Are we living in the salad days of Mizzou sports?

When it comes to the combined success of football and men’s basketball, there’s a legit argument to be made that we just may be, indeed.

Don’t mistake me here, I’m not arguing that either this year’s football team or hoops teams are the best ever produced at Mizzou. I’m just asking the question – for the same school year, has there been a better combined season?

Of course you can’t answer the question until the basketball season wraps. But in going through the record books, dating back to 1970 (the 1970-71 school year), there’s only been TWO TIMES when a Mizzou football and men’s basketball team both ended their season ranked in the final Associated Press Top-25 ranking in the same school year!

We all know that football closed the 2024 season strong and ended ranked at No. 22 (which I thought was 2-3 spots too low, but that’s a topic for another day). While the hoops season still has some intrigue remaining, our Tigers have positioned themselves quite nicely to finish in the rankings when the dust settles (do we dare hope for our first-ever Final Four?).

Assuming Dennis Gates’ squad continues the momentum and ends in the rankings, that will mark only the third time since 1970 that both Mizzou’s football and men’s hoops teams were ranked in the same school year.

The only other times that feat has occurred?

• 1981-82 – Football 19th / Men’s Basketball 5th…
• 2008-09 – Football 19th / Men’s Basketball 9th…
• 2024-25 – Football 22nd / Men’s Basketball TBD (currently 14th)…

That’s it. In the past 55 seasons, just two times. That’s crazy to me, because both sides have had a lot of high-quality teams that have finished seasons ranked. For it to hardly ever happen in the same school year, that’s got to be a statistical anomaly, right?

Overall, in those 55 years, football finished the season ranked 21.8% of the time (12 seasons), while hoops finished ranked 27.8% of its opportunities (15 times out of 54, with 2024-25 TBD). So it’s not as though there was a disproportionate amount of opportunities, they’ve just for some reason rarely synched up in the same year.

Naturally, both teams have had good years where they just didn’t finish ranked in the season-ending AP poll, so this isn’t intended to cast a pall over the history of either program.

In fact, of the 55 years in question, both teams have found themselves ranked at some point during the season more than half of the time. Football was ranked at some point in those 55 seasons 28 times, or 51.0%. Similarly, hoops has been ranked for at least one week in 31 of those seasons, for a hit rate of 56.4%.

Here are the years where at least one team finished the year ranked…

Mizzou in final AP rankings

The longest stretch since 1970 that Mizzou fans have had to suffer through where neither team finished a season ranked spanned from 2015-16 to 2021-22. That was a long seven-year drought for Tiger fans, and is likely a reason why the past three years has been so refreshing and we’ve seen donations increase as people here have been starved for a winner!

Research by my crack staff (i.e. – me) also shows that Mizzou is one of seven schools that finished ranked in the final AP top 25 in football, and who currently have their men’s hoops team ranked in the same poll (as of Feb. 24).

We’ll see where this ends up after the hoops season is completed, but as of the latest set of Associated Press Top-25 rankings, three of them reside in the SEC.

The schools who had their football team in the season-ending AP poll, who also have a men’s hoops team in the current AP rankings include: