OXFORD, Miss. • With seven regular-season games left to play, the Missouri men’s basketball season is hardly over but is still wandering toward an uncertain destination. With Tuesday’s 79-78 win over Arkansas, the Tigers improved to 12-11 heading into Saturday’s visit to Ole Miss and still tied for 11th place in the Southeastern Conference at 3-8 in league play.
Mizzou and Texas A&M are two games behind a pack of four teams at 5-6. The NCAA Tournament is well beyond MU’s reach — the Tigers are No. 88 in the NCAA’s NET rankings, the tournament selection committee’s new standard — but the NIT is still realistic, though every at-large team to make the tournament the last five years has won at least 17 games.