The Tigers are heating up at just the right time. Matching its best conference win streak in three seasons, Missouri (16-9, 4-6 in SEC) has tallied a third consecutive win in the Southeastern Conference play, defeating Arkansas 87-82 on Thursday in Fayetteville.
Missouri took down Texas A&M in Columbia on Jan. 25 to kickstart the now three-peat, before recording its biggest win of the season in a victory over Mississippi State on Sunday in Starkville. After a season’s worth of struggles on the road, the Tigers’ Battle Line rivalry win against the Razorbacks made it back-to-back wins away from home in the nation’s toughest conference.
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The NCAA Tournament is quickly approaching, and with each win, Missouri is building its resume as a buzzer-beating entrant to the bubble conversation. The unforgiving nature of the league has continued to test the Tigers in triumph.
Significantly lacking in frontcourt depth at full strength, Missouri faced devastating odds with center Jordana Reisma sitting out of Thrusday’s matchup with an injury. This left Grace Slughter, who primarily played a guard role in each of her first two seasons with the Tigers, as Missouri’s lone available player listed above 6″0.
Stepping into the staring rotation in Resima’s absense was Jayla Smith, who has been relied on as the Tigers’ first player off the bench since the early stages of the season. This marked Smith’s first start for the Tigers and the fifth of her career – her first since Nov. 6, 2023 when still was at Purdue.
The injury reduced Missouri’s rotation to just eight players, with all but 10 minutes allocated among six players. Despite the lack of size and depth, the Tigers managed to control the rebound battle, 41-33. The Razorbacks, similarly undersized like the Tigers, relied heavily on the three-point shot. Both teams rank among the upper half of SEC teams in shooting from distance. The game was determined by the long ball, with a combined 75 shots taken behind the arc.
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Arkansas, in desperation for its first win of conference play, attempted a season-high 43 3-pointers on a 33 percent clip. Meanwhile, Missouri, made 12 of 32 triples, matching its season-high of three-point shots taken in conference play
In the opening moments of the third quarter, the Razorbacks seemed poised to control the second half. The Tigers entered the break with a three-point advantage. The lead was immediately erased by Arkansas’ Emily Robinson drilling a 3-pointer to tie up the game. The Razorbacks capitalized on a Tigers turnover on the following possession and took a two-point lead at the 9:18 mark of the game – their final lead of the game.
Missouri responded with back-to-back-to-back triples as part of an 11-0 run that shifted the trajectory of the game. Abbey Schreacke found Jayla Smith in transition for the first 3-pointer of the hot streak, before Chloe Sotell found the bottom of the net on a stepback triple. A defensive rebound by Smith found its way back to Schreacke for a three of her own to extend the Tigers’ lead, which would not be surrendered for the remainder of the night.
Shannon Dowell tied her career-high of four made threes in a game, en route to a 25 point outing, leading all players in scoring. Additionally, Abbey Schreacke found a rhythm to posting her second highest scoring total of the year, recording 17 points behind three makes from long range.
Slaughter, the Tigers’ season leader in three-point percentage, struggled to find her shooting touch, going 0-6 from deep. However, she put on an masterclass on how to score inside the arc. Slaughter made 10-of-11 shots on the interior. Playing the entirety of the game as Missouri’s de facto big, she scored 24 points.
Sotell, ranking among the top-10 in the SEC in three-point percentage, had a quiet day from deep, going 1-4, but her playmaking and rebounding contribution were vital to the victory. In addition to her 7 points, Sotell posted a team leading 10 boards and 5 assists.
There is no update yet as to the severity of Reisma’s injury, but Tigers will need all the help they can get for its upcoming stretch. Missouri has clawed its way into the tournament bubble conversation, but to stay in talks and potentially secure an at-large bid into the NCAA Tournament, a top-25 is a must-have.
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Missouri will have an opportunity to grab its second Quad 2 win of the season as it hosts Georgia at 3 p.m. on Sunday at Mizzou Arena. The Bulldogs fell out of the rankings in the most recent AP Poll, but recieved the most votes of any unranked team in the latest update. ESPN lists theGeorgia as seven seed in its last bracketology projections.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com/college/missouri as Missouri Grabs Third Straight SEC Win by Downing Arkansas.
