Mizzou’s SEC Road Woes: Can the Tigers Buck the Trend in Columbia?
Winning in college basketball is never easy. Doing it on the road?
That’s a whole different beast - especially in the SEC, where home-court advantage can feel like a sixth defender. For Missouri, that struggle has been real - and consistent - since joining the conference.
Let’s talk numbers. This is Mizzou’s 14th season in the SEC, and they’ve racked up just 26 road wins in league play.
That averages out to fewer than two per year. Given that they play nine SEC road games each season, we’re looking at a rough 2-7 average.
That’s not just a trend - it’s a defining trait of the program’s conference identity.
Here’s how those road wins break down by season:
- 2013: 2 (South Carolina, Mississippi State)
- 2014: 2 (Arkansas, Auburn)
- 2015-2017: 0 (Yes, three straight winless road seasons)
- 2018: 4 (South Carolina, Alabama, Ole Miss, Vanderbilt)
- 2019: 2 (Texas A&M, Georgia)
- 2020: 1 (Vanderbilt)
- 2021: 5 (Arkansas, Texas A&M, Tennessee, South Carolina, Florida)
- 2022: 2 (Ole Miss, Texas A&M)
- 2023: 4 (Ole Miss, Tennessee, Georgia, LSU)
- 2024: 0
- 2025: 3 (Florida, Mississippi State, Georgia)
- 2026: 1 (Kentucky)
That’s a lot of lean years - and some outright droughts. The Kim Anderson era, in particular, saw Missouri go three straight seasons without a single road conference win. Brutal.
But not all coaches have fared equally. Cuonzo Martin, for all the criticism he took, actually held his own away from home.
Under Martin, Mizzou went 14-30 on the road in SEC play - not great, but better than some stretches. That’s a .318 road winning percentage, compared to his overall SEC mark of .397.
Not a huge drop-off, and better than many remember.
Dennis Gates, now in his third season at the helm, has shown flashes of turning that narrative around. His first year featured four road wins.
Last season? Three - and that was in a year many considered the SEC’s strongest top to bottom in recent memory.
This season’s lone road win so far came at Kentucky - no small feat, even in a down year for the Wildcats.
Still, there have been missed opportunities. Losses at Ole Miss and LSU sting, especially considering how tight the margins were. But today’s matchup at South Carolina might just be the Tigers’ best shot at adding another tally to the win column.
The Setup:
- Date: Saturday, February 7, 2026
- Location: Colonial Life Arena, Columbia, SC
- TV: SEC Network
- Streaming: WatchESPN
- Line: Missouri -1.5
- O/U: 146.5
According to KenPom, this one’s essentially a coin flip - South Carolina is projected to win by a single point. But the betting markets have Mizzou as a slight favorite, and that says something about the opportunity in front of them.
Historically, Missouri hasn’t exactly owned Colonial Life Arena - but they’ve had their moments. Three of their 26 SEC road wins have come in Columbia, including a solid 2021 victory when five Tigers scored in double figures.
That game was led by Dru Smith and Jeremiah Tilmon, who returned to the lineup after missing two games due to a family tragedy. The Tigers had dropped both of those games (to Arkansas and Georgia), but rallied in South Carolina against a Gamecocks team that was struggling to find its footing.
That squad finished 6-15 and only played 21 games. Missouri, meanwhile, was on its way to the NCAA Tournament.
That’s been the formula for Mizzou road wins at South Carolina - tournament-caliber Tigers facing a Gamecocks team going nowhere fast. And while this year’s South Carolina squad isn’t quite the same mess as 2021, they’re beatable. Especially for a Missouri team that’s shown it can win in tough environments when it plays to its potential.
Bottom Line:
Missouri’s road record in SEC play has been a long-running Achilles’ heel. But today’s game offers a chance to flip the script - or at least keep chipping away at a tough trend.
A win at South Carolina wouldn’t just be another notch in the standings. It would be a statement that this team, and this program under Dennis Gates, is starting to figure out how to win where it matters most - in hostile arenas, in the heart of conference play, when the margin for error is razor-thin.
And if history tells us anything, it’s that Mizzou knows how to seize this kind of moment - when the Gamecocks are vulnerable and the Tigers have something to prove.
Tip-off is at noon CT. Keep an eye on this one. It might just be the turning point Missouri’s been looking for.