Columbia News

The University of Missouri women's basketball team will face Mississippi State in the opening round of the 2025 Southeastern Conference Tournament. The game is scheduled for Wednesday at 5 p.m. CT in Greenville, South Carolina, and will be broadcast on SEC Network.

Missouri enters the tournament as the No. 15 seed after finishing the regular season with a 14-17 record overall and a 3-13 mark in conference play. The team ended its regular season with a loss to Vanderbilt.

Senior point guard De'Myla Brown led Missouri in the final game with 16 points, three rebounds, and three assists. Senior forward Laniah Randle also reached double figures in scoring and contributed three rebounds and two assists. Randle has scored at least 10 points in each of her last five games.

Sophomore guard Grace Slaughter leads the Tigers this season with an average of 15.2 points per game, increasing to 16.2 points per game during conference matchups. On Tuesday, Slaughter was named SEC Scholar-Athlete of the Year. She is currently fifth nationally in three-point shooting percentage (46.6%) among players averaging at least 1.5 made threes per game.

Randle (50.2%) and Slaughter (49.1%) are ranked eighth and ninth respectively in field goal percentage within the SEC, while Slaughter also holds fourth place in free throw percentage at 86.5%. Sophomore guard Abbey Schreacke ranks seventh in the conference for three-point percentage at 38.1%.

As a team, Missouri is second in the SEC and tenth nationally for three-point shooting accuracy at 37 percent. Redshirt sophomore guard Averi Kroenke is seventh in the league with a 2.24 assist-to-turnover ratio.

Junior guard Ashton Judd is approaching a career milestone and needs five more points to reach her 1,000th career point entering Wednesday's matchup.

Missouri head coach Robin Pingeton achieved her 250th win with the program on February 27 against Arkansas and was recognized during a pregame ceremony on Sunday. Pingeton announced on February 26 that she will step away from her role at the end of this season.

Mississippi State comes into the tournament as the No. 10 seed after compiling a regular season record of 20-10 overall and a conference record of 7-9. Graduate guard Jerkaila Jordan leads their roster with averages of 16 points and nearly six rebounds per game. Sam Purcell serves as head coach for Mississippi State in his third year.

This meeting marks the seventeenth time Missouri and Mississippi State have played each other, with Mississippi State leading the series eleven games to six. In their previous encounter this season on January 27, Grace Slaughter scored a career-high thirty-one points to help Missouri secure a one-point victory at the buzzer.

"On Feb. 27 against Arkansas Missouri head coach Robin Pingeton earned win No. 250 with the Tigers. Pingeton was honored during a pregame ceremony on Sunday."

"On Feb. 26, Pingeton announced she would be stepping away from the program at the conclusion of the season."