For the last 2 years Mizzou has beaten kU in football. The next few months saw the Tigers fall to the Beakers in basketball.
Well, Mizzou did not beat kU in football. So by some math property which I don’t know the name of, Mizzou will beat Kansas in basketball at least once.
It’s science. (I think.)
-Ken Boehlke
Filed under: Analysis | Tags: AP Poll, Big 12, California, Coaches Poll, Georgia, Illinois, kU, NCAA Tournament, NIT, Oral Roberts, Stetson, USC, UT-Chattanooga
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
Filed under: Analysis | Tags: Fairfield, O’Reilly Auto Parts Puerto Rico Tip -Off, USC, Virginia Tech, Xavier
If there was only one word I could use to describe the first 2 games of this tournament that word would be frustration. I understand the game against Fairfield ended up being a success, but the first 9 minutes were incredibly painful, and then what was worse was having to watch Xavier play Virginia Tech 30 minutes later.
Nothing is worse than watching a game you feel you should be in. And I couldn’t stop thinking about missed free throw after missed free throw after missed free throw as I watched Xavier/VT. Xavier ended up beating VT in overtime on a half court shot as time expired. Which led me to realize if Mizzou didn’t miss 24 free throws and 8 critical ones down the stretch, that it would have been us hitting that last second shot. We would be going to the final.
But I hope this team learns from that. This team needs to learn how to win, and I think the best way to learn how to win, if to learn and gain experience from your failures. See your shortcoming, and fix them. Also you have to sit through games you feel you should be in, and experience the pain. Because if you know what it feels like, you will do anything you can to make sure it doesn’t happen again.
So hopefully the Tigers feel the pain and can step up and beat a very good USC team tomorrow afternoon. If Mizzou walks away from PR with a ranked win and a loss against a good team, it will be a successful trip.
If not, I’m sure I’ll be writing something trying to find some sort of silver lining out of this trip.
-Ken Boehlke
During the first 2 games and the few exhibition games I’ve seen an unappealing trend. It’s what I call “The Light Switch.” There seem to be times in each game where they just flip the switch on and start playing really well. On the same note they can turn it off just as easily. I understand that basketball is a game of runs, but with Mizzou it seems so abrupt. In a flash this team goes from good to bad, or bad to good.
In the first 2 regular season games the light switch was flipped on right at the end of the half and in both games it stayed on until the “good” (the guys that play all the time) players came out of the game.
We seem to forget to flip it on at the beginning of games. We are not going to be able to fall behind good teams like we have to begin the game. This team has to come out with fire and put some points on the board early in order to get the rhythm going (and keep from turning the switch off).
Also, good teams play well all the time. They may go into shooting funks or have problems scoring at some points in a game, but it doesn’t last long, and the defense never suffers. With Mizzou, when that switch is off, both ends struggle. This must be fixed if we want to be successful this weekend.
In conclusion, there are two options:
A) Turn it on, and keep it on for most of the game.
B) When we feel like we start to struggle and it may be in the process of being turned off, pick up the intensity, and bear down on D.
We do that, this team will be able to hang with some good teams.
-Ken Boehlke
Filed under: Analysis | Tags: DeMarre Carroll, J.T. Tiller, Justin Safford, Keith Ramsey, Laurence Bowers, Marcus Denmon, Mike Anderson, UAB, Zaire Taylor
Now I understand all we have seen from this team is a scrimmage and two exhibition games, but I still have yet to see any of the promises that Mike Anderson claimed when he was hired.
I will not claim that I watched every UAB game under Anderson, but I do remember games he coached in the tournament. UAB was not the most talented team in the tourney and rarely even the more talented team in any particular game. But never were they out of a game because they could always rattle off 10 points before the other team got the ball across the mid-court stripe. And that style is what got Mike Anderson hired here at Mizzou.
So I ask, is it too much to ask for to actually run the style of defense Anderson told us we would see? A few times a game the press is run as full speed. Traps, deflections, diving players. Exciting basketball. Apparently for Coach Anderson it must be too much to handle for these players.
Finally Anderson has a full roster of “his” players. Yet still the Tigers truly press less than half of the possessions, and we have no explanations as to why not. It can’t be that there aren’t good enough athletes (Carroll, Tiller, Safford, Taylor, Denmon, Bowers, Ramsey). It can’t be youth because the Tigers were one of the oldest team in D1 last year and we didn’t see it. And it can’t be because the Big 12 can handle the pressure because the Tigers aren’t doing it against each other in scrimmages or against the D2 teams Mizzou has been playing.
So here’s to hoping it changes, or we may be in for 40 minutes of hell ourselves.
-Ken Boehlke
