There are some certainties in life. Death and Taxes are the most common ones. But there are some sports related ones too. Andy Reid beating his division. Travis Kelce getting a thousand yards. The Raiders making terrible offseason decisions. The Royals being eliminated by the end of May. Cardinal fans complaining for the first 4 months of the season and then spending the rest of the season talking about how awesome they are as they make the playoffs. But there is nothing more certain than Mizzou losing in the tournament. The hardest part of this was finding 10 times we actually made the tournament in my lifetime. But finding brutally painful ways of losing was quite easy among the times we made it. Without further ado, here we go.

10. 1994 Mizzou loses to Arizona in the Elite Eight:

Okay, so this is sort of out of the ordinary which is why it is #10. I was a freshman in high school and this was a quality team although it didn’t start out well. Early on we lost to Arkansas 120-68. Watching this game, Paul O’Liney was watching the game and said to himself, they could use me so he joined the team. And he did help. But the Tigers found their rhythm. They went a perfect 14-0 in Big 8 play. The gained the #1 seed in the West and things were looking good. This was the first time in my lifetime we had made the Elite 8. Then we ran into Damon Stoudamire and the Arizona Wildcats who smoked us by 20. We finished 28-4 and had a great season. But this was probably our best shot of making it to the final four and we came up short so it makes the list.

9. 2003 Loss to in OT to Marquette:

This was another not so bad loss. After all, Marquette was the 3 seed and we were the 6. We battled all game and I specifically remember watching this with my friends Dave and Karen. Ricky Paulding specifically raised his game. After being down 10 at half we worked things back to a tie to send it to Over Time. Quin seemed like the real deal as he had led us to the elite 8 the year before and looked like he was going to make another run. But in OT they absolutely destroyed us, outscoring us 21-12. We played hard. We just couldn’t stop some guy named Dwayne Wade for some reason. Turns out he was pretty good. It was a tough loss but it is worse looking back due to what happened next. More on that in a bit.

8. 1983 Mizzou loses to Iowa in the round of 32:

It looks like we won a tournament game that year but we didn’t. The field expanded to 64 in 1985. I was too young to remember so this almost didn’t make the list but I have heard my dad complain enough about it that it feels like I was there. We had won the Big 8. We had a couple of guys on our team named Sundvold and Stipanovich. Apparently they were real good. We were the 2 seed and if we had won this game we would be playing at Kemper which would have basically given us home court advantage. Dad went ahead and bought tickets. Unfortunately, we lost to 7 seed Iowa and never made it to Kemper. If I was older, this would probably be higher on the list. But as my brother said this weekend, they still went to Kemper and got to see Houston and the five slamma jamma team. I reminded him that the coolest thing I saw at Kemper was the Blades. So it isn’t all bad.

7. 2013 9 Seed Mizzou loses to 8 Seed Colorado State:

I sort of forgot about this one because there is one the year before way worse but this fittingly popped up on my FB feed today as a past memory. This is what my post 10 years ago said:

“Thank you Colorado state for ending this embarrassing and disappointing season. It has been a miserable year of under achieving. I for one am glad I don’t have to watch pressey turn the ball over, Jabari brown shoot 1 for 67 from the field and haith stick to line ups that aren’t working. Time to cheer for who ever is playing Kansas.”

This pretty much sums it up and honestly sums up being a Mizzou basketball fan in general.

6. 2023 Losing to #15 Princeton:

It’s hard to be mad about Princeton. But man, losing to a 15 seed again? Also, hard to be mad as overall this team wildly overachieved and actually won a tournament game. Something we hadn’t done since 2010. 13 years. We went 13 years without winning a tournament game. That is how bad it is being a Tiger fan. It’s not like I overlooked Princeton as I felt there were a handful teams that we couldn’t beat if we played well and pretty much no one I thought we couldn’t lose to if we played poorly. But this was rough. Princeton being the smart guys that they are (it is Princeton after all) exposed all our weaknesses which we have many of, half court defense, running an offense for long period of times, defensive rebounding, offensive rebounding and settling for bad shots. They played lights out, shot lights out and this game was never really close. And let’s be honest when we didn’t have to play Arizona then you sort of assumed we would win this. After all, how often does the #15 seed win after beating the 2 seed? The odds go way up if that second game is against Mizzou. It wasn’t just that we lost. It was more because we got dominated by Princeton…a 15 seed. They looked like the better team. I think the overachieving season overshadows how bad this loss really is. But it was bad.

5. 1987 #3 loses to #14 Xavier and 1988 #6 Mizzou loses to #11 Rhode Island:

I’m lumping these two together because I sort of remember the games but remember the teams better. This stretch of Mizzou Basketball is full of lots of great talent and absurd underachievement. They had Derrick Chievous, Doug Smith, Lee Coward, Byron Irving, Nathan Buntin and Mike Sandbothe. This is when I really became a Mizzou fan. So much talent. Sure, some of it was there illegally but no one knew that at the time. We would pay for that later. In 87 we won the Big Eight and were a 3 seed. We somehow lost by a point to a freaking 14 seed in Xavier. I was 8 and I just remember being real disappointed. In 1988 it was more of the same. This team was stacked. Some how this team went 19-11. They should have done much better. Then we headed to the tournament and ran into an 11 seeded Rhode Island. I had just turned 9 so I don’t remember this game real well either, but I remember being pissed. A feeling I would feel again and again and again.

