Zero. Zip. Zilch. Nothing. Nada. Nil. Doughnut. Goose egg.
Pick a word, a phrase, a euphemism. You can even pick a language. The smooth breathiness of the French sans victoire can’t even mask it.
Winless.
Brutal but true. A sign of a season that is both forgettable yet bound for the history books. A trajectory that was regressive to the point of rock bottom.
Such is the state of Missouri men’s basketball, which has finished 0-18 in Southeastern Conference play with an 84-80 road loss to Louisiana State on Saturday.
MU is now the second program in some 70 seasons to play an SEC slate without winning, joining the 2018-2019 Vanderbilt team in miserable company.
Mizzou hasn’t won a game since a Dec. 30 nonconference rout of Central Arkansas, a game played the day after the Missouri football team’s Cotton Bowl win. Since that day, there’s been the start of a new calendar year, some close losses, some losses that followed a familiar pattern and some losses that weren’t particularly competitive at all.
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This time, it was Mizzou blowing a six-point halftime lead — its largest of four advantages held at the break in SEC games — during a defeating bit of second-half whiplash that saw a 14-point swing in LSU’s favor across less than three minutes.
Point guard Sean East II led MU with 26 points, his seventh consecutive 20-point game. East was the only Mizzou player to score in the first 10 minutes of the second half.
As a team, the visiting Tigers attempted 29 3-pointers, level with the most they've attempted in any SEC game this season. Nine went in, a 31 percent clip. Both teams turned the ball over 15 times.
MU now finishes the regular season 8-23 overall. Only twice before have the Tigers lost 23 games in a season, happening in 2014-2015 and 2016-2017. With an SEC tournament appearance still to make next week, Missouri will — barring an incredibly improbable undefeated run to both a conference and national title — lose its 24th game to tie the program record.
Mizzou began the game with an early scoring drought, going nearly four minutes without a point as LSU assembled a 9-0 run. The visitors, once they got their scoring legs underneath them, responded with a seven-point outburst. Point guard Sean East II punctuated the counter-punch with a layup and made free throw to give MU a 12-11 lead with 12:34 left in the first half.
The black-and-gold Tigers kept the advantage through the rest of the first half. Turnovers plagued both teams, especially during a foul stretch of three and a half minutes that saw six total turnovers — and one 83-second period in which Missouri coughed up the ball three times.
Freshman point guard Anthony Robinson II extended the lead to 17-13 with a strong finish through contact in the low post, the icing on a 12-2 run.
Two big 3-pointers from forward Noah Carter, who has been shooting just 27.3 percent from beyond the arc, further assembled a foundation. His second make from range came on a quick release in the corner and gave Mizzou a 33-25 lead, the biggest of the first half.
Fouling an LSU 3-point shooter with a fraction of a second left on the clock brought the Bayou Bengals within six points at the break, when MU led 35-29.
The visitors’ advantage swelled to seven points with 15:26 to go in the game. And then came the kind of astounding whiplash that only a team en route to its 18th consecutive game could manage.
A well-timed cut to the rim brought LSU within three. Then, on a three-on-one fastbreak, East tried to throw a lob to guard Tamar Bates but instead chucked it out over the baseline. Mizzou held on for a couple more possessions before disaster hit.
Center Mabor Majak tried a hook shot against a double team in the post, and LSU barely let the ball leave his hands before flying down the floor for a 45-44 lead.
The hosts didn’t ease off their hot streak. By the time the clock read 12:38 — less than three minutes after Missouri led by seven — LSU had flipped the margin to its own seven-point lead through a 14-0 run.
"Our guys just didn’t get back in transition," Mizzou coach Dennis Gates said of his team's second half struggles. "And when we did, we fouled."
And the damage hadn’t even been fully dealt. An LSU 3, followed by an MU miss and a dunk for the purple-and-yellow Tigers opened up a deficit of a clean dozen with less than nine minutes to play.
There seemed to be nothing to play for past that point — playing for pride led Mizzou to drop more than 20 points behind LSU with just under five minutes left in the game. MU closed to within three during the final six seconds of play in an effort-driven but toothless rally.
"Overall, I think our guys did a great job fighting back in that second half, trying to make it an interesting game," Gates said. "We cut it down to one possession, and that just says our guys are fighting and trying to give their very best."
Missouri, long since settled into 14th and last place in the SEC, will face 11-seed Georgia on the opening day of the conference tournament. The Bulldogs beat the Tigers 75-68 in Columbia, kicking off MU’s ongoing losing streak, back on Jan. 6.