It’s not all football as the school year gets kicked into gear. It’s time to start looking ahead at the Mizzou men’s basketball 2025-26 season as well.
So each week, I will look through a couple of games on the Tigers’ schedule to get an idea of who Mizzou will line up against this season.
So, let’s kick it off with a look at the first three games of the season.
Game 1: At Howard on Nov. 3
In an interesting move, the Tigers are opening the season on the road once again, this time in Washington D.C. as they take on the Howard Bison.
Howard is coming off a 12-20 season with a 7-7 record in Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference play.
The Bison aren’t new to Power-4 out of conference games. Last season, Howard played at Kansas at at Mizzou to kick off the season.
The Bison also played at Cincinnati in 2024. In 2023, they hosted Cincinnati and took the Bearcats to overtime.
Howard averaged 77.5 points per game last season and allowed 79.3 points per game. The team shot 46.5 percent from the field, 37.2 percent from 3 and 73.9 percent from the free-throw line.
There’s been a lot of roster turnover from last season under seventh-year head coach Kenneth Blakeney.
Only four players return from last year’s roster:
- Sophomore guard Isaiah Brown (6-foot-1, 170-pounds) who did not play last season.
- Senior guard Ose Okojie (6-5, 191) appeared in six games and did not start. He scored 28 total points and grabbed 10 rebounds.
- Sophomore forward Calving Robins Jr. (6-5, 185) started four games and appeared in 21. He scored 3.0 points per game and brought down 2.7 rebounds per contest.
- Graduate guard Bryce Harris (6-4, 220) appeared and started in seven games and was selected as MEAC Preseason Player of the Year before suffering a season-ending injury. He had two double-doubles and surpassed 1,000 career points and 500 career rebounds.
That’s it. The rest are transfers or freshmen.
- Sophomore forward Travelle Bryson (6-5, 185) comes from Vincennes, where we played in 26 games and averaged 10.5 points per game.
- Junior guard Alex Cotton (6-5, 200) comes from North Texas where he played in 11 games across two seasons.
- Freshman guard Shane Frazier (6-5) coming from Los Angeles.
- Junior guard Cam Gillus (5-11, 180) who spent the past two seasons at Lehigh. He played 29 games last season and scored in double figures 12 times, including 21 points against Georgetown and a season-high 25 against Loyola.
- Senior guard Ed Holland (6-6, 210) who spent the past four seasons at Penn. He did not play last season, but played in 22 games in 2023-24 and started eight. He scored in double figures four times that season.
- Freshman forward Stefan Isailovich (6-8) coming from Serbia.
- Freshman guard Jeremiah Johnson (6-3) from Potomac, Maryland.
- Freshman forward Julian Johnson (6-9) from Charlotte, North Carolina.
- Freshman center Danas Kazakevicius (6-10) from Lithinia (I think that’s supposed to be Lithuania because I can’t find a Lithinia anywhere. But that’s what Howard has listed on its website so I’m running with it).
- Freshman guard BJ Powell from Charlotte, North Carolina.
- Freshman guard River Smith from Englewood, New Jersey.
- Junior guard Cedric Taylor (6-7, 210) who played the past two seasons at Morehouse College. He was All-Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference Freshman of the Year in 2023-24 and All-SIAC First Team last year.
Last season when Howard came to Columbia for the Tigers’ home opener, Mizzou earned a 77-62 win. The early-season issues with the second half were still happening as a bit of a hangover from the 2023-24 season.
Harris had 11 points and four rebounds in that game, but also had four turnovers. Okojie had six points.
Robins had two points.
Last year’s matchup was the only time Mizzou and Howard have matched up on the basketball court.
This year’s team will look pretty different, but it should be a good bit simpler of a game than last year’s season opener at Memphis.
Game 2: Hosting Southeast Missouri on Nov. 7
After their trip to the nation’s capital, the Tigers return home to match up with Southeast Missouri.
Last season, the Redhawks went 21-12 with a 15-5 record in Ohio Valley Conference play.
They only played one Power-4 game last season, an 85-76 loss at Vanderbilt for the second game of the season.