4. 2004 Didn’t even make the tourney:

Okay, maybe I am cheating here but this team was supposed to be a contender and instead fell apart. Most of the team that almost beat Dwayne Wade the year before was back. Arthur Johnson, Ricky Paulding, Travon Bryant and Jimmy McKinney were all back. And we added strong freshman in Thomas Gardner and Linas Klieza. We were ranked to start the season. And then day by day we became more of a mess. Turns out Quin Snyder was a mess. He was recruiting illegally, doing some things outside of his marriage he wasn’t supposed to do and I am pretty sure was doing mountains of cocaine. Or at least he looked like he was. Quin gave us so much hope. The two previous years he had done well in the tournament. Something Norm struggled to do. He was recruiting like crazy. But the dude just had problems. And if we are honest Mizzou Basketball hasn’t been the same since. Sure, we had a couple decent years here and there. But this was really the beginning of the end as the next year Quin would resign and our basketball future was grim for many years.

3. 1990 loss to Northern Freaking Iowa:

After two brutal defeats, the 89 team pulled it together and made a run before losing a close game to a higher ranked Syracuse team in the sweet 16. In 1990, we won the Big 8. We were led by Doug Smith and my all time favorite Tiger, Anthony Peeler. Another one of my favorites, Lee Coward was still on the team with Nathan Buntin and John McIntyre still around to round out the starting 5. Late in the season we were the #1 ranked team in the nation. We beat #1 ku twice both at home and in Lawrence. But then at the end of the year we lost to #10 Oklahoma, got blown out by Notre Dame and then lost in the first round of the Big 8 tournament to 8 seed, Colorado. That knocked us from being #1 in the country to a 3 seed in the tournament. We faced Northern Iowa who had never been in the tournament before. They went up 2-0 and never trailed. Doug Smith fouled out with like 7 minutes to go and Peeler only had 3 points. It was a fitting end to the underachieving of this insanely talented run of Tiger teams filled with NBA players from 86-90 that made the tournament every year but only got out of the first round once.

2. 1995 Somebody get in his way!!! (loss to UCLA):

If you want to make any Mizzou fan upset by saying one name, that name is Tyus Edney. If you google Tyus Edney the first thing that pops up is the play against Mizzou. This guy played in the NBA for like 10 years, won a national championship and is now a coach and this is still the first thing that came up.

The 90’s were full of almost for Mizzou sports. The 5th down, the fleakicker and Tyus Edney. Until Gary Pinkel, these were the most memorable Mizzou sports moments and if you are just a sports fan and not a Mizzou fan then these are still your top 3.

We really had no business being in this game. We had squeaked by 9 seed Indiana and were facing the 1 seed and the #1 ranked team in the country. Yet we had them on the ropes. Down by 1, we milked the clock as much as we could and then made a great play to dump it underneath for an easy bucket to take a 1 point lead. There was 4.8 seconds left. UCLA called a timeout. They came up with this amazing play where everyone just gets out the way and Edney dribbles all the way down the court. Our strategy apparently was to let him. Sutherland escorted him down the court and then Derrick Grimm stood right in front of him but even scooted back a little and didn’t jump as Edney laid it in over him. I am sure the discussion was to not foul but I was yelling the whole time, “somebody get in his way!” It was a brutal way to lose. UCLA went on to win the whole thing and we didn’t make the tourney again until 99. It took what should have been one of the greatest victories in Mizzou history and turned it into one of the most brutal losses in Mizzou history. If you would like to suffer all over again, you can watch the clip below.

1.The Loss: 2012 to #15 seed Norfolk State:

There is only one answer for #1 on this list and it is losing to Norfolk State. This was brutal. I don’t think I have ever been more mad about a basketball game in my life and that says a lot. Mike Anderson had left and Frank Haith had taken over. The cupboard was pretty bare but a rag tag group of players were left. Kim English, Marcus Denmon, the Pressey brothers, Michael Dixon, Ricardo Ratliffe and fan favorite Steve Moore. These guys felt like Anderson had quit on them so they rallied together and became quite the team. They won 30 games. They won the big 12 tournament. The finished second in the league but split games with ku. They were fun. They were likable. They were inspiring. The got a 2 seed and a matchup with little known Norfolk State. We played so well in the big 12 tourney it seemed like we were due to make a run. Instead, we absolutely could not stop Norfolk State all game. They out shot us, out rebounded us and out played us. We took two ill advised shots in the last minute and Norfolk shot 2-6 from the free throw line to give us a shot. We probably shouldn’t have called timeout after the last missed free throw as we might have caught them off guard and got an open shot. However, instead we took a timeout and gave them a chance to set up a defense. We inbounded to Phil Pressey who dribbled down the sideline and missed a highly contested 3 that went off the rim and we lost. It was brutal on every front. You wanted this team to win. And to lose again…in the first round was so painful. My wife can tell you for sure but I don’t think I talked to anybody the rest of the day…maybe the rest of the week. In fact, even after writing about it, I don’t want to talk to anyone anymore. There have been a lot of brutal losses but this is clearly #1. If you would like to punish yourself you can spend 10 plus minutes watching the last 50 seconds here just like I did. Now excuse me while I find a hole to crawl into after reliving all these depressing moments.