Missouri is trying to strengthen its position for the Southeastern Conference tournament and perhaps beyond as the regular season winds down.
Missouri sits at 21-8 with a 9-7 mark in conference play as its travels to Baton Rouge, La., on Wednesday night for a meeting with LSU.
Missouri, which finishes the regular season at home against Ole Miss on Saturday, could get a double bye, a single bye or no bye at all in the conference tournament depending on its next two games and the results for other SEC teams.
It used a strong second half to claim an 85-63 road victory against Georgia on Saturday. Missouri struggled early, but Noah Carter’s 3-pointer in the final seconds of the first half trimmed Georgia’s lead to 41-40 at halftime and sent Missouri into the second half with momentum.
“That gave us a little extra boost going into the second half,” Nick Honor, who scored 17 points and went 5-for-7 from 3-point range, said of Carter’s shot. “We just felt that if we just stay strong and stay together, things will figure themselves out in the second half.”
LSU (13-16, 2-14 SEC) knows it will be playing in the first round of the SEC tournament as it tries to salvage something from a poor regular season that has it all alone in last place.
LSU lost 82-69 at Ole Miss on Saturday in its first game after ending a 14-game losing streak with a win against Vanderbilt.
LSU held a 15-8 lead midway through the first half but gave up 74 points in the final 29 minutes as the Rebels shot 55.2 percent from the floor for the game.
“We rushed some poor shots on the perimeter,” LSU coach Matt McMahon said. “That’s kind of been the case for us when shots aren’t going down. It starts to impact our defensive intensity and attention to detail. … We lost that discipline, and they made us pay for it.”
–Field Level Media