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1) We'll start with basketball because it's hard to imagine writing a Ten Thoughts in early February without mentioning basketball. But it's only out of a sense of obligation and knowing I have to fill ten thoughts. Missouri's season is lost and has been lost for quite some time. The only question is whether the Tigers will win no games in the SEC or at least one. The two best chances probably went by the boards this week as Missouri was blown out at home by an Arkansas team that has spent the last month mostly getting blown out itself and then beaten by a Vanderbilt team that hadn't beaten anybody else in the league and didn't even play particularly well on Saturday.
This team is not physically very good, obviously. But it's absolutely a mental thing at this point as well. I asked Noah Carter after Saturday's game if there's a sense of "here we go again" when something goes wrong. And he said there isn't. But there has to be. This team got up 20-9 at winless Vanderbilt, whose best previous win was UNC-Greensboro in the third game of the season. The average KenPom rank of the five teams Vandy had beaten this year before Saturday: 290 (and that's only because Greensboro was 130...the other four were 293 or worse). But everybody knew the game wasn't anywhere close to over. Including Vanderbilt. At the time, I said Missouri would trail before halftime (there was about 14 minutes left). When this team gets ahead, it's waiting for the thing that turns the tide. When it gets down, it can't do enough to overcome it. It's absolutely in their heads.
2) Here's what I've rediscovered: When Missouri is not good at basketball, I don't pay attention to college basketball. I did last year. I watched other games, I followed results, I read Bracketology, I tracked everything. This year? I know North Carolina leads the ACC. I couldn't tell you who is in first place in any other conference in the country. I couldn't tell you who the No. 1 team in the country is. I don't know anything about the top 25. I've just completely tuned out. I'd imagine most here are the same way.
I did some looking around for this. I wondered how many other teams in college basketball haven't won a conference game. The answer? Six. Here's the list:
Pacific
Mississippi Valley State
Detroit
Hampton
Cal-Poly
DePaul
DePaul just fired its coach. I couldn't tell you anything about the other four teams on the list. But that's Mizzou's company for the time being.
Out of curiosity, I wondered how rare it is for a high-major conference team to go defeated. Six conferences are considered high majors. Here's the last time it happened in each:
ACC: Pittsburgh, 2017-18. Boston College is the only other team to do it in the last 20 years.
Big East: Georgetown, 2021-22. 2008-09 DePaul also did it.
Big Ten: Nobody has done it in the last 20 seasons. There are quite a few one-win teams in that span.
Big 12: Iowa State, 2020-21. TCU and Texas A&M also did it in the last 20 years.
PAC-12: Oregon State, 2007-08. That's it for the last 20.
SEC: Vanderbilt, 2018-19. That's it.
So we're talking about nine teams over the last 20 seasons. Of those nine, five got fired following the winless season. Two were fired within a year, one made it two years and Jim Christian survived four more seasons at Boston College. No coach who has gone winless in conference play at a high major school in the last 20 seasons has gone on to make an NCAA Tournament at that school.
Mizzou still has nine games to play in the SEC. I think it will find a way to win at least one or two. If it doesn't, Dennis Gates will have to do something that hasn't been done in college basketball in 20 years if he's going to be the long term answer.
3) So now that you're properly depressed, let me make you feel better: Missouri gymnastics is still very good. The Tigers defeated Texas Woman's University on Saturday. I did not know that was a school that existed until just now when I was typing the last sentence. Mizzou is holding steady at No. 9 in the national rankings. The Tigers will face No. 5 Kentucky and No. 6 Florida the next two Saturdays.
4) That's all I've got for the happy feelings crowd this week. Mizzou wrestling lost 24-10 to No. 3 Oklahoma State on Saturday. It was the Tigers' second straight dual match defeat, after falling to Cornell a week ago. It doesn't have to be a reason to panic, but obviously the Tigers are in a bit of a rut right now. They've got four more duals to get things right before the Big 12 Championships in Tulsa on March 9/10 and the NCAAs in Kansas City two weeks later.
5) In less surprising news, the Tiger women's basketball team lost 80-69 at Tennessee on Sunday afternoon. It dropped Mizzou to 11-11 overall and 2-7 in SEC play. Up next is a road game at No. 1 South Carolina and we all know how that one's going to go. At this point, we all know where we're headed at the end of the season too.
"We will not apologize for wanting our student-athletes to experience the NCAA Tournament," Desiree Reed-Francois told me after the decision to bring Robin Pingeton back for her 14th season.
Following the end of last year, Pingeton said "I think we all know the expectations."
Missouri has seven regular season games left. Barring a miracle of winning them all, the Tigers will go to the SEC Tournament having to win it to save Pingeton's job. It seems highly unlikely. Whether that decision has officially been made and communicated, I don't know. But the wheels are in motion and it would be stunning if it doesn't happen.
