Saint Louis vs Missouri
Friday, November 6, 2026
7:00 PM ET, Enterprise Center
Missouri is a 2.5-point favorite with a total of 161.5. My play is Saint Louis +2.5.
Twenty-five years. That’s how long the Show Me Showdown sat on ice. Friday it thaws at Enterprise Center — a “neutral” floor that happens to sit about four miles from Chaifetz Arena — and the Billikens just got their best player back from a courtroom, not a trainer’s table.
Milk Chamberlain has entered the chat
Robbie Avila, the reigning Atlantic 10 Player of the Year, won a preliminary injunction Thursday afternoon. Josh Schertz said if the judge cleared him, he’d play. The judge cleared him. So the 6-foot-10 stretch big who averaged 12.8 points and 4.1 assists and knocked down 41 percent of his threes last year is suiting up for the first time in 2026-27 against an in-state rival that hasn’t seen this roster coming.
Saint Louis already looked like itself without him. Monday’s 92-67 opener over Lehigh was a 60-percent shooting clinic with 50 points in the paint. Kellen Thames went a perfect 6-for-6 for 15. Quentin Jones matched him. Trey Green, Amari McCottry, and the rest of a returning core that won 29 games and punched Georgia in the mouth in the NCAA Tournament filled up the box score. Now you drop Avila into that five. CBS called the upgraded Billikens a top-25 look and the firm A-10 favorite. The betting market still has Missouri laying a deuce and a half. That is the soft number.
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Columbia noise, St. Louis night
Give Dennis Gates his flowers for Tuesday. Missouri’s 111-50 demolition of Cleveland State was the largest opening-day win in program history. Freshman Jason Crowe Jr. dropped 23 with four threes. Kennard Davis Jr. added 19. Toni Bryant swatted five. Mark Mitchell nearly messed around a triple-double. The Tigers are big, skilled, and receiving votes for a reason — KenPom has them 19th with an adjusted offense inside the top 10.
None of that tape was filmed in downtown St. Louis. Gates is 1-4 at Enterprise Center since he took the job, and the Tigers have lost their last four trips to this building. Saint Louis owns the crowd even when the box score calls it neutral. And the efficiency gap that looks like a five- or six-point Missouri edge on KenPom was calculated while Avila was still arguing with the NCAA. Add him back and that gap shrinks into the noise of a rivalry game.
What could bite me. Avila has played zero minutes this season. If he’s on a short leash after the legal scramble, Missouri’s length wins the paint and Crowe goes nuclear again. The Tigers also take care of the ball like few teams in the country — four turnovers against Cleveland State — and Schertz’s groups live in transition. A sticky night for the Billikens’ guards and 2.5 points evaporates. Early November is still mostly preseason priors talking; SEC depth can simply be better for 40 minutes.
I’ll take those risks. First meeting in a quarter century, best Billiken on the floor, and a number that never flinched when the injunction dropped. Give me the home-adjacent underdog.
Projected score: Missouri 84, Saint Louis 82
The Pick: Saint Louis +2.5
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