No. 20 Mizzou Takes on Georgia in Athens on Tuesday

Mizzou Basketball Game Notes

• Game Notes

STORYLINES

• Head coach Cuonzo Martin enters Saturday’s matchup with Arkansas just one win shy of 250 career wins.
• Mizzou and Georgia square off for the first time this season and the 16th time overall in their program histories. Mizzou has won three consecutive games in the head-to-head series. A fourth victory on Tuesday would give the Tigers their longest win streak over Georgia since winning three in a row in 2001, 2009 and 2010.
• Mizzou won last year’s meeting 72-69 with a game-winning block from Reed Nikko on eventual No. 1 NBA Draft selection Anthony Edwards’ drive in the finals seconds. In that win, Mizzou’s current point guard duo of Dru Smith and Xavier Pinson combined for 32 points.
• The Tigers downed Georgia, 64-39, on Mizzou’s last trip to Athens. The 25-point win was Mizzou’s largest margin of victory over an SEC opponent since 2013. Mizzou was +22 on the glass and held the Bulldogs to their fewest points at home since Dec. 28, 1945 (36 vs. Georgia Tech).
• Mizzou is coming off back-to-back losses for the first time this season. The Tigers haven’t lost three in a row since  Jan. 18-Jan. 25, 2020 (at Alabama, vs. Texas A&M and at West Virginia.)
• A win on Tuesday would be Mizzou’s third overall victory in Athens, including wins in 2019 and 2009.
• Mizzou is one of eight teams nationally with five Quad 1 victories. Mizzou has three wins over Top 10 teams (No. 10 Alabama, No. 6 Tennessee, No. 6 Illinois) in the same season for the first time since 2011-12. The Tigers boast four ranked wins and four true road victories, and four of their five losses have come against Quad 1 opponents.
• Mizzou is 7-0 against Quad 3 and Quad 4 teams.
• From December of 2013 until Cuonzo Martin‘s first year at the helm, Mizzou hadn’t beaten a ranked opponent in more than 1,500 days. Mizzou has four alone this season and the Tigers are 8-6 against ranked teams under Martin.
• Mizzou checks in at No. 20 in the AP Top 25 poll. That gives Mizzou 10 consecutive weeks in the Top 25 (the 14th-longest streak nationally).
• Mizzou is 5-1 in games decided by five or fewer points this season.
• After scoring 26 points vs. Kentucky, 16 against Alabama, 17 at Ole Miss and 15 vs. Arkansas, redshirt senior Dru Smith is on a tear, having reached double figures in 10 consecutive games – the longest streak by a Tiger since Kassius Robertson’s 10-game streak in 2017-18. Dru’s averaging 16.6 points per game in that span and has earned three SEC Player of the Week honors this season, the most by a Tiger in a campaign since Utah Jazz star Jordan Clarkson in 2013.
• Dru is once again leading the SEC in steals with 1.9 per game. His 164 career steals ranks 33rd among all active Division I players. Dru also ranks 13th in the SEC in scoring, ninth in assists and seventh in 3-pointers made.
• In its 13 wins, Mizzou has averaged 76.8 points, while shooting 46.7 percent from the field.
• After shooting 40 percent or better from beyond the arc as a team just once in its first 11 games, Mizzou has done so five times in the last seven games after draining a season-best 13 triples vs. Arkansas.

DRUUU

• Dru, a Preseason second-team All-SEC selection by both the league’s coaches and the media, is one of the nation’s best defenders. He’s leading the SEC during league play for the second consecutive campaign with 1.9 steals per game and his 2.0 steals per game over his time as a Tiger ranks second all-time at Mizzou. He is a three-time SEC Player of the Week after earning the award on Feb. 8 after adding 16 points and a season-high eight rebounds vs. No. 10 Alabama.
• His 10-game double-figure scoring streak, after posting 17 points on a career-high five 3-pointers at Ole Miss and 15 points vs. Arkansas, is the longest since Kassius Robertson scored 10+ in 10 straight games in 2017-18. Mizzou is 7-1 this season when he dishes at least four assists. He’s the only Tiger with an assist in every game.
• Dru is averaging 14.2 points, 1.9 steals, 3.8 boards and 3.4 assists per game. He’s one of just 24 players nationally to average at least all those marks this season and one of just seven players from Power 5 conferences.
• Dru exploded for a season-high 26 points, helped by 12-of-14 free throws, vs. Kentucky. He finished with 26 points, seven rebounds, and five assists vs. the Wildcats, the first Tiger to reach all those numbers in the same game since DeMarre Carroll posted 31 points, nine boards and five dimes vs. Iowa State in 2009.
• Dru surpassed the 1,000-career point plateau with a season-best 21 points at Auburn. Dru leads Mizzou during 2020-21 with 15 double-figure scoring games. Since Feb. 8, 2020, Dru has scored in double figures in 22 of the last 27 games. Mizzou is 18-9 in that stretch which includes just four games against non-Power Conference teams.
• Dru tallied 16 points, six boards, six assists and four steals in one of the best all-around performances of his Tiger career at Texas A&M. He is the only Tiger in the last decade to hit all those marks in the same game. Dru followed with 16 on just six shots vs. South Carolina on Jan. 18. Only Dru, Jordan Geist, Keith Shamburger, Alex Oriakhi and Kim English have done that in a Mizzou uniform in the last decade. He chipped in 18 points and had zero turnovers at No. 6 Tennessee.
• In SEC play, Dru ranks sixth in free throw percentage (.842), first in steals (1.9) and 13th in scoring (15.2).
• The redshirt senior point guard finished his first season as a Tiger in 2019-20 with 393 points, 131 boards, 121 assists and 64 steals. The last two SEC players to reach those marks in each category in the same campaign: Ben Simmons and John Wall.
• In his 99-game career, Dru has only gone one game without recording an assist (Dec. 3, 2016), giving him a dime in 89 of the last 91 games. He’s posted 89 multi-assist outings in his last 93 games. Dru has started 71-straight games including all 49 of his Mizzou career. Dru’s 87.7 percent clip from the free throw line ranks 19th nationally among all active players.