Missouri opened Southeastern Conference play last week with a home win and a road loss. That’s somewhat to be expected, as winning on the road in conference play is a tough task for any SEC team except for otherworldly Kentucky. Even the Wildcats needed two overtimes to win at Texas A&M last Saturday.
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Since Missouri (7-8, 1-1 in SEC play through Sunday) joined the SEC for the 2012-13 season, the home-road trend has been especially pronounced. Through the first two conference games of this season, Missouri is 17-2 in home SEC games and 4-15 in SEC road games.
Missouri rode that homecourt advantage to a 74-67 overtime win over LSU at Mizzou Arena. Missouri’s young team will need to benefit from getting that lift at home as much as possible. So far, Missouri has not drawn very big crowds at home, but the crowd for the LSU game, about half of capacity, was vocal when it mattered most, down the stretch.
Missouri lost 85-79 at Auburn on Saturday night. It was a frustrating loss in that the Tigers had a lead in the second half and looked poised to snare one of those elusive SEC road wins. The Tiger backcourt had a very good game. Keith Shamburger, the team’s lone senior, scored 21 points. Guard Wes Clark added 16 points.
Jonathan Williams III was somewhat limited by foul trouble, but he still managed to post nine points and eight rebounds. He’s emerged as the team’s leading scorer.
But it wasn’t enough on Saturday. Auburn forward Cinmeon Bowers has been likened to Auburn alum and NBA legend Charles Barkley. With Barkley in attendance, Bowers had an outstanding game, posting 20 points and 14 rebounds. Auburn also got some huge buckets from Tahj Shamsid-Deen off the bench.
With road wins in short supply, Missouri will need to take care of its home court this season. While this year is not just about wins and losses, but rather how these young Tigers can develop to win in future years and build the program. But losing a bunch of games is probably not great for development.
Missouri hosts Tennessee on Saturday (5 p.m. on SEC Network). The Volunteers (9-5, 1-1 in SEC play) were hammered by Alabama last Saturday, losing by 18 and scoring a meager 38 points. Tennessee is 277th in the country in scoring heading into this week.
Of course, Auburn is a pretty limited team on offense and they hung 85 on Missouri Saturday.
Most of the scoring Tennessee manages comes from its guards. Josh Richardson leads the team with 16.1 points per game, and Kevin Punter adds 10.2 points per game.
The SEC appears to be better than the last couple of seasons, but Missouri has shown enough improvement so far that they could be a middle-of-the-pack team in the conference. The Tigers have some tough games over the next few weeks, so it would be nice if they could take care of business at home against Tennessee.
Editor’s note: Benjamin Herrold grew up in Daviess County and graduated from Gilman City High School. He then graduated from the University of Missouri School of Journalism and now writes as the field editor for Missouri Farmer Today and is based in Columbia. He visits home frequently and owns a farm in Daviess County.