ST. LOUIS \u2014 The Missouri Tigers fell 80-66 on Friday night to the No. 7-seeded Miami Hurricanes in the first round of the 2026 NCAA Tournament, marking a second straight first-round exit for Dennis Gates and the Tigers. <\/p>\n
Watch the video below as Missouri On SI basketball reporters Joey Van Zummeren, Michael Stamps and Killian Wright break down Missouri’s March Madness loss to Miami, including the performance of Jayden Stone, Missouri’s inability to adjust on defense and an overarching look at how the season went for Dennis Gates and the Tigers. <\/p>\n
Many things went wrong for the Tigers in both halves and on both sides of the ball. Missouri allowed 16 offensive rebounds, shot 35.7 percent from the perimeter and 35.1 percent from the field, while not responding to the different defensive looks Jai Lucas and the Hurricanes threw at them. <\/p>\n
Missouri also couldn’t slow down Miami guard Tre Donaldson and forward Malik Reneau. Donaldson finished with 17 points on 6-for-11 shooting, while Reneau went for 24 points on 7-for-16 shooting. As a team, the Hurricanes shot 43.3 percent from the field and 45.8 percent from three, both of which were far better than Missouri’s marks. <\/p>\n
It took a while for the Tigers to get anything out of star forward Mark Mitchell. He did finish with 19 points, but he only managed to score four in the first half. The Hurricanes threw a zone look at Missouri with the hopes of discombobulating the Tigers on offense and completely erasing their leading scorer in Mitchell. <\/p>\n
Stone finished with 21 points in his NCAA Tournament debut, doing so on 6-for-10 shooting and burying three perimeter looks. The different looks that Miami executed on defense actually benefited Stone, giving him more space on the perimeter to shoot. <\/p>\n
“I’m just basically reading whatever the defense was doing off Mark or off Ant when they’re driving,” Stone said following the game. “Then it was giving me easy catch-and-shoot shots. So, yeah, I think that was probably the main focus for me.”<\/p>\n
Both of those things happened and the Tigers didn’t know how to respond. They also got out to a very slow start, opening the night by shooting poorly and allowing too many second-chance points. This, among many things, led to Missouri’s demise and the eventual end of its season. <\/p>\n
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