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On the postgame show Thursday after the 67-57 loss to Drake, the famed basketball analyst promptly pointed out that Dennis Gates’ Tigers went winless in Southeastern Conference play the previous season.

“One of the great coaching jobs,” Barkley said of Gates’ leadership of the 2024-25 Tigers, “but it’s going to get overlooked because they got beat by a really good Drake team.”

No, no. It’s been properly “looked” all season long. From sportswriters to fans, Mizzou has been appropriately praised. Heck, Eli Hoff of the Post-Dispatch wrote a detailed piece that same Thursday about what Gates did to make Mizzou earn a No. 6 seed in the NCAA Tournament. There can be two truths. Gates can be simultaneously commended for what he accomplished from November to February and criticized for what happened in March. Because the nationally ranked Missouri Tigers finished 2-6 in the final eight games.

And alas, the denouement was nothing new — a Mizzou team underachieving in the NCAA Tournament, a tradition as old as homecoming.

Gates’ team was outcoached Thursday. The No. 11-seeded Bulldogs are, indeed, really good. They won the Missouri Valley Conference Tournament and successfully slow down games and wear down defenses. But Gates couldn’t find a way to have his team adjust and counter. Gates was unable to successfully deploy Mark Mitchell — a McDonald’s All-American and his team’s leading scorer — against these undersized guys from a smaller conference. And Gates took a risk by starting the SEC’s Sixth Man of the Year, Caleb Grill, and Mizzou proceeded to look like a Kim Anderson Tigers team in the first half.

Again, two things can be true. I like Gates a lot and am impressed by his cultivated culture and regular-season success … but his teams have now collapsed twice in the NCAA Tournament, previously as a No. 7 seed to No. 15 Princeton in the 2023 second round (78-63 final score).

Then Drake got ’em by 10 on Thursday.

Much of Mizzou’s play was just tough to watch. Tony Perkins, a veteran of power-conference college basketball, looked at times tentative and other times just terrible. One instance, he just dribbled and dribbled (and dribbled) for a whole possession, before losing the basketball. He finished with four turnovers and at minus-nine in just 14 minutes played.

Meanwhile, Tamar Bates was invisible in the first half — though the senior was an imperative part of the second-half comeback, as the Tigers cut it to 52-51 with 4:38 left … before imploding again.

In both halves, Mizzou’s offense looked unconfident. There were times Mitchell couldn’t even properly set a high pick for the ball-handler — and he personally only got going in stints.

And Grill? While he led the Tigers in scoring (14), it took him too many shots to get to that number (4 for 10 from the field, 1 for 7 from 3, so, yeah, not ideal).

Look, Mizzou was flawed down the stretch this season. After the February 19 win against No. 4 Alabama, 110-98, the Tigers defense disintegrated. I covered the final regular-season game against Kentucky at home and wrote: “The Mizzou Tigers are trending in a pretty disturbing direction at the absolute worst time.”

No, I didn’t think this was going to be Mizzou’s first-ever Final Four team — but I thought they could at least knock off Drake.

Here’s thinking Gates will keep winning in the regular season, like he has in two of his three seasons in Columbia. But the coach has to change this postseason narrative soon. Because Mizzou fans forever fantasize about someday winning in the first week of April, yet Gates can’t seem to navigate March.