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Mizzou's majestic turnaround is historic
Posted on: February 7, 2025 at 11:58:59 CT
wu-tangtiger MU
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https://www.cbssports.com/college-basketball/news/court-report-cooper-flagg-vs-johni-broome-is-becoming-one-of-the-best-national-player-of-the-year-races-ever/
On Saturday the No. 15 Missouri Tigers logged their largest road win over a ranked team in school history, 88-61 at No. 14 Mississippi State. Their most recent away game against a ranked foe prior to that was Jan. 14, an eye-opening 83-82 upset at No. 5 Florida. As a result, Mizzou's won back-to-back roadies over AP Top 25 teams for the first time in 26 years. The Tigers have another taxing task tonight at No. 4 Tennessee, but regardless of how that one goes, Mizzou coach Dennis Gates and his staff are pulling off one of the best turnarounds in college hoops this season — and ever, really. Here's the context.
Easy as it might be to forget (unless you're a Mizzou fan), the Tigers went winless (0-19) against SEC competition a year ago, the drop-off a shocking disappointment following his debut season featuring 25 victories and a No. 7 seed in the 2023 tournament. At 17-4, Missouri has its groove back and is heading toward a really good NCAA seed, with Gates now firmly in the national-coach-of-the-year conversation as a result. We almost never see a high-major outfit go from godawful in league play to qualifying for the NCAA tourney in a year's time.
Missouri might set a couple of records this season. Here's one.
Since the NCAAs expanded to 64 teams in 1985, there have been 23 instances in power conferences (or leagues nearly at that stature, such as old Conference USA, the Atlantic 10 of the 1990s, the SWC, etc.) of teams going winless in league play. Only two teams have flipped to make a tournament run the next season.
In 2021-22, Iowa State skyrocketed from two to 22 wins year-over-year, the biggest high-major turnaround in history. It earned a No. 11 seed. Missouri is tracking well ahead of that from a seed perspective. In KenPom terms, ISU was 171 in '20-21 then finished 43rd (128 spots), while Mizzou was 145th last season and is 23rd today (122).
The only other team to do this was Maryland, which went 0-14 in the ACC in 1986-87 (the first year after Lefty Driesell) then got a No. 7 seed the following season and made the second round. These Tigers are destined to be the third group to pull it off, and probably to bigger margins than anyone (consider how great this SEC is), making them perhaps the best high-major turnaround team of all time. I've got more on Gates further below.
On Saturday the No. 15 Missouri Tigers logged their largest road win over a ranked team in school history, 88-61 at No. 14 Mississippi State. Their most recent away game against a ranked foe prior to that was Jan. 14, an eye-opening 83-82 upset at No. 5 Florida. As a result, Mizzou's won back-to-back roadies over AP Top 25 teams for the first time in 26 years. The Tigers have another taxing task tonight at No. 4 Tennessee, but regardless of how that one goes, Mizzou coach Dennis Gates and his staff are pulling off one of the best turnarounds in college hoops this season — and ever, really. Here's the context.
Easy as it might be to forget (unless you're a Mizzou fan), the Tigers went winless (0-19) against SEC competition a year ago, the drop-off a shocking disappointment following his debut season featuring 25 victories and a No. 7 seed in the 2023 tournament. At 17-4, Missouri has its groove back and is heading toward a really good NCAA seed, with Gates now firmly in the national-coach-of-the-year conversation as a result. We almost never see a high-major outfit go from godawful in league play to qualifying for the NCAA tourney in a year's time.
Missouri might set a couple of records this season. Here's one.
Since the NCAAs expanded to 64 teams in 1985, there have been 23 instances in power conferences (or leagues nearly at that stature, such as old Conference USA, the Atlantic 10 of the 1990s, the SWC, etc.) of teams going winless in league play. Only two teams have flipped to make a tournament run the next season.
In 2021-22, Iowa State skyrocketed from two to 22 wins year-over-year, the biggest high-major turnaround in history. It earned a No. 11 seed. Missouri is tracking well ahead of that from a seed perspective. In KenPom terms, ISU was 171 in '20-21 then finished 43rd (128 spots), while Mizzou was 145th last season and is 23rd today (122).
The only other team to do this was Maryland, which went 0-14 in the ACC in 1986-87 (the first year after Lefty Driesell) then got a No. 7 seed the following season and made the second round. These Tigers are destined to be the third group to pull it off, and probably to bigger margins than anyone (consider how great this SEC is), making them perhaps the best high-major turnaround team of all time. I've got more on Gates further below.
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Mizzou's majestic turnaround is historic - wu-tangtiger MU - 2/7 11:58:59
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