The Missouri Tigers (8-0) and Notre Dame Fighting Irish (5-3) are set to face off Tuesday night, going head-to-head in South Bend, Indiana. That leg of the ACC-SEC Challenge will tip off at 9 p.m. ET on ESPNU.
The Irish are 1.5-point favorites at home with -120 moneyline odds, and the total has been set at 146.5 points. Here is a preview of the nonconference matchup featuring odds and lines from DraftKings Sportsbook.
Missouri at Notre Dame Preview
Missouri Preview
Following a 21-point road win over Howard in their season-opener, the Tigers got plenty comfortable at home for the remainder of November. Missouri has played seven straight games at Mizzou Arena, starting with its tight 89-84 win over Southeast Missouri State. Since then, the Tigers’ average margin of victory stands at 28.7 points, never dipping below 18. However, Missouri’s only high-major opponent so far has been 4-4 Minnesota, who it beat 83-60.
Forward Mark Mitchell, fresh off an All-SEC Third Team appearance in his first season after transferring from Duke, leads Missouri with 17.1 points and 3.5 assists per game, plus 6.3 rebounds. Guard Jayden Stone will miss at least two more weeks with a hand injury, dinging the Tigers’ scoring depth a bit. Despite not logging a single start through six games, Stone ranks second on the Tigers with 13.3 points per game and leads the SEC with an 86.4% shooting percentage on two-pointers. Former North Florida and Tennessee-Martin transfer Jacob Crews has also been a force off the bench with 13.1 points and 5.6 rebounds per game on .538/.488/.833 shooting splits.
As for Missouri’s starting backcourt, junior Anthony Robinson II and UCLA transfer Sebastian Mack are both averaging 10.6 points per game. Former LSU and Arizona State seven-footer Shawn Phillips Jr. is averaging 9.7 points and a team-high 7.2 rebounds per game on 71.4% shooting from the field. As a team, the Tigers rank No. 1 nationally with a 55.5% field-goal percentage.
Missouri ranks No. 29 in the latest KenPom ratings. But while the Tigers boast the No. 19 adjusted offensive rating in the country, they rank No. 73 in adjusted defensive efficiency. Their strength of schedule is also the second-easiest in the entire country.
Notre Dame Preview
The Fighting Irish rattled off a trio of comfortable wins to start the season, beating Long Island, Detroit Mercy and Eastern Illinois by 22, 32 and 20 points, respectively. In their first big test of the season, Notre Dame lost 64-63 at Ohio State. After sneaking by with a seven-point victory over Bellarmine, the Irish went 1-2 at the Players Era Festival in Las Vegas. Notre Dame lost 71-61 to Kansas, beat Rutgers 68-63 and lost 66-56 to then-No. 3 Houston.
Junior guard Markus Burton is the lifeblood of the Irish offense, scoring 20.1 points per game. Burton has a pretty high floor, too, thanks to his 90.9% free-throw percentage on 5.5 attempts per game. Still, Burton has a negative assist-to-turnover ratio with 2.8 dimes and 3.0 giveaways a night. Jalen Haralson is Notre Dame’s next most prolific scorer at 13.1 points per game. The freshman scored just four points in his collegiate debut, only to average 14.7 ever since. Braeden Shrewsberry, son of coach Micah Shrewsberry, is the team’s leading three-point shooter, nailing 46.7% of his 5.6 attempts per game. Northern Arizona transfer Carson Towt, meanwhile, leads the entire ACC with 10.4 rebounds per game despite standing at just 6-foot-7.
Notre Dame doesn’t rank inside the top-115 in any of the traditional per game stats. It is among the 40-worst teams in the country when it comes to blocking shots, racking up steals or dealing out assists. In short, the Irish don’t get out in transition very often, and their offense is relatively iso-heavy.
According to the latest KenPom ratings, Notre Dame ranks No. 72 in adjusted efficiency margin. It ranks No. 80 on offense, No. 66 on defense and No. 319 in tempo.
Missouri at Notre Dame Pick, Best Bet
Notre Dame lost by 10 to both Houston and a shorthanded Kansas squad in neutral-site contests just last week. Missouri is only 10 spots lower than Kansas in the KenPom rankings. The Tigers have an offense-first profile compared to the Jayhawks’ defense-first profile, though, so making direct comparisons is far from an exact science. Just know that the Irish’s lone win over a high-major opponent came by five points against Rutgers, which is ranked No. 120 by KenPom. That is five spots lower than Minnesota, who Missouri beat by 23.
Looking back to last year, Micah Shrewsberry’s team went 8-5 in its final 13 home games, even falling to Elon in a nonconference game at Purcell Pavilion. The previous season, the Irish went 8-8 in their last 16 home games, losing to Western Carolina by 10 and Citadel by 20 in South Bend. This Notre Dame team is different than the ones that lost those games, but the program is not immune to brutal losses on its home court.
Missouri is far better than those low-major opponents, too, as it hasn’t lost a game since March Madness. Look for the Tigers to stay hot and add another tally to the win column in their first high-major road game of the season.