But the season didn’t end the way SEMO fans were hoping as they got blitzed by SIU-Edwardsville 69-48 in the OVC Conference Tournament Championship game, ending the season.
As a team, the Redhawks shot 45.6 percent from the field, 33.3 percent from 3 and 72.2 percent from the free-throw line. SEMO won 11 consecutive games last season from Jan. 25 through Feb. 27 as the Redhawks sprinted through conference play.
There are a few more returners on SEMO’s roster this year than Howard’s.
- Third-leading scorer Brendan Terry (6-7, 220) returns after averaging 11.2 points and 4.5 rebounds per game last season. Terry is a senior forward who started all 33 games last season and led the team with 24 blocks.
- Senior guard Braxton Stacker (6-5, 205) was one of the team’s primary bench options, playing in 27 games and starting one. He led the team with a 3-point percentage of 41.2, though he shot only 85 3s, which was fourth on the team. He averaged 8.9 points and 3.1 rebounds per game.
- Junior guard BJ Ward (6-0, 195) is back after starting 32 games and appearing in all 33 last season. He hit the second-most 3-pointers on the team last season with 51 and averaged 8.4 points and 2.4 rebounds per game.
- Senior guard Troy Cole Jr. (6-4, 200) started 19 games and played all 33 last season, averaging 5.8 points and 3.0 rebounds per game.
- Junior guard Marqueas Bell (6-3, 185) is back after appearing in 19 games last year, all off the bench. He averaged 3.4 points and 2.2 rebounds per game.
- Senior forward Elliot Lowndes (7-0, 200) appeared in 33 games and started 14. He averaged 2.3 points and 2.7 rebounds per game.
- Senior center David Idada (7-0, 270) is back as well. He appeared in all 33 games off the bench last season and shot 71.8 percent from the field, though he took just 39 shots overall. He was 12-of-35 (34.3 percent) from the free-throw line. In total, he averaged 2.1 points and 2.7 rebounds per game.
- Senior forward Saxton Hoepker (6-8, 215) returns as well after appearing in 13 games off the bench and averaging 0.5 points and 1.1 rebounds per game.
That’s a lot of size that has returned, but sadly Damarion Walkup isn’t back. Hopefully he’s off the play baseball where he gets a song named after him.
That leaves six newcomers on the roster this season.
- Freshman guard PJ Farmer (6-2, 180) from Charleston, Mo.
- Freshman forward Trace Sadler (7-1, 220) from Sikeston, Mo.
- Sophomore guard Landren Blocker (6-5, 210) who played last season at Louisiana Tech. He played in 13 games and sadly only compiled three blocks. He shot 6-of-9 for the season to score 15 total points, while bringing down 13 total rebounds.
- Graduate guard Blaize Sagna (6-3, 190) is at his fourth stop. He started his career at Howard College, then spent two seasons at Minnesota Crookston before playing at Stetson last season. Last year, he averaged 2.4 points and 2.04 rebounds per game. Another name not lived up to as he wasn’t blazing the nets.
- Junior guard Luke Almodovar (6-3, 190) joins the team from Saint Francis University in Indiana. He averaged 20 points per game as one of the leading shooters at the NAIA level. He hit 67 3-pointers and shot 49.7 percent from the field.
- Redshirt freshman guard Jay Reynolds (6-3, 195) is returning, but did not play last season.
OK, I got to have my fun with the names. But more as a fun note, there are five players on the roster from Missouri, another three from Illinois and one from Arkansas.
Just a lot of fun kind of local kids on roster.
As is the point of putting SEMO on the roster, it should be a simple game for the Tigers. Mizzou is 9-0 all-time against SEMO, but the recent matchups have been close. In 2022, Mizzou won 96-89, and in 2014 the Tigers won 65-61.
The closest was a 1997 matchup with Mizzou winning 65-64.
But I have the Tigers extending to a 10-game winning streak in the series.
Conclusion
I wasn’t planning on doing these as predictions, but why not?
I have the Tigers at 2-0 to start the season.
Click here to discuss this look through the schedule in our story thread.
