Missouri Basketball: 3 reasons why Tigers can advance in NCAA Tournament

I’m not sure many people would have predicted that Missouri Basketball would have as good of a season as they did under first-year head coach Dennis Gates. Missouri fans were cautiously optimistic about the team Gates assembled, but they had witnessed transfer-heavy teams before. Oftentimes underperforming offensively.

The Tigers have won 24 games this season, up from the 12 games Mizzou won last season. The biggest difference between this current team from last year is that this team is loaded with shooters. Coach Gates had a clear vision of how to make this team successful: play fast, shoot threes, and make teams play at their pace. Missouri wasn’t predicted to finish well in the SEC standings, often projected to finish in the bottom half of the league. Coming into the season, it was largely unknown whether all of the transfers from smaller schools would allow Missouri to be competitive in the SEC.

In the non-conference Mizzou gave up a lot of points to small schools, so early on it was known that the defense might be a problem. But what most people didn’t expect was how well Missouri played once they got to their tough out-of-conference games and their conference games. The Tigers proved that their offense was for real, taking down multiple ranked opponents.

Missouri surprised many basketball fans when they locked up the 4-seed in the SEC tournament. Now they are primed to show the rest of the country what they are capable of on a much larger scale. I feel like most teams that Missouri might be matched-up against in the NCAA tournament might overlook the Tigers. Missouri hasn’t been known for basketball success in the past 10 years, but this year’s team is in a position to prove the doubters wrong. Mizzou fans and Head Coach Dennis Gates believe in what this team can accomplish, a deep NCAA Tournament run.