NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Missouri men’s basketball was in the trenches.
This is not a war metaphor, mind you, but an oceanic one. Before Thursday night, the No. 21 Tigers were sinking — plummeting, you could argue — into the darkened depths of the sea. The sunny surface faded away over the course of four losses in the final five regular season games.
The postseason and its lose-and-go-home matchups seemed like the barren bottom waiting for the flotsam to touch down.
But in these depths, Mizzou found its leviathan: guard Tamar Bates, whose reappearance and 25 points carried the No.