed Gonzaga in the second round. The Bulldogs, a perennial powerhouse led by star freshman guard and presumed Top-5 NBA Draft pick Jalen Suggs, are the country’s last remaining undefeated team.
That game will take place on Monday, March 22 at a time and location to be announced Monday.
_Edited by Kyle Pinnell | kpinnell@themaneater.com_
