Mizzou hunting for first SEC victory in regular season finale

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

Mizzou Men's Basketball will close out its regular season on Saturday at LSU, still searching for the team's first SEC win of the season.

Saturday's game will be the Tigers' last opportunity to avoid the program's first winless conference season in more than a century. The 1907-1908 season was the last time Mizzou Men's Basketball ended its campaign with zero conference victories, finishing with an 0-5 conference record in the Missouri Valley Intercollegiate Athletic Association. Despite being locked into the No. 14 seed for next week's SEC Tournament, Mizzou is not planning at this time to rest any players against LSU in an effort to stay healthy ahead of the tourney.

"We're just focused on LSU and playing on the road. I know it was a tough game last year there. We got down early. It was their senior night. Again, it's their senior night, so we have to do our job and try not to get down at halftime," Dennis Gates said. "[LSU] is going to play a great game this weekend, and we just have to make sure we dot i's, cross t's and execute."

You can watch the full press conference with Mizzou basketball coach Dennis Gates in the video player below.

Next week's SEC Tournament does give the Tigers another opportunity to turn the page and put their tough conference season behind them. Snapping Mizzou's longest losing skid in program history (17 games) and winning a contest on the road would also provide some much-needed confidence ahead of the tournament.

"I think [the SEC Tournament] is the third season of our schedule. It gives us an opportunity to reset one of our goals and that's to win a postseason SEC tournament," Gates said. "The momentum of that starts this weekend, and it's going to be important that we give ourselves a chance by how we focus on the small things leading into this game."

Tipoff for Mizzou's regular season finale is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, March 9 at Pete Maravich Assembly Center.