Men’s Basketball Faces Texas A&M Tuesday Night

The Missouri men’s basketball hits the road for the first of two games outside the Show Me State this week, meeting Texas A&M. Tipoff on Tuesday night is set for 8 p.m. on SEC Network.
 
ABOUT THE TIGERS
• Missouri is 8-10 during the 2023-24 season with a 0-5 record in SEC play.
• The Tigers are coming off a 79-67 loss to Florida on Saturday despite Tamar Bates scoring a career-best 36 points.
• Graduate guard Sean East II leads Mizzou with 15.9 points per game this season in addition to a team-best 3.7 assists per game.
• Bates is now second with 12.7 points per game, while Noah Carter (12.4) and Nick Honor (10.7) also score in double figures.
• Carter also leads all active Tigers with 5.4 boards.
• Mizzou is averaging 75.1 points per game, while allowing 74.2 defensively.
 
ABOUT THE AGGIES
• Texas A&M owns an 11-7 record with a 2-3 mark in SEC action.
• The Aggies have won two of their last three games, coming off a 73-69 win at LSU.
• Wade Taylor IV leads the Aggies with 19.5 points and 3.9 assists per game.
• Tyrece Radford (13.2) and Henry Coleman III (11.3) also score in double figures.
• Coleman adds a team-best 7.6 rebounds.
• Texas A&M owns a scoring offense of 74.7 points with a scoring defense of 68.8.
 
SERIES HISTORY
• In a series that dates back to 1969 and has been played annually since 1996-97, Texas A&M holds a slight all-time edge over the Tigers, 24-20.
• Last season, the Aggies earned a pair of victories over the Tigers – posting an 82-64 home win before a 69-60 win at Mizzou Arena.
• Mizzou has won two of its last three at Reed Arena and three of its last five, however.
 
RECORD-SETTING PERFORMANCE
• Tamar Bates is not only coming off a career-best day but the best individual performance by a Tiger in SEC action.
• Bates set two MU records in SEC play with his 36 points and 13 made field goals.
• Overall, Bates’ 36 points are the most by a Tiger in a regulation game since Arthur Johnson tallied 37 versus Kansas in 2004.
• In addition, Bates is the first Tiger to score more than half of the team’s points in a game since Derrick Chievous tallied 33 in a 64-63 setback at Cal in 1986.
 
BATES CATCHES FIRE
• Saturday’s game was just an example of what Tamar Bates has been doing as of late.
• Bates has scored in double digits in each of the last eight games – he had never gone more than two-straight with 10-plus points prior to the run.
• Over the eight-game stretch, Bates is tallying 19.6 points per game – an increase of more than 12 points from the season’s first 10 contests.
• Bates has raised his season scoring average to 12.7 points this season, ranking second on MU.
 
50/40/90
• Shooting efficiency is the key to success for junior Tamar Bates in 2023-24.
• Bates owns career-best marks with a 56.3 field goal percentage, 47.7 3-point percentage and 94.0 free-throw percentage.
• The junior currently ranks 16th nationally with a true-shooting clip of 68.8.
• In fact, Bates is the only player in the SEC shooting 50 percent from the field, 40 percent from 3 and 90 percent from the line.
• He is also on target to become the first Tiger in school history to join the 50-40-90 club.
• During his eight-game run, Bates is averaging 1.74 points per field-goal attempt.
 
EAST DOES IT ALL
• The team’s leading scorer this season, Sean East II is capable of doing it all for Mizzou.
• With 15.9 points per game, East has led the Tigers in scoring in half of the team’s 18 games.
• The graduate guard, however, has also posted team-best totals in assists in 11 of the last 13 games and in rebounds in the last five contests.
• Overall, East ranks ninth in the SEC with 3.7 assists per game, while adding 3.5 rebounds from the guard position.
 
WINNING THE 3-POINT LINE
• The deep looks have not gone in for the Tigers as of late, leading to their 0-5 conference start.
• In the last seven games, Mizzou has made just 26.8 percent of its 3-point shots – a decrease of nearly 10 percent from the year’s first 11 games.
• Mizzou is 6-3 when making at least 33.3 percent of its triples this year (2-7 with less). MU has hit that mark just twice in its past nine games (did so in seven of the first eight contests).