This post is sponsored by US Cellular, who asked members of certain fanbases to recall great last-second March moments.  Mizzou had one relatively recently.

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Your first NCAA Tournament.

5.5 seconds remaining.

Tie game.

You're asked to come off the bench to shoot two free throws for an injured teammate.  What happens next?

If you're Missouri's Kim English, in the second round of the 2009 NCAA Tournament, you calmly drain both shots as if you were born ready for that moment.

After a five-year tournament absence that included minor probation and the firing of a coach, the Missouri basketball program was on shaky ground.  In two seasons at the helm, Mike Anderson had brought an entertaining style of basketball to Columbia, but the wins had not yet followed.  Fan interest had waned, and expectations were not especially high for 2008-09.  But led by seniors DeMarre Carroll, Leo Lyons and Matt Lawrence, plus an infusion of freshman talent, Mizzou got hot.  Not only did they make the NCAA Tournament in 2009, but they did it as a 3-seed.  They won the Big 12 Tournament and headed to Boise at 28-6 overall.  After cruising through the first round game against Cornell, the Tigers took on Marquette and burst ahead to a 45-30 lead late in the first half, thanks primarily to a scoring explosion from young English.  But the lead crumbled away, and Marquette took a four-point lead with under two minutes remaining.

This was not a Missouri team averse to adversity, however.  They clawed back and tied the game at 79-79 with under 30 seconds remaining.  Tough-nosed Tigers guard J.T. Tiller drove to the hoop with under ten seconds remaining and drew a hard foul.  He landed on an already-injured wrist, and despite the fact that he was one of Mizzou's best free-throw shooters, he had to come out of the game.

Enter English.  The freshman was not a great free-throw shooter, but he had come through all game long, scoring 15 points in the game's first 39:55.  Anderson took a chance on him, and English swished both shots.  Missouri won, 83-79, and headed to their first Sweet Sixteen in seven years.  They would go on to upset Memphis, one of the tournament's favorites, in the next round, but they would not have gotten there without the cool, calm freshman from Baltimore, who carried Mizzou when they needed it and came through in the final seconds.

Lance has visited Kansas, Maryland and St. John’s and Lance Stephenson Sr. recently said his son would take two more.

Memphis and Arizona may still be involved, but no visits have been set, as far as we know.

Other potential schools in the mix include Missouri, Pittsburgh and UNC-Charlotte, according to a source.

-- ZAGSBLOG, on the ongoing recruiting saga of Lance Stephenson.

Who's Lance Stephenson?  This is Lance Stephenson.  And this.  And...this.

The Missouri mention is a new twist.  Granted, I'd be willing to bet a decent amount of money that he ends up at Cincy at this point, and probably pretty soon, but still...an interesting twist.

The Beef and I had an e-mail conversation about Stephenson this morning.  And really, this goes back to the "Culture vs Caliber" debate I've talked about a lot on RMN.  Does the culture of the program matter more than the caliber of the talent/athlete?  Mizzou's chemistry was unbelievable last year; if Anderson could bring in a guy like Stephenson, with other-worldly talent and an awful "me first" reputation, and make him a team player and contributor, and if he was absorbed into the team culture of guys like J.T. Tiller, Kim English, and Zaire Taylor, not only would the sky be the limit on the 2009-10 team, but I think recruiting could see a major upswing as a result.

On the other hand, if he comes in and pollutes the water, pouting the first time he doesn't play 20 minutes in a game or get enough shots, and if the ongoing strangeness involving his eligibility were to continue, then this would not at all be a gamble worth taking. My fascination with grey areas makes me want Missouri to take this chance, but my love of and comfortability with known knowns (in this case, ridiculously good team chemistry) wants me to tell Mike Anderson to run away screaming. But after 2008-09, Anderson gets a free pass from me on this one. If, after the Stefhon Hannah drama blew up in his face, he still feels it's worth the risk to try to woo Stephenson here, so be it. If not, I'm more than okay with that.

Figured enough people would be watching, so why not have an open thread?

What: The NBA Draft
When: 6:00pm CST
Where: Madison Square Garden
Why: DeMarre Carroll and Leo Lyons will attempt to become the first two Mizzou players drafted in the same year since Byron Irvin and Gary Leonard in 1989.

Television: ESPN
Radio: Um, who cares?  It's on ESPN.

