Missouri gets big win over No. 11 Auburn, travels to Arkansas Saturday

By Benjamin Herrold
On Saturday night, it felt like Missouri Tigers basketball was back where it needed to be.
Even if Missouri is still far down in the Southeastern Conference standings, the Tigers turned back the clock, defeating No. 11 Auburn 85-73 before a raucous crowd that was having fun and cheering for the Tigers on a Saturday night. It felt like Missouri basketball mattered again, like there was genuine passion for the Tiger hoops, like there has been on so many winter nights at the old Hearnes Center and at Mizzou Arena.
It was the highest-ranked team Missouri has defeated in seven years, and it was the biggest crowd at Mizzou Arena in two years, with over 12,000 for the announced attendance.
Missouri (12-13, 4-8 in SEC through Sunday) played the kind of ferocious, high-effort defense coach Cuonzo Martin demands, but they also made shots at a torrid pace. Auburn (22-3, 9-3 in SEC) had won three straight games in overtime, and won 34 of their last 37 games, dating back to last year’s Final Four run, but they could not get things going from behind the arc.
The headline reason Missouri won was three-point shooting. Missouri made 7 of 13 three-pointers (53.8%), which Auburn made just 1 of 17 (5.9%). Scoring 18 more points from beyond the arc is a great recipe for winning.
For the second Saturday in a row, it was an intense foul-fest at Mizzou Arena that still managed to entertain. Missouri was whistled for a whopping 31 fouls, with Auburn committing 24. The black-and-gold Tigers made 22 of 29 free throws, which Auburn made 30 of 46, leaving a lot of points on the table.
At one point in the second half, after one of those familiar stretches in basketball when both sides seem irritated and uncomfortable, and each foul call or non-call drives the crowd and team benches into a fit of rage, Auburn coach Bruce Pearl got a technical foul and had to be held back from the referees. Meanwhile the home crowd was roaring with delight, the band was playing the William Tell overture, and the Missouri cheerleaders were running laps around the court with flags aloft. It was quite a wild scene.
Missouri has a somewhat manageable schedule down the stretch, but they’ll need to break through on the road to really get momentum going. They have a chance to do that Saturday against Arkansas in the big Bud Walton Arena (noon on SEC Network).
The Razorbacks (16-9, 4-8 in SEC through Sunday) are having a decent season under first-year coach Eric Musselman, but four straight losses have put Arkansas right on the bubble for making the NCAA Tournament. They’ll need a win Saturday against Missouri as Musselman works to build that program back up to its lofty heights in the 90s, when the Razorbacks won a national title and made two other trips to the Final Four.
With Missouri suddenly showing some life, this could be a fun game in Fayetteville.