Mizzou Tiger Hoops

Yeah I’m talking about the real tournament. Here’s how I see it. Mizzou is currently sitting at 4-1. They have 1 win that I place in the “resume builder” category (that’d be USC, not UT-Chattanooga). They are currently receiving votes in the AP poll and I’m sure they are getting close in the Coaches Poll. So let’s break down the rest of the non-conference season.

Mizzou has 10 non-conference games remaining.

8 of them are at home, all but 1 of the home games are against non-power conference teams. So that’s 7 games against mid-major (at best) teams. The toughest of those 7 is probably Oral Roberts (sorry Stetson), so I expect Mizzou to win all 7 of these games. If they lose 1 of those 7 I will probably be deleting this post and crying myself to sleep for a week or so. Mizzou wins all 7, they have 11 wins (I’m just keeping a running total)

That leaves 3 other non-conference games. 1 at home (Cal), 1 away (Georgia), 1 in St. Louis (Illinois). The way I see it Mizzou wins 2 of the 3. Worst case they win 1. My guess is that it will be Cal and Georgia are the wins and Illinois is the loss. I think this is Mizzou’s best chance to beat Illinois, but I feel like if the Tigers knock off the mascot-less wonders they will probably fail against Cal or Georgia. So let’s just be safe and say somehow, someway Mizzou will win 2 of the 3. That brings the running count to 13 wins.

I’m not going to go into Big 12 play, but I’d say it’s safe to say Mizzou should win 7 to 8 games in the Big 12 (maybe more, wouldn’t that be great). Running total with 7 to 8 wins is 20-21 wins.

Tack on 1 more in the Big 12 tournament (Mizzou probably goes in as a 5/6/7 seed and play a 10/11/12 seed in the tourney). I would have to think that Mizzou could win a game against one of the bottom 3 teams in the Big 12. That brings the running total to 21-22.

The resume would have wins against USC, Cal, Georgia, Illinois (Maybe), and then some wins in the Big 12 (hopefully kU is one of those). Not a bad resume.

Usually 20 wins is enough for a major conference team. 21 to 22 wins in a somewhat weak Big 12, should put Mizzou at number 5 or 6 as far as resume’s in the conference. I don’t have the stats on this, but I don’t think there have been too many times where a power conference gets only 4 teams in and one with 20+ wins is left out.

So under that logic, we should experience post-season basketball for the first time since 2002. And heck if it’s not the real tournament we almost have to make the NIT.

-Ken Boehlke