Player Stats

* AdjGS = a take-off of the Game Score metric (definition here) accepted by a lot of basketball stat nerds.  It does the same thing my previous measure of choice did (it takes points, assists, rebounds (offensive & defensive), steals, blocks, turnovers and fouls into account to determine an individual's "score" for a given game), only the formula is more used and accepted.  The "adjustment" in Adjusted Game Score is simply matching the total game scores to the total points scored in the game, thereby redistributing the game's points scored to those who had the biggest impact on the game itself, instead of just how many balls a player put through a basket.

• So before 2008-09, Mizzou had only managed one season of a >2.00 BCI (1989-90).  Not only did Mizzou trounce the previous high with a 2.42 in 2008-09, but 10 of 14 individual players posted >2.00.  When you think about who generally gets assists, you figure that guards are going to pretty easily post a >2.00 BCI, but for DeMarre Carroll, Keith Ramsey and Laurence Bowers (with Justin Safford not far behind at 1.91) to do the same was damn impressive.
• We're all justifiably optimistic about the future, but clearly the biggest question for the immediate future (i.e. 2009-10) is replacing the all-around games from Carroll and Lyons: we all knew they were good, but seeing their stats next to each other gives you a sense of what they were capable of: 31.2 PPG, 13.3 RPG, 4.2 APG, 2.6 SPG, a near-2.00 BCI.  They transformed themselves into the perfect big men for this system (okay, not perfect...they could have rebounded a bit better), and they will be missed.  Laurence Bowers, Justin Safford, Keith Ramsey, Steve Moore, Keith Dewitt, hopefully Jarrid Famous...you've got your work cut out for you.
• As well as the bigs filled out the stat sheet, nobody did it better than Jesus Tyrannosaurus Tiller.  Hopefully he'll add a few more points to the ledger in 2009-10.  We'll need it.
• Thinking about certain moments from the season, it's amazing that Laurence Bowers and Justin Safford both averaged less than four points per game.  They were both tremendous offensive difference makers at certain points in the season, as were Kimmeh English and Marcus Denmon, and to a lesser extent, Keith Ramsey.  Mizzou has every chance in the world of coming back guns blazing in 2009-10, but only if these guys provide much more consistent sparks.
• What exactly is Miguel Paul's ceiling?  I just can't figure it out.

You know what would be fun?  If we could compare these Missouri players and their stats to Missouri players of yore.

In fact, let's do just that.

Continue reading this post »

It is time to take one last look at the stats from the 2008-09 Mizzou basketball season, and then bid adieu and wait for spring football (followed by college football magazine season, and then two-a-days, and then the season) to nab our attention.

• This includes all cupcakes, so naturally the numbers are a hair inflated.  In all, this pretty much wraps everything into a neat little bow--this was an okay shooting team that played great perimeter defense, rebounded in a mediocre fashion...and dominated every single facet of the game when a shot wasn't in the air.
• Not only did opponents turn the ball over a lot, but they also weren't given a ton of baskets via ball movement--that's a paltry number of assists allowed.  You could take some of Mizzou's defenders 1-on-1 if you were quick enough (Tyreke Evans, Jerel McNeal, Kemba Walker, I'm looking in your direction), but aside from a game here and there, you simply could not create many open shots through ball movement and patience.

You know what would be fun?  If we could compare this Missouri team and its stats to Missouri teams of yore.

In fact, let's do just that.

Continue reading this post »

8:17 - Put up a 16 in round one, could have been higher, but he missed three of five money balls.  Will see if 16 is good enough to make the next round.

8:18 - In the next round, some dude named Jimmy Barron posted a 25, but the other dude only got a 15, so Goose is in 3rd right now.

8:19 - A 23 and a 17 posted in the third pairing.  Goose is in 5th of 6.  Not good.

8:21 - A 22 and a 14 in the final pairing.  Goose finishes 6th of 8.  Top four advance.  Sorry, Goose.

In the end, Goose proved me wrong.  I thought he'd either finish first or last, and he was distinctly in the middle.  Gotta gotta gotta gotta gotta gotta make the money balls.

So before we even dive into recruiting, the impact of blue-chip recruits in the "40 Minutes of Heck/Hell" system, and the likelihood of Mike Anderson attracting those recruits, a quick comparison: In the four seasons where Nolan Richardson coached an Arkansas roster that had no McDonald's All-Americans, he went 65-57.  In three seasons with no McD's AA's at Missouri, Mike Anderson has gone 62-34.  Clearly not every non-McD's AA is created equal (which is the reason why Rivals rates players on a 1-5 star scale...or at least 2-5), but the likelihood exists that Mike Anderson is simply a better coach than Nolan Richardson at this stage in his career and doesn't need any 5-star recruits, which would render everything I'm about to say moot. But read it anyway.

