COLUMBIA, Mo. — Eight wins. Eight losses. Missouri women’s basketball coach Robin Pingeton is hoping for magic, and that, according to her, might be the magic record.

“I don’t have a crystal ball,” Pingeton said, “but I do think that, I mean, my guess would be if you can get to 8-8 in SEC play, I don’t remember a team not going to the (NCAA) Tournament.”

The margin for error was already trim and rapidly slimming when the coach made the comment prior to the Tigers’ road game against Arkansas on Sunday. And after one almighty fleecing at the hands of their southern rivals, all leeway was lost.

After winning its first three games to open Southeastern Conference play, Missouri is now 15-10 and 4-8 in the league, has fallen to No. 59 in the women’s NET rankings and has dropped out of every NCAA bracket projection, including a “first four out” designation in the NCAA’s first top-16 reveal Feb. 10. Barring a miraculous turnaround, MU looks set to miss the NCAA Tournament for the fourth straight year.

The Tigers, following a grim run of six straight losses, convincingly defeated a middling Vanderbilt team Feb. 2 at Mizzou Arena and looked for a moment like they may have found the cure — the “magic in a bottle,” as Pingeton has called it — to stop the coursing poison. But it didn’t turn out to be much of an antidote.

Missouri backslid when Alabama won a seven-point contest Feb. 5 on Norm Stewart Court.

Then … disaster.

Arkansas held Missouri to fewer than seven points in each of the opening three quarters during a 61-33 trouncing — the eighth time the tumbling Tigers have experienced that result in the past nine games and the seventh time they had been held to 56 points or fewer in that span.

Missouri now needs to close out its remaining four games without another slip up to reach .500 in SEC action.

First up: Mississippi State at 7 p.m. Thursday at Mizzou Arena for a matchup with the 35th-ranked team in the NET, a game that will air on SEC Network+. Then it’s Texas A&M (No. 111) and Mississippi (No. 29) on the road, before the regular-season finale against Florida (No. 92).

And it’s win ’em all or bust. Perhaps in more ways than one, too.

“You’ve got to fight those battles and that inner-voice inside when things aren’t going well and you’re starting to get punched again,” Pingeton said Sunday. “You’ve got to fight that voice in the head that says, ‘Here we go again’ and find a way to beat down the brick wall, and we haven’t found the magic to do that yet.”

Pingeton, who is in her 13th season as Missouri’s coach, has fallen short of the Big Dance every season MU all-time leading scorer Sophie Cunningham has not been on her roster. If the Tigers miss the tournament for a fourth straight year, it would match the same number of consecutive absences that led Cindy Stein, Pingeton’s predecessor, to resign at the conclusion of her 12th season. The Tigers are 21-37 in SEC play the last four seasons after going 32-16 the three previous years.

In the meantime, Pingeton is focused far more on the immediate future.

Not just on one game, she said. One turnaround, jump-start quarter would do — such has been the nature of the deflating past few weeks.

“You look at Kentucky women’s basketball last year, and they lost I think maybe seven in a row,” Pingeton said, referring to the eventual SEC tournament winners who lost eight of 10 to start conference play last season. … “They went on a great run, and they just kind of found that magic in a bottle and had a great run. And so it happens. That’s the beauty of sports. You know, the opportunity is there. The path is there.”

But that path has some pretty major potholes to navigate.

The Tigers rank 175th in the nation in points per game with 65.3. They’re tied for 116th in scoring defense. They turn the ball over 16.0 times per contest, tied for 188th in the nation, while forcing 15.24 per outing, which is 224th.

Pingeton has repeatedly called for her team to be better ball-handlers. She said there’s been a lack of focus, attention to detail and that the team’s confidence — despite starting the year 11-2 — is in the gutter.

“You never know when you’re gonna have that breakthrough, but what you don’t want to do is surrender,” Pingeton said. “You want to stay in the fight, you want to keep battling, and we’re hoping to knock down that brick wall and have a great rest of SEC play.”

All projections would suggest Missouri is looking at a WNIT invite. What that means for MU athletics director Desireé Reed-Francois, who in less than two years has made head-coaching changes in men’s basketball, women’s volleyball and women’s golf, is unclear but makes for dicey footing for the head coach. Pingeton has two years left on her contract.

For now?

One game — maybe one quarter — at a time.

“I think you’ve got to stay true to the process. You’ve got to keep showing up, you’ve got to keep doing your work, you’ve got to keep watching film and you’ve got to stay true to it,” Pingeton said. “And I think there’s an opportunity to break down those barriers. But the last thing you want to do is surrender too soon, because you just never know what’s on the other side.”