After winning just its second Southeastern Conference road game of the season, Mizzou has a massive opportunity to further its tournament hopes against Texas A&M on Wednesday evening in College Station, Texas.<\/p>\n
The Tigers have won consecutive games in conference play for the first time since its back-to-back wins over Florida and Kentucky to open league play. With just eight games remaining before the SEC Tournament \u2014 and the Tigers sitting firmly on the bubble \u2014 each game against opponents firmly in the tournament field become increasingly important.<\/p>\n
Aggies pick up where they left off<\/p>\n
Despite the fact that Buzz Williams departed to take the coaching job at Maryland, Buck McMillan has not missed a beat in his first season in College Station, Texas. The Aggies are 17-6 overall and 7-3 in SEC play, good enough for a tie with Arkansas for second place in the league standings.<\/p>\n
Like many other opponents the Tigers have faced this season, Texas A&M is led on offense by a veteran journeyman. Rashaun Agee leads the Aggies in both points and rebounds this season, averaging 14 and 8.8 respectively. The fifth-year senior is at his fourth school, with stops at New Mexico State, Bowling Green and USC coming before his move to Texas A&M.<\/p>\n
The Tigers are catching the Aggies on the backend of their first back-to-back losses in conference play. They lost a tight game on the road last Wednesday to Alabama 100-97, and followed it with their first SEC home loss of the season to No. 17 Florida 86-67 on Saturday.<\/p>\n
Tigers hitting their stride<\/p>\n
Texas A&M\u2019s 67 total points put its loss to Florida as its second worst scoring effort of the season. In Mizzou\u2019s 78-59 win over a struggling South Carolina on Saturday afternoon, the Tigers had their best defensive performance since the 83-60 win over Minnesota on Nov. 12.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve adjusted to our talent. In addition to signing the talent, we\u2019ve adjusted.\u201d Mizzou coach Dennis Gates said. \u201cWhereas before, we didn\u2019t have a kid like Shawn Phillips, and everybody sometimes point out his negatives and things like that.<\/p>\n
… \u201cAnd I think he does a great job for us. With his tenacity, with his toughness, with his rebound and shot-blocking ability.\u201d<\/p>\n
Phillips had seven rebounds and two blocks in just 14 minutes on the floor against South Carolina. Balancing Phillip\u2019s effort on defense was graduate guard Jayden Stone. Stone had 22 points on 7-of-9 shooting from the field. He also shot 3-of-4 from 3-point range, his first time hitting more than two from distance since Mizzou\u2019s Jan. 17 loss to LSU.<\/p>\n
Life on the bubble<\/p>\n
In ESPN\u2019s latest bracket projections Mizzou has moved up, but still remains firmly out of the field. The Tigers currently sit in the second spot of the \u201cFirst Four Out\u201d category. Though they are still on the outside looking in, the Tigers have gained ground, moving up from their position as one of the \u201cNext Four Out\u201d last week.<\/p>\n
Mizzou is essentially in control of its own destiny. With its current r\u00e9sum\u00e9 and remaining schedule, the Tigers have ample opportunity to play their way into the final tournament field.<\/p>\n
For Gates, the key to playing themselves in lies in a game-by-game approach.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou have to keep your players in the moment, because the games come so frequently and the scouting reports change so much,\u201d Gates said. \u201cYou have to stay present. You can\u2019t get too far behind yourself and dwell on the last win or the last loss, and you can\u2019t get too far ahead of yourself and look over opponents.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mizzou takes on Texas A&M at 8 p.m. Wednesday in College Station, Texas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After winning just its second Southeastern Conference road game of the season, Mizzou has a massive opportunity to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":743889,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[265,105258,331,67,7,5071,5067,5446,32563,49,5065,5070,65,70,63,48,4593,5063,5064,5066,26930],"class_list":{"0":"post-743888","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-football","8":"tag-american-football","9":"tag-buzz-williams","10":"tag-college-football","11":"tag-college-football-conference-seasons","12":"tag-football","13":"tag-former-southern-conference-teams","14":"tag-former-southern-intercollegiate-athletic-association-teams","15":"tag-gridiron-football","16":"tag-lsu-tigers-football","17":"tag-ncaa","18":"tag-ncaa-division-i","19":"tag-ncaa-division-i-conferences","20":"tag-ncaa-division-i-fbs-football","21":"tag-ncaa-division-i-fbs-football-seasons","22":"tag-ncaa-division-i-fbs-football-teams","23":"tag-ncaa-football","24":"tag-new-mexico-state-aggies-football","25":"tag-southeastern-conference","26":"tag-southeastern-conference-football","27":"tag-southeastern-conference-teams","28":"tag-texas-am-aggies-football"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/743888","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=743888"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/743888\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/743889"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=743888"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=743888"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=743888"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}