3 takeaways from Missouri's upset win over No. 22 Florida

Eli Hoff, St. Louis Post-Dispatch on Jan 3, 2026

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COLUMBIA, Mo. — There's a small zoo in Gainesville, Fla., the city that's home to the University of Florida. There are about five dozen species of animals on display there, but no tigers.

Maybe it's because capital-T Tigers are rapidly becoming fauna non grata in greater Gatorland.

For the second year in a row, Missouri men's basketball has managed to upset Florida early in Southeastern Conference play. Last year, Mizzou beat fifth-ranked UF, 83-82, on the road, handing the eventual national champions their only home loss of the season.

Then on Saturday, the Tigers (11-3, 1-0) got the No. 22 Gators (9-5, 0-1) inside their own domain — a noisy Mizzou Arena — and upset them once again.

MU 76, Florida 74.

A Missouri team that bumbled through nonconference play finding no wins on which it could hang its hat now has a ranked win to its name.

Point guard Anthony Robinson II led the Tigers with 19 points, eight rebounds and five assists. MU power forward Mark Mitchell scored 14 points. Florida forward Thomas Haugh scored 24 points to lead the visitors.

Here are three takeaways from Saturday's SEC opener.

Tigers prevail in the clutch

Missouri and Florida emerged for the second half knotted up at 39 points apiece, then went into the final possessions neck and neck, too.

One of MU's more electric plays of the season had created the tie. The coaching staff drew up a play for the final possession of the first half, calling for a back-screen to generate an open 3-point look for 7-foot-5 center Trent Burns — hardly the expected shooter. The lanky redshirt freshman knocked down the look for the first made triple of his career.

Mizzou was the better team out of the halftime pep talks, driving more purposefully to the rim, and led by as much as 10. The Gators, fighting foul trouble, battled back to re-take the lead inside the final four minutes.

Robinson, working off a screen set by Mitchell, banked in a 3-pointer to go up by five points with 21 seconds left in the game.

Icing the game from the free-throw line was an accomplishment for a team that has been out of whack from the charity stripe this season. Mitchell left the door open by missing a pair of free throws in the final five seconds, but Florida's desperation jumper at the buzzer clanked off the back iron.

How the height battle played out

Saturday's game pitted the SEC's two tallest teams against each other. Mizzou is the tallest team in the league with an average height of 79.8 inches, with UF not far behind at 79.3 inches.

And size became an important element of lineup construction. At one point in the first half, the Tigers had one point guard and four bigs on the floor.

Containing Florida's long and skilled front-court completely was always going to be — pardon the obvious pun — a tall task, but MU fared well. A Florida team that entered Saturday averaging 17.3 offensive rebounds and 17.3 second-chance points per game only managed 13 offensive boards and 10 second-chance points against Missouri.

Stone, Pierce impactful in returns

After missing a combined 20 games, guard Jayden Stone (seven games out) and forward Trent Pierce (all 13 games missed) returned to action for Missouri. Their respective presences were very much needed.

Stone made his first start of the season and burst out of the starting blocks to score MU's first eight points of the game. Some of his most impactful plays were coming down toward the blocks after shots from the Gators to aid the defensive rebounding effort.

Pierce, making his season debut, didn't play as minutes as he likely will once he's back up to speed. His first made shot of the season was an in-rhythm 3-pointer that put Missouri up by 10 points with just under 13 minutes to play.

The two returners combined for 19 points.

Forward Jevon Porter, as expected, missed a second consecutive game with a leg injury.

Up next

The Tigers head on the road for their next two SEC games. At 6 p.m. Wednesday, they'll visit Kentucky, which is 9-5 overall but dropped its league opener to Alabama. Next Saturday, MU visits Mississippi at 5 p.m.