Anyway, yesterday we took a look at the similarities and differences in the early parts of Richardson's and Anderson's head coaching careers.  Richardson's teams were successful, but Anderson's were as or more successful to this point.  Today, we look at what information we might be able to draw from recruiting and how the rest of Nolan Richardson's career played out.

Stage 3: What Happened Next for Nolan?

In Year Four under Richardson, Arkansas caught fire.  With a couple of breakthrough recruits (which we will get to in a moment), Arkansas won 25, 30, 34, 26, 22, 31 and 32 games from 1988 to 1995.  In all, they were 200-43 in that span.  They went to three Final Fours and went from being a lively program to becoming the team you least want to play.  Just the thought of going against the Forty Minutes of Hell made you tired, and even when you beat Arkansas (few did), you were dead-legged afterward.

So there are two clear questions here: 1) How did Richardson take that next step, and 2) Can Mike Anderson do the same?

Recruiting

One of the theories about why Mike Anderson might not be able to take the next step is that he can't recruit the big boys to come and play in this system.  As Mizzou proved this year, you can make a nice postseason run without 5-star players, but in theory, to consistently move to the top level of basketball programs, the recruits do need to start noticing and signing with Missouri.

One way to test this theory, of course, is by looking at Nolan Richardson's recruiting hauls and what they may tell us about Anderson's in the future.

First off, the big-time kids:

While the national-level recruits came later on, once Arkansas had become the nation's dominant program, Richardson's first batch of breakthrough recruits were home-grown.  Memphis and Tulsa are basically the KC and StL areas of the Arkansas program, and Richardson took advantage of a strong backyard and a strong recruiter in Scott Edgar.

Richardson was able to mix a handful of studs with hungry role players to find success.  We know Anderson's got the "hungry role players" part of recruiting down pat.  But the question becomes, how far can Anderson take Missouri without the blue-chippers?

Continue reading this post »

Call it nostalgia, call it not letting go, call it "not ready to focus on the diamond sports yet." Whatever you call it, we're not ready to let this past basketball season die. This is the final part of a three-part installment that looks at the magical season that was, as seen through the archives of posts, FanPosts, FanShots and comments on RMN. Today's installment takes a look at the postseason portion of the season.

• March 11: The Boy and ghtd36 record a podcast during the first day of the Big 12 Championship, only to have it be rendered moot when Texas Tech's Mike Singletary goes all "LOL WUT" on Texas A&M.
• March 12: While quickly LOLing at KU for losing to Baylor, we quickly get to know Texas Tech. Missouri secures a workmanlike victory to avoid a full day of upsets. DeMarre flies into computer monitors and J.T. gives me one of my favorite quotes of the season. While rpt is still working/waiting around on the Ford Center floor in OKC, the rest of RMN watches UConn and Syracuse duel in the Big East tourney.
• March 13: Missouri outruns Oklahoma State and a gimpy Byron "Fran Fraschilla loves me... A LOT" Eaton. RMN celebrates accordingly (with Mr. T and Gary Busey).
• March 14: The Missouri Tigers = 2009 Big 12 Champions. This precipitates coherent, beautiful, and poetic responses from RMN readers. Chitowntiger updates the "Coaches with Character" FanPost, and we watch the Tigers come home.
• March 20: Shortly after we better knew our opponent, Mizzou takes care of business against Cornell, and gives The Boy a chance to finally point to his score prediction.
• March 22: Kimmeh! is born and the "English Motherf*er!" Pulp Fiction joke circulates around RMN, as the Marquette game takes years off of our lives.
• March 26: The morning of the Memphis game, The Boy authors what is possibly my favorite RMN post of all-time. The track meet game begins, and tiemmel perfectly sums up Denmon's miracle shot to end the first half. The second half thread has a slight "Marquette game" feel to it, but Mizzou earns its Elite Eight berth. We succumb to the "Mandatory Elite Eight Podcast" rule.
• March 28: The magic runs out, as shots don't fall but Missouri takes UConn to the final minutes in the Tigers' season-ending loss. If you expected a long treatise, all you got was a short "Thank You" to this basketball team.