Mizzou hoops looks to ride momentum from 3-1 SEC start into Baton Rouge

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

With four conference meetings in the books, the Mizzou men's basketball team finds itself in the upper echelon of the Southeastern Conference.

As of Friday afternoon, the Tigers in a five-way tie for first place in the SEC, as Mizzou, Vanderbilt, Arkansas, Texas A&M and Florida have all recorded a 3-1 mark at the start of league action. However, if you ask head coach Dennis Gates, he won't start paying too much attention to those rankings until the madness of March begins.

"Is it second week of March? Are we headed to the conference tournament? Well, I have amnesia," Coach Gates joked. "No, but it's being able to get better and that's the most important part. Our team has to continue to get better in this small sample size. We're still gelling, still trying to make sure we click on all cylinders how we need to. Again, getting healthy is the most important, but staying healthy is most more important than getting healthy. You have to stay healthy in this league and right now there's 14 more games left. We have to continue to get better day-by-day, game-by-game, week-by-week. But that that is something I'll worry about on the second week of March when we're heading to Nashville and if that's the case, then great."

You can watch the full press conference with Gates in the video player below.

All Coach Gates and his team are focused on now is a Saturday afternoon matinee in Baton Rouge against the LSU Tigers.

The Bayou Tigers will enter the weekend with a 12-5 overall mark, but still remain winless (0-4) in conference action. LSU has come close to gaining that first Southeastern Conference win, though, just losing a tight content to Kentucky, on Wednesday night, 75-74.

Much like Mizzou has this season, LSU is also grappling with a slew of injuries. Junior guard Dedan Thomas Jr., who leads his team with an average of 16.2 points and 7.1 assists per game, has missed the last four games with an injury. In addition, redshirt junior forward Jalen Reed is out for the season with an achilles injury he suffered in December.

"[LSU head coach Matt McMahon] has been hit with an injury bug and his team is still playing good basketball. When you look at that last game that they played, that's a tough way to lose a game. Now they bounce back and that's who we're playing. We're playing a team that lost a close game and who had Kentucky down 16, that's who we're playing. That's what we're scouting for and we're playing against a team who's Top-50 in a net and we're playing against a team who has some great wins in non-conference. That's what we're playing against. But the SEC, you know, it's been documented last year I think Arkansas started 0-4 or 0-5 or something like that and they bounced back and became an NCAA tournament team. So, it's a long season and we got to understand who we're playing at the moment," Gates said.

Coach Gates said the key to finding success in Baton Rouge is to minimize self-inflicted wounds and stick to playing Mizzou basketball for a full 40 minutes.

So far this season, standout forward Mark Mitchell has been a big part of his team's success. The senior is averaging a team-best 17.5 points and 5.3 boards per game, while ranking second with 3.4 assists. That makes him the first Tiger since Big Eight Player of the Year Anthony Peeler in 1991-92 to average 17 points, five rebounds and three assists.

"We knew what his talent was when we first got him here. But, to see him evolve and get more and more comfortable with what the defense is giving him, but also being a high-usage, facilitator and rebounder, he's filling in every possible need. We just got to continue to play through him and continue to allow him to have the space. I think the addition of our injured players, who turned around got healthy...[Jayden] Stone, [Trent] Pierce and [Jacob] Cruz, they space the court for him. We also got a great, physical big in Shawn Phillips Jr, who was doing his job, as well. He can do a lot more dirty work, which gives Mark Mitchell opportunities to play and focus in different areas," Gates said. "What I'm excited about is Mark Mitchell's defense. He stepped up defensively and he's doing a lot of things. Just as versatile as he is on offense, he's versatile on defense. Being able to switch one through five, that's an asset to us and that's what makes him valuable."

As the leader of the Tigers pointed to, you cannot overstate the impact of having both guard Jayden Stone and forward Trent Pierce back from injury. That duo returned just in time for SEC action and has averaged a combined 27.5 points, 9.5 rebounds, 4.5 assists and 2.8 steals per game.

However, the Tigers aren't at full healthy, quite yet. Forward Jevon Porter has missed five games with an injury and Coach Gates said, on Friday, that he still isn't in return-to-play protocol, yet. He added that he will give an update, once doctors give Porter the go-ahead.

Up next - Mizzou will tip off against LSU in Baton Rouge on Saturday at 2:30 p.m. on SEC Network.