Missouri sinks lower with loss to Lipscomb

By Benjamin Herrold
Every time you think Missouri men’s basketball has reached rock bottom, the Tigers seem to tumble through yet another trap door, falling still lower. It calls to mind former Kansas City Royals manager Buddy Bell, during one particularly bad stretch of baseball, saying, “I’ll never say it can’t get worse.
Let’s take stock. Missouri lost 81-76 to Lipscomb last Thursday to wrap up nonconference play at 5-7. Noncon play brought a series of progressively more horrifying losses, like Russian nesting dolls of basketball despair. First a bad home loss to North Carolina Central, then a worse home loss to Eastern Illinois, and then the still worse loss to Lipscomb.
Lipscomb is having a tough year, and didn’t even appear to play their A game. Missouri got nice games from Jordan Geist and Jordan Barnett, but otherwise it was grim. Terrible three-point shooting. Sloppy turnovers. Brutally missing four of six free throws during a key stretch late in the game.
Simply put, Missouri is very bad and might not be favored in a single game the rest of the season.
And the general bleak outlook for the program, a program countless Missouri kids like myself grew up rooting for and enjoying, extends beyond the on-court malaise. Freshman Willie Jackson announced the day of the Lipscomb game he was leaving the team to be closer to his family, which he said is dealing with an illness. That makes 13 scholarship players to either leave the team or be dismissed in Kim Anderson’s three seasons in charge. There could be more by March.
Just to add another challenge, a former Missouri athletic tutor announced recently that she claims she helped student-athletes cheat. Missouri just sat out the 2016 SEC Tournament for NCAA violations, now the specter of further sanctions hangs over the program.
That grim outlook won’t change quickly, but Missouri does have a couple of chances to make a fresh start. For one, you may have noticed some New Year celebrations over the weekend, so the Tigers are 0-0 in this new year. More importantly, SEC play begins for Missouri this week, which is always a new chance to build momentum.
Missouri went 3-15 in SEC play each of the last two seasons, so it wouldn’t take much to show improvement.
As luck would have it, the Tigers’ first SEC game is at home and against one of the bottom tier teams, LSU, on Wednesday (8 p.m. on SEC Network).
Of course, LSU is still plenty capable of beating Missouri. But the Tigers have the fortune of having one of their most winnable SEC games to get things started.
After the opener, Missouri has a much more challenging game at Georgia on Saturday (noon on SEC Network), before returning home for another reasonably winnable game with Auburn on Tuesday, Jan. 10 (6 p.m. on SEC Network).
If Missouri can’t win any of those games, look out, as a slew of road games and decent opponents follow that stretch. But for now, winning any game against any opponent would be welcome.