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Mizzou 25: Coaches Edition (Round One)

UPDATE: Called after 87 votes. Pinkel takes it, 94%-5%. The second round is set.

Today we round out Round One in the Mizzou 25 Coaches Edition, the tournament to determine who was the best, most likable, most influential Mizzou coach in the last 25 years! Competitors were seeded by more normal methods this time (as opposed to the chronological seeding of the Players Edition), and over the next week and a half, we'll be plowing through the first round matchups.

Click here for the bracket.

5/5: 1 Norm Stewart vs 16 Cindy Stein
5/6: 8 Joann Rutherford vs 9 Jay Miller
5/7: 5 Rick McGuire vs 12 Brian Hoffer
5/8: 4 Wayne & Susan Kreklow vs 13 Brian Blitz
5/9: 6 Gene McArtor vs 11 Larry Smith
5/10: 3 Brian Smith vs 14 Jared & Rebecca Wilmes
5/12: 7 Tim Jamieson vs 10 Jake Jacobson
5/13: 2 Gary Pinkel vs 15 Quin Snyder

2 Gary Pinkel vs 15 Quin Snyder

vs

2001-present

1999-06

Career Record at Mizzou:
49-37

Five Best Seasons:
2002 - 5-7
2003 - 8-5
2005 - 7-5
2006 - 8-5
2007 - 12-2

Career Record at Mizzou:
125-90

Five Best Seasons:
99-00 - 18-13 (NCAA 1st Round)
00-01 - 20-13 (NCAA 2nd Round)
01-02 - 24-12 (NCAA Elite Eight)
02-03 - 22-11 (NCAA 2nd Round)
03-04 - 16-14 (NIT 1st Round)

Gary Pinkel has survived all the peaks and valleys a coach can see and has come out the better for it. After three seasons of steady progress, the bottom fell out for Mizzou in 2004, and a 5-6 season left Pinkel's tenure on the rocks. Since then, Mizzou has gone from 7 to 8 to 12 wins, earning its first #1 ranking in 47 years late in 2007. Mizzou will start the 2008 season in the Top 10, and Pinkel's slow-but-steady grind toward success has won over Mizzou fans, to say the least. As embattled a coaching figure as there has ever been in Columbia, Snyder took the Tigers to four straight NCAA tournaments in the early ‘00s, winning five tourney games in the process and making an invigorating run to the Elite Eight in 2002. He raised the profile of the program, albeit for both good reasons and bad. Ultimately, his failure to recruit an impact point guard was (among other things) his downfall, though his accomplishments should still be acknowledged.