Missouri Basketball: Takeaways from heartbreaking loss against No. 1 Auburn

Now that felt like an SEC Basketball game.

Missouri Basketball, and more broadly Mizzou Athletics, has struggled to engage the fanbase in recent memory. This being largely a result of the Mizzou Athletics program performing sub-par within the Southeastern Conference, especially in their high-revenue sports. Who knew that it only would take some chicken tenders, acrobatic entertainment, and playing Mr. Brightside for students to give their Tigers another chance and pack Mizzou Arena?

With students in the stands, Missouri’s home-court advantage would be put on full display Tuesday night as No. 1 Auburn (19-1, 8-0 SEC) narrowly escaped Mizzou Arena with a 55-54 win in the waning seconds of the contest, which on paper, should have been a blowout.

Missouri (8-11, 2-5 SEC) led against Auburn for 26 minutes during the game. Their largest lead came in the opening stretch as the Tigers would quickly race to a 10-point lead, while Auburn would miss 10 of their first 11 shots. There would be three minutes remaining in the first half before Auburn took their first lead of the night.

"“I imagine it was a tremendous game to watch,” Missouri coach Cuonzo Martin said."

Senior Javon Pickett solidified himself as the team’s leader when facing ranked opponents, putting together his third game of the season with a .580 field goal percentage or higher. The other two came against No. 15 Alabama and No. 8 Kansas. Pickett’s success from the field would thrust him into the team’s scoring leader for the night at 17 points.

Kobe Brown, which usually finds himself leading scoring efforts for the Tigers, struggled under Auburn’s pressure Tuesday night, finishing 4 of 11. Despite struggling at the basket, Brown attacked the rim, gathering 11 rebounds in the contest.

"Auburn coach Bruce Pearl attacked Kobe Brown and the Missouri team in his post-game presser telling media members, “We can win when Jabari [Smith] doesn’t have a good night. Missouri can’t win when Kobe Brown doesn’t have a big offensive night.”"

It is, by no means, an exaggeration to say that Missouri almost got away with one of the biggest upsets in college basketball this season.

While Missouri’s loss may have felt crushing to the Mizzou faithful, here are three takeaways (the good and the bad) from the heartbreaking Tuesday night loss at Mizzou Arena.