You probably thought so after the Illinois Braggin’ Rights blowout. Your faith was strengthened after driving Kentucky out of the Mizzou Arena. But Saturday was the day we got the definitive answer: Missouri is returning to the NCAA basketball tournament.
Did it happen when? D’Moi Hodge stopped an Iowa State mini-run with a three behind the backboard, or when DeAndre Gholston followed by a four-point game or one of Kobe Brown‘s 12 stubborn rebounds or at another point, Missouri showed on Saturday it’s one of 68 teams that will get a chance to chase a banner over three weeks in March and April.
The Tigers hammered Iowa State 78-61 Saturday, wearing throwback uniforms in front of a sell-out crowd against a throwback opponent. The only thing left was a tiger team that reminded you of the glory days when boys liked it Jon Sunvold and Derrick Chievous and Antony Peeler and Melvin Booker wore the golden M and the small “issouri” on their white jerseys.
This team showed up. And it shows for most of the season.
Iowa State — ranked No. 12 in the nation and leader of what is arguably the best conference in college basketball — took a 17-15 lead with 11 minutes to play in the first half. Twenty-three seconds later, Hodge squirted a threesome. Missouri would never chase again.
“We were 38 minutes and 31 seconds ahead,” said the head coach Dennis Gates said. “They led for 44 seconds.”
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Missouri dominated the state of Iowa almost from the start (Megan Fox)
All in all, the Tigers made 14 three-pointers, gave 14 assists from 26 field goals scored, and scored 78 points — more than the Cyclones have legally passed to anyone in their previous 19 games. Iowa State came in as the No. 8 team in adjusted Defense Efficiency at KenPom and Mizzou shredded the Clones with 60% shooting and 64 points in the first 28 minutes of the game.
In the final 12 minutes, Mizzou’s shot-making slowed to the point where it became more of a simple blowout than outright humiliation. But the bottom line was still Missouri’s fourth win over a ranked team and a 17-point drubbing by a squad Dennis Gates said 24 hours earlier he thought he might play his way to a No. 1 seed in the Big Dance.
The Tigers won’t be. But they will be on the field. There is little doubt about that at this point.
After Saturday, Mizzou has played six of his eight toughest opponents. The Tigers have played six games against five teams ranked in the top 33 on the NET ladder. Only Auburn and Tennessee fit into the final ten games of the regular season. Mizzou has three games left against teams with a lower KenPom rating than any it has played since December 4th. It has five home games and away chances at LSU, Georgia and Mississippi State.
So, yes, I know, one game at a time and not looking ahead and whatnot. That’s all well and good for Gates and his players. But what will it hurt for me to look ahead? I didn’t shoot or steal this season. My attitude will not magically rub off on the team through cyberspace.
What I see is an NCAA tournament team.
“Having a Quad 1 win in January is very important,” Gates said. “I think that’s a two, possibly one, seed team. For us this Quad 1 win is very important, not just on Selection Sunday but just for us and our growth to realize who we are.”
Who they are now is pretty good. The coach on the other bench on Saturday believes it’s not what they’ll be like when that field is announced.
“You’ve had a great year and it’s only going to get better,” said the Iowa State head coach TJ Otzelberger said.
Hodge made five threes and was one of five Tigers in double figures (Megan Fox)
For that program and where it came from — 12 wins a year ago and just two postseason appearances in the last nine seasons — getting there would be one hell of a step. Nobody predicted that before the season.
But it feels like a foregone conclusion at this point. The next step is to level up enough over the next six weeks that the tigers can do some damage once they get there. By the time the Tigers play an NCAA tournament game, it will have been at least 4,743 days since Missouri was given the chance to play a second NCAA tournament game.
The tournament is a crapshoot. But Missouri has already proven it can beat the teams that will play in it. Iowa State will be there. So becomes Illinois. Kentucky and Arkansas are likely to be, too. Mizzou has beaten them all this season, three of them in dominant ways.
Gates has spoken long-term since taking office last March. Yes, he wants to win every day. But he has ignored rankings, saying the only one that matters comes out after the season. He has praised his team profusely after their best games of the year and said he will assess performance after the season is over. He did it again on Saturday.
“I don’t think we played well to be honest,” Gates said to a round of laughter from the room. “You laugh. I’m serious. I have different expectations of myself, my staff and our players. It’s not result-based. It’s the quality.
“We have to do it in the short term, we have to do it in the long term.”
The short term takes place. Gates alerted the Tigers to the tournament and named his name conference and national coach of the year in conversation. By long term, Gates doesn’t just mean March Madness 2023. But that’s the next step. And it’s one that Missouri will take. There is no big doubt at all. If you weren’t sure, they proved it on Saturday afternoon.
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