Mizzou hoops suffers first loss of the season in ACC/SEC Challenge
SOUTH BEND, Ind. (KMIZ)
The Mizzou men's basketball team's undefeated start to the 2025-26 campaign came to an end in South Bend.
The Tigers lost a nail-biter against the Notre Dame Fighting Irish in the ACC/SEC Challenge, on Tuesday night, 76-71. With the loss, MU drops to 8-1 on the season and the ACC takes a 6-3 lead in the annual challenge over the SEC.
Mizzou had two players get into the 20 points club, on Tuesday night. Mark Mitchell led all scorers with a game-best 26 points, while Jacob Crews was right behind him with 22 of his own. Those were the only two players Mizzou had get into the double-digits club, though, which marks the fourth time this season only two players have gone into double-figures.
It was a game defined by wild runs for each team.
The Tigers capitalized on takeaways in an 11-2 run midway through the first half, as head coach Dennis Gates' team scored seven points off of turnovers to take their biggest lead at that point in the game. But, the Fighting Irish responded with a massive run over their own. Spanning from the last minute of the first half into the second, Notre Dame went on a 20-6 run of their own to put Mizzou in jeopardy of losing its first game of the season.
However, as was the story of this game in South Bend, Gates' team caught fire, once again. An 11-0 scoring run, highlighted by six points from Crews and five from Mitchell, put the Tigers back on top in the second half.
From there, the finish was neck-and-neck, as the Tigers and Fighting Irish traded leads over the final few minutes of action.
At the end of the day, Notre Dame's Cole Certa and Markus Burton made the difference down the stretch, as that duo combined for 22 points in the second half.
The game ended up being as close as it was due to a drastic change in accuracy from MU. In the first half, the Tigers shot better than 50 percent from the field, but dipped down to a 34.6 percent performance in the final 20 minutes of play.
All-in-all, it was an even game between Mizzou and Notre Dame. Gates' team only out-rebounded the Irish by two and only scored 10 more points in the paint. MU did obliterate their opponent in the points off of turnovers category, though, 23-9.
Up next - Mizzou will head to Kansas City to face rival Kansas in a neutral site game at the T-Mobile Center. Tip off is slated for 12 p.m. on Sunday, Dec. 7.
