Fresh off a win over Ole Miss in the annual “Rally for Rhyan” game, the Missouri Tigers will start a stretch of 4 games in 8 days, beginning tonight in a home matchup against No. 23 Arkansas. Mizzou’s 74-68 win over the Rebels on Saturday cemented a season sweep over Ole Miss, as well as the first back-to-back wins over Ole Miss in the history of the program. One of the standouts from Saturday was senior Javon Pickett, who scored 14 points, his eighth straight double-digit scoring game in SEC play. Pickett is also shooting just under 52 percent from the floor against conference opponents, ranking 4th in the SEC. Across the team as a whole, Mizzou has been shooting 50 percent or better in 3 of their last 4 games. Now the Tigers will be tasked with trying to take down a nationally ranked Arkansas Razorbacks squad, a team that walloped Mizzou in Fayetteville 87-43 on January 12th. Mizzou head coach Cuonzo Martin stressed the importance of the team putting the past behind them to focus on tomorrow. “You can’t get consumed with what happened in the past,” said Mizzou head coach Cuonzo Martin, “because oftentimes, you can learn from your past and sometimes, the past is painful. “You have to learn from it and endure whatever it was, but it can’t consume you,” said Martin. “Whatever happened the last time, you learn from it.” Meanwhile, the Hogs are back in the top 25 national rankings after their 80-76 upset win over No. 1 Auburn on February 8th. Led by head coach Eric Musselman, the Hogs hold a 19-6 record overall, and are 8-4 in the SEC. They recently had a 9-game winning streak snapped Saturday in a loss at Alabama. The Tigers could face problems with injuries to bench players. Jordan Wilmore, the 7’3″ forward, is out with a back injury. In addition, Yaya Keita (knee) and Anton Brookshire (wrist) are ruled as questionable. On his weekly radio show Monday night Martin said he expects to be without the trio again and anticipates playing with only 8 players as the Tigers did against Ole Miss.
“As of today all three are still out,” said Martin on Monday evening. “How long? I don’t know. But all three are out.” Tip-off from Mizzou Arena is set for 8 p.m. tonight. We will have the game on KDWD starting with pregame at 7:30.