Missouri basketball’s Monday practice was about nothing but Missouri basketball. 
Not whoever might be next, not whoever may come after that. Just a deep, long look inward.
There are a couple of reasons for that.
One, the lose-and-leave postseason has arrived, and the Tigers have their fair share of troubles to overcome.
The type of troubles like allowing 90 points in four of your past five games; like losing three straight to close the regular season; like watching your seed line in both the SEC and NCAA Tournament tumble in the space of a less than a couple weeks.
Two, it’s the postseason, and Mizzou doesn’t yet know who its next opponent will be.
Missouri (21-10) begins play as the 7-seed in the SEC Tournament on Thursday in Nashville, Tennessee, where the Tigers will face the winner of a first-round matchup between 10-seed Mississippi State or 15-seed LSU.
MU head coach Dennis Gates has started the process of analyzing those two teams. During media availability Monday, Gates said he has pulled the tape on both LSU and Mississippi State and is attempting to find what he calls the “common denominator.” That’s the offensive and defensive characteristics the two teams share that he can take to the team and begin to work on matchup-specific drills.
But team-wide on Monday, three days prior to gameday?
“Today, we did not talk about either team,” Gates said. “We talked about ourselves, which is very important.”
No kidding.
The Tigers have fallen on some hard times.
The high-flying, whirlwind offense that proved too much for the likes of Florida and Alabama midseason hasn’t let its foot off the gas, but has not been able to outpace some glaring issues on defense.
Over the past five games, in which Mizzou owns a 1-4 record, CBB Analytics charts the Tigers as owning the nation’s worst defensive rating by allowing 1.267 points per possessions. That has averaged out to 89.4 points per game, which also is the worst mark in the nation. Mizzou’s recent defense is in the bottom rung of the country for points allowed in the paint, off turnovers and in fastbreak situations.
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