The Tigers, under tough-minded coach Cuonzo Martin, are trying to recapture some of their old winning spirit. They play in Mizzou Arena, a 15,000-capacity stadium that opened in 2004, with a third of the cost covered by Walmart heiress Nancy Walton Laurie and her husband. The playing surface is called Norm Stewart Court. It has seen some curious action in its time, and we don't mean the basketball. In 2017, a Mizzou grad drove his Volkswagen Passat onto the court for reasons beyond understanding, causing an estimated $100,000 worth of damage.

Mizzou Tigers Men's Basketball History

By anyone's reckoning, the Norm Stewart era was the golden age of Mizzou basketball. Stewart hung around campus for 32 years, turning a middling team into a highly competitive program. He was on the bench from 1967 to 1999, during which span Mizzou won eight conference titles and went to the NCAA tournament 16 times, and stars such as Derrick Chievous, Anthony Peeler and Steve Stipanovich did stints in Columbia on their way to the NBA.

After a disastrous eight-win season in 2016-17, Mizzou turned to Martin, an East St. Louis, Illinois, native who'd coached at Berkeley and Tennessee. In his debut season, Martin and his stout defenses, anchored by another East St. Louisan named Jeremiah Tilmon, produced 20 wins and a No. 8 seed in the NCAA tournament.

A charter member of the Big 12 Conference, Missouri went to the Southeastern Conference in 2012. For a while the move deprived fans of one of the great college sports rivalries, Mizzou–Kansas, but the so-called Border War is back on beginning in 2020 and continuing at least through 2025. Mizzou is set to host games in Columbia in 2022-23 and 2024-25. The Tigers have another hotly contested border rivalry with Illinois. Their so-called Braggin' Rights game is played annually in St. Louis.