COLUMBIA, Mo. – Mizzou Basketball is back in March Madness. Head coach Cuonzo Martin’s Tigers hosted a watch party at Mizzou Arena on Sunday evening and an excited group of Black & Gold supporters cheered as Mizzou was announced as the No. 8 seed in the West Region of the 2018 NCAA Tournament.
No. 8 Mizzou (20-12) takes on No. 9 Florida State (20-11 – 8th-place in the ACC) on Friday, March 16, in Nashville, Tennessee. Tipoff for the Tigers’ first NCAA Tournament appearance since 2013 will be at approximately 8:45 p.m. CT on TBS.
Martin has now led three different programs to NCAA Tournament appearances, becoming the 59th different head coach to do so after his prior trips with Tennessee (NCAA Sweet 16, 2013-14) and California (NCAA First Round, 2015-16).
Mizzou’s selection to this season’s Big Dance is the 27th in program history. Martin is the third first-year Mizzou head coach all-time to lead the Tigers to an NCAA Tournament appearance, with Quin Snyder and Frank Haith accomplishing the feat in 2000 and 2012, respectively.
The Tigers are the No. 8 seed for the third time in program history, last playing as the eighth-seeded team during the 1999 NCAA Tournament, when Mizzou dropped a 61-59 heartbreaker to ninth-seeded New Mexico in Denver, Colorado, in what ultimately proved to be the final game ever coached by Mizzou Hall of Fame Coach Norm Stewart. Mizzou is 1-2 overall playing as the No. 8 seed, with all three outings as part of the West Regional.
Mizzou’s placement in the West Regional marks the third time in its last four (and ninth in its last 14) NCAA Tournament appearances that the Tigers have been shipped West from a bracketology standpoint. The Tigers’ matchup with Florida State will mark the first meeting between the programs since Dec. 19, 1980, when the Seminoles claimed a 68-64 win in Atlanta, Georgia, as part of the Cotton States Classic. Florida State holds a 2-1 edge in the overall series history.
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