Missouri Basketball: 2023-24 season preview and outlook for the Tigers

SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA - MARCH 16: D'Moi Hodge #5 of the Missouri Tigers celebrates a three point basket against the Utah State Aggies during the second half in the first round of the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament at Golden 1 Center on March 16, 2023 in Sacramento, California. (Photo by Ezra Shaw/Getty Images) /

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Missouri Tigers guard Tre Gomillion (2) and forward Aidan Shaw (23) and guard Nick Honor Jay Biggerstaff-USA TODAY Sports /

Schedule Breakdown

Looking at the non-conference schedule, Missouri is clearly making a push for a repeat trip to the NCAA Tournament. Last year the Tigers went with a slightly different approach, they wanted to give themselves time to mesh as a team and play through any growing pains. That meant playing teams that a win wouldn’t necessarily help their tournament chances, but a loss would definitely hurt them. This year, there are only a handful of those games. The rest of the early season games are against teams who either were in the tournament or weren’t too far off the bubble.

The Tigers should be favorites in most of their early games. They have a majority of their games at home, which should prove to be an advantage again this year. Missouri has an early season test when they host Memphis on Nov. 10, the second game of the season. This game should give Mizzou fans a good idea of what this revamped roster looks like.

Missouri is only scheduled to play five games away from Mizzou Arena before they hit SEC play. Two of those games will be played in Missouri-friendly arenas, Dec. 17 against Seton Hall in Kansas City and Dec. 22 in St. Louis against Illinois. The other three are true road games, Nov. 16 at Minnesota, Nov. 28 at Pittsburgh, and a return trip on Dec. 9 to Kansas. If all goes well then they should be setting themselves up for plenty of wins against Quad 1 or 2 teams, and be looking like a lock for the NCAA Tournament.

Even with the more difficult non-con slate this year, Missouri should be able to put a few tallies in the win column. Of these early season games the only one where I don’t see Missouri being able to take home a win would be the game at Kansas, I hope to be wrong on this one. Missouri is definitely an improved team over the past couple of years but I don’t think they are quite at the Jayhawks level.

An optimistic view of the non-con slate would put Missouri at a 12-1 record, but a more realistic take would be a record of 10-3 with the Tigers possibly dropping one of the road games at Minnesota or Pittsburgh and maybe a loss to either Memphis or Illinois. But at any rate, Missouri should have a solid resume when they enter SEC play.

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