Missouri’s losing streak is now one NFL regular season long.

No. 13 Auburn defeated Mizzou men’s basketball 101-74 on Tuesday evening at Mizzou Arena in MU’s last game on its home court of the season.

The MU fans haven’t seen a win in Mizzou Arena since Dec. 30 against Central Arkansas. Indeed, they haven’t seen a win, carte blanche, since Dec. 30 against Central Arkansas.

Mizzou (8-22, 0-17 SEC) is now on a 17-game losing streak, extending the longest winless run in program history. Dennis Gates’ team only has one opportunity — Saturday on the road at LSU — to avoid the team’s first winless conference season since 1908.

Here are three takeaways from Missouri’s penultimate game of the regular season.

Auburn pulls away in second half

Missouri’s good work came undone early in the second half, as Auburn’s star cast came to play.

Jaylin Williams and Johni Broome missed just one shot from the field between them between the beginning of the half and the 11-minute-to-go mark, combining for 15 points on 7-of-8 shooting to put Missouri in a 16-point and unassailable hole.

The visitors’ 3-point woes from the first half — Bruce Pearl’s team were 2-of-14 — disappeared, as they connected on 5-of-8 in the second period.

Auburn (23-7, 12-5) was 37.5% from the field in the first half. In the second period, it made nine of its opening 12 shots and shot 75% across the half

AU relied on getting into the paint through Broome and Williams for much of the second half, and that’s where it saw most of its offensive success. Williams finished with 17 points, and Broome had 15.

Auburn outscored Missouri in the paint 48-20, and outrebounded Gates’ team 41-28.

MU competitive for one half, fades

Tamar Bates and Sean East II have been the offensive sparkplugs for Missouri all season long. The problem is, they’re usually fending for themselves. On Tuesday, they got a little bit of help — and that helped Missouri stick around.

For one half.

Bates still led the way, scoring 12 first-half points to lead all scorers. East was still excellent offensively, adding nine. But as MU stayed alive in a game it was predicted to struggle, the supporting cast chipped in 18 to trail Auburn by just five, 44-39, at the half.

Indeed, Missouri did quite a lot of the things it has struggled with extremely well.

A consistent gripe from Gates has been MU’s inability to get to the line. On Tuesday, it had 16 first-half free throw attempts — more than it shot in 10 full games this season — and made 15.

Missouri had shot better than 40% from 3-point range in just four of its 29 games this season. At the half against Auburn, MU was 4-of-8.

But all that faded in the second period. MU made just one of its next six from deep and by game's end was just 33.9% from the field.

Hopping mad

Gates didn’t get called for a technical foul in his first 61 games as Missouri’s coach.

Now, it seems, he's had two in the past three games.

After what the Missouri bench appeared to protest what it contested was a shot-clock violation on Broome, Gates received a technical for his reaction. The stadium announcer said the technical was called on the Missouri bench, but it appears to have gone in the coach’s direction.

Mere minutes later, after play continued after Auburn guard Aden Holloway appeared to step out of bounds trying to save an errant ball, Gates was jumping up and down on the sideline while petitioning with an official.

A 17-game losing streak can do that.

This article originally appeared on Columbia Daily Tribune: Mizzou basketball loses 17th straight game, hammered at home by No. 13 Auburn