The Missouri Tigers have found themselves one step closer to a dreaded winless conference season. 

Dennis Gates’ team dropped their 11th straight game on Saturday, falling to Mississippi State 75-51 at home in Mizzou Arena. 

Prior to tip-off, it was announced that graduate Sean East II would miss his second straight game. East is the Tigers’ leading scorer at 15.6 points per game and the void he left held an impact on this game. Mississippi State held the Tigers to their lowest point total of the season, partly due to a season-high 20 turnovers. 

Graduate Nick Honor led the Tigers in his fellow point guard’s absence, scoring 15 points. 

“I felt the need to step up a lot,” Honor said. “I knew it was gonna be a lot more on the ball … it was really nothing for me to step up and shoot the ball like coach wants me to do.”

Junior Tamar Bates was the only other Tiger in double figures with 11 points, but had an out-of-character night shooting the ball, going 3-for-11 compared to his usual percentage of 52%. 

Despite missing their leading scorer, the Tigers got off to a hot start. Bates scored a transition lay-up, followed by four points from freshman center Jordan Butler. This put Missouri up 6-5 with 16:33 remaining in the contest, but it was the last time that the Bulldogs would trail. 

Mississippi State responded to the early Tiger lead with a 13-4 run of their own, with six points of the run coming from freshman guard Josh Hubbard, who ended the game leading all scorers from both teams with 16 points. 

The game turned sloppy from there for the Tigers, with MU turning the ball over five times in the following five minutes, allowing the Bulldogs to take a 22-16 lead. 

Throughout the first half, Gates showed his frustrations with the officiating as Missouri had nine fouls to Mississippi State’s five. His frustration reached its peak at the 4:00 mark, when freshman guard Anthony Robinson II took a hit after running into a screen and was called for a blocking foul. The officials reviewed the call and, through a chorus of boos, decided that the call stood. 

That sequence seemed to motivate the Tigers, as they won the final four minutes of the half 10-8. The run was led by two threes from Honor, and the Tigers went into the half trailing 30-26. 

Despite the strong end to the first half, the wheels fell off coming out of the break. In the first 10 minutes of the new half, Missouri turned the ball over eight times and put up seven shots. This helped Mississippi State go on a 25-8 run, stretching their lead to 21. 

The final 10 minutes were an improvement on the first 10, with Mississippi State only outscoring Missouri by three. But the game was decided at the beginning of the second half, as the Bulldogs were able to improve to 16-8 on the season. 

“We fought our hearts out,” Gates said. “The second half, we tried to fight but we just ran out of gas.”

The loss drops Missouri to 8-16 on the year, and 0-11 in SEC play. The Tigers have lost 14 of their last 15 games, and are yet to win a game since the calendar flipped to 2024. 

Missouri’s next chance to break into the win column comes on Feb. 17, when the Tigers travel to Oxford to take on Ole Miss. Tip-off is set for 7:30 p.m.

Edited by Michael Stamps

Copy edited by Grace Knight | gknight@themaneater.com