Thoughts: Black and Gold Game

Ed. Note from The Boy: Promoted to the Front Page.

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Since those of you that know me know that I'm a regular attendee at basketball games, I've decided to post my thoughts and impressions post-game. And even though the intra-squad scrimmage isn't exactly that great of a barometer for how much the team has progressed since last year, I was still able to see that they've come a long way from the debacle of the Athena 5.

• Marcus Denmon? He's for real. He got 36 points, was an excellent dribble-drive threat, and also has a nice shot from outside. Defensively he still seemed a bit raw, but that's what these early games are for.
• Zaire Taylor easily had the best moment of the night, dunking over JT Tiller off a rebound. I can now see why he came to Mizzou from Delaware, as he's almost exactly the type of player CMA loves: smaller than normal, fast and with an excellent vertical.
• The other freshmen looked nice as well, with Kim English standing out most.
• Safford's improved his inside game a lot over the summer, and those rumors that he grew looked true to me. Look for him to surprise this year.
• The team's got a fairly good home schedule this year, hosting California as part of the Big 12-Pac 10 Series, and in conference hosting both the conference favorite (Oklahoma) and the team most have pegged to be a breakout threat (Baylor). I'm interested to see what the road game at Georgia will be like--will we see the team that won the SEC tourney, or the one that played the rest of the year?

Overall, I have a pretty good feeling about this year, mostly due to the new additions. I knew they'd do a lot, but it's feasible that we could see two of them in the starting five (Carroll-Denmon-Lyons, with Tiller and Taylor as the guards).