Fresh off a top-10 road win, the Missouri men’s basketball team remains on the road to face conference foe Auburn on Tuesday night. First tip at Neville Arena is set for 6 p.m. on ESPN2.
ABOUT MISSOURI
• The Tigers are 19-6 on the season and tied for fourth in the SEC standings at 7-5.
• Mizzou is receiving votes in both national polls.
• The Tigers have won five of their last six, including an 86-85 win at No. 6 Tennessee Saturday.
• Senior Kobe Brown led MU with 21 points versus the Vols. He owns a team-best 16.5 points and 6.1 rebounds per game.
• D’Moi Hodge (14.1) and DeAndre Gholston (10.5) follow Brown as double-digit scorers.
• Sean East II leads MU with 3.0 assists per game.
• Mizzou ranks 13th in the country with a scoring offense of 82.1, while allowing 75.2 points.
ABOUT AUBURN
• The Tigers are 17-8 on the season and are tied with Mizzou for fourth in the SEC at 7-5.
• Auburn have lost five of its last six – including its last three – after starting the season 16-3.
• Wendell Green Jr. leads Auburn with 14.3 points and 4.3 assists per game.
• Johni Broome is second with 13.5 points to go with a team-leading 9.0 boards.
• The Tigers are scoring 72.2 points per game this season, while allowing 65.1.
SERIES HISTORY
• Auburn holds a slight 8-6 advantage over Mizzou in 14 all-time meetings.
• Auburn has claimed the last two games in the series, including a 55-54 win last year as the nation’s top-ranked team.
• Missouri has also lost its last four meetings at Auburn, last winning on the road in 2014.
DEFEATING THE BEST
• MU is coming off perhaps its most impressive win with an 86-85 victory at No. 6 Tennessee Saturday.
• It marked only the Tigers’ 10th all-time victory in true road games against a top-10 school and first since also defeating No. 6 Tennessee in 2021.
• Overall, Mizzou is 5-3 against ranked foes in the AP poll this season – one of just eight schools in the nation with five ranked victories.
• Iowa State has six wins over ranked teams, while Mizzou, Alabama, Arizona, Creighton, Kansas, Kansas State and Texas each have five.
ONLY THE BEST FOR THE BEST
• Kobe Brown has led Mizzou during the 2022-23 season, saving his best for the nation’s best.
• In the Tigers’ five wins over ranked foes, Brown has eclipsed 20 points in four of the games.
• Overall, the forward is tallying 23.8 points in the five contests – shooting 59.7 percent from the field and 52.4 percent from 3-point range – with 6.8 rebounds, 3.4 assists and 2.4 steals per game.
• Brown is the first Tiger with four games of 20-plus points versus ranked teams since Rickey Paulding did so five times in 2003-04.
TOP MARKS IN 2022-23
• Overall, the Tigers are enjoying one of their best seasons in years during the 2022-23 campaign.
• With a 19-6 overall record and with at least seven games left, Missouri already has its most wins in a season since totaling 20 in 2017-18.
• It hasn’t come easy for the Tigers as the team’s five ranked wins are its most in the last 11 years.
• MU finished the non-conference campaign 12-1 – its best mark since also going 12-1 in 2013-14.
TOP-20 SCORING OFFENSE
• One of the biggest keys to success this season for Mizzou is owning a top scoring attack.
• Mizzou enters the game ranked 13th nationally with a scoring offense of 82.1 points.
• In fact, the Tigers’ 82.1 points rank as the sixth-best mark in their history and highest in 33 years.
GOOD OFFENSE > GOOD DEFENSE
• Offense is what led the Tigers to their win over No. 6 Tennessee on Saturday.
• MU scored 86 points versus the nation’s No. 2 scoring offense – the most allowed by the Vols this season and 31 more than its average (55.0).
• Missouri also shot 52.6 percent against the No. 1 field goal percentage defense (34.7%) and 53.8 percent against the top 3-point defense (22.8%) – also season highs allowed by Tennessee.
BUZZER-BEATING DREE
• While the Tigers’ offense continued to excel at Tennessee, it still required a repeat half-court winner from DeAndre Gholston.
• For the second time this season, Gholston hit a game-winner from 35-plus feet – doing so against UCF (Dec. 17) and Tennessee (Jan. 11).
• It is the second and third buzzer beaters for Gholston during his career with, ironically, the first coming against Coach Gates and Cleveland State in a 81-80 win on Jan. 23, 2021.
TARGETING 70 POINTS
• While the Tigers are averaging over 80 points this season, the magic number is just 70 for MU.
• MU has won its last 22 games when scoring at least 70, including a perfect 18-0 mark this year.
• On the opposite end, Mizzou is just 1-6 this year when held under the target – losing 24 of its last 25 games overall with 69 or fewer points.
