KANSAS CITY, Mo. — After finishing 12th in the Southeastern Conference, the University of Missouri opens SEC Men’s Basketball Tournament play on Wednesday at Amalie Arena in Tampa, Florida.
The 12th-seeded Tigers (11-20, 5-13 SEC) face No. 13 seed Mississippi (13-18, 4-14) at 5 p.m. with the spot in the second round against fifth-seeded LSU (21-10, 9-9) at stake.
Missouri swept the season series with Ole Miss — beating the Rebels 78-53 on Jan. 18 in Oxford, Mississippi, and 74-68 on Feb. 12 at Mizzou Arena.
The game will air on SEC Network.
No. 14 seed Georgia (6-25, 1-17) plays No. 11 seed Vanderbilt (15-15, 7-11) in the other first-round matchup.
Top-seeded Auburn (27-4, 15-3), which won its first outright SEC regular-season title since 1999, and the rest of the top-four teams in the conference — Tennessee (23-7, 14-4), Kentucky (25-6, 14-4) and Arkansas (24-7, 13-5) — earned double-byes and don’t play until the quarterfinal round on Friday.
Missouri is 5-7 all-time in the SEC tourney and has never made it past the quarterfinal round.
The Tigers were banned from the postseason in 2016 and didn’t play in the 2020 tourney, which was canceled after the first round because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
