{"id":219560,"date":"2026-01-04T07:04:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-04T07:04:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/219560\/"},"modified":"2026-01-04T07:04:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-04T07:04:08","slug":"mens-basketball-topples-no-22-florida","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/219560\/","title":{"rendered":"Men\u2019s Basketball Topples No. 22 Florida"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Mizzou men’s basketball team opened Southeastern Conference play with a\u00a0win over No. 22 Florida on Saturday night at Mizzou Arena. With the victory, the Tigers improve to 11-3 and 1-0 in SEC action, while the nationally-ranked Gators fall to 9-5 and 0-1 in SEC play.<\/p>\n

MIZZOU LEADERS

\nJunior Anthony Robinson II<\/a>\u00a0led the team in points, rebounds and assists with 19 points, five dimes and a season-high eight boards on the night.<\/p>\n

Senior Mark Mitchell<\/a> contributed 14 points and a pair of blocks, while graduate student Jacob Crews<\/a> made a season-high nine free throws on 10 attempts, totaling 13 points.<\/p>\n

In his first game of the season after missing 13 contests due to injury, junior Trent Pierce<\/a> rounded out the Tigers’ double-figure scorers \u2013 including five-straight points late to give the Tigers the lead for good on the night.<\/p>\n

GAME RECAP

\nThe Gators went up early with a trio of three pointers for a 9-2 advantage. Graduate student Jayden Stone<\/a> kept the Tigers in the contest early despite missing the last seven contests due to an injury as he scored the team’s first eight points.<\/p>\n

Florida would lead by as many as eight points in the opening stanza, 19-11, but the Tigers stayed close and a late 10-4 run \u2013 capped by a buzzer-beating triple by freshman Trent Burns<\/a> \u2013 tied the game at 39 heading into the locker room.<\/p>\n

Mizzou carried its momentum into the second half for the early advantage in the period. Robinson opened with two field goals before one by Mitchell, making the score 45-39 to start the second stanza. The Tigers continued the strong start and a triple from Pierce pushed the lead to double digits, 56-46.<\/p>\n

Florida made a push, however, only to see the Tigers respond every time. The Gators cut the deficit to three, 57-54, after a 7-0 run only for Mizzou to go back in front by eight, 64-56. Florida then earned its only lead of the second half after a 9-0 run for the 65-64 advantage with under four minutes left.<\/p>\n

Mizzou and Pierce were able to respond, however. A driving layup followed by a 3-pointer from the junior put the Tigers in front by four, 69-65, with over two minutes left. Florida would pull within two on multiple occasions but a clutch triple from Robinson with 22.4 ticks remaining and just enough free throws down the stretch helped the Tigers secure the win in the SEC opener, 76-74.<\/p>\n

TEAM STATS

\nMizzou made 45.5 percent of its field goals on the night with an 8-of-22 performance from 3-point range. The Tigers also finished the game with a 37-37 deadlock in rebounds against one of the nation’s top teams on the boards.<\/p>\n

The Tigers held the Gators to 41.3 percent shooting and just 7-of-27 from beyond the arc.<\/p>\n

UP NEXT

\nThe Tigers head to Lexington to take on Kentucky on Wednesday night. Tipoff is set for 6 p.m. on ESPN2.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Mizzou men’s basketball team opened Southeastern Conference play with a\u00a0win over No. 22 Florida on Saturday night…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":219561,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[85,46,105],"class_list":{"0":"post-219560","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-il","9":"tag-israel","10":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219560","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=219560"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219560\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/219561"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=219560"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=219560"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=219560"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}