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Missouri basketball coaching search: The hot-list hot list, April 24

By Bill Connelly
Dilip Vishwanat

Well, it made for a fun day of speculation...

This coaching search has unfolded in a pretty writer-friendly way. One name emerges, we write about him for a day, and he goes on the back-burner. Some other name emerges, we write about him for a day, etc.

On Wednesday, the script changed at least a little bit. Almost exactly 24 hours after he emerged as a potentially serious (backup) candidate, Tim Floyd was removed from the list as a potential candidate. (And yes, I'm talking about the fan/media "list," not Mike Alden's, which evidently never had Floyd on it to begin with.)

Post-Dispatch: Floyd not a candidate for Mizzou job
PowerMizzou: Scratch one name off the list

One of the fun, strange perks of writing about a coaching search during the coaching search is that, three years from now, I'll stumble across some of these posts and think, "Wait, there was a time when we were taking the idea of Tim Floyd seriously?" I know it, because I went through something similar yesterday. Wait, there was a time when were taking the idea of Scott Sutton seriously? Regardless, we spent a decent chunk of yesterday discussing the merits of somebody who was apparently never being seriously considered. And now we move on...

...to what, I'm not sure.

So if it's not Floyd ... and the odds for Marshall still aren't amazing...

It's almost been exactly one week since Frank Haith was suddenly linked to the Tulsa job (at about 1:30 p.m. last Thursday), and we know very, very little. We seem pretty confident in the following pieces of information:

  1. Gregg Marshall still hasn't said no.
  2. Kim Anderson is still on the list.
  3. Tim Floyd isn't on the list.
  4. Ben Howland probably isn't on the list.
  5. Somebody else is on the list.

That's pretty much it. Mike Alden has done a good job of hanging out in the shadows during the search, and even well-sourced Mizzou beat writers are kind of at a loss at the moment. Gabe Dearmond thinks that if Tim Floyd has been told no, then that could mean Mizzou knows who it's hiring at some point. That's possible. It could just be that either Alden wants a no-muck hire (and anybody even tenuously tied to muck -- Floyd, Howland, etc. -- is out), or he knows he has a backup option that a) ranks ahead of Floyd in his mind and b) won't say no. (The obvious potential option in that regard: Anderson.)

But let's say that Marshall says no and Anderson never gets an offer. Do we have any idea who else might be high on the list? Gabe has long championed the idea of Chris Mack and seems to think there's still a chance there. Brian Gregory's name has popped up here and there. And SFA fans aren't exactly confident that Brad Underwood is definitely going to be in Nacogdoches this time next year...

...so perhaps we keep them on the list. But because of the rather impressive radio silence coming from Mizzou Arena and the surrounding area, it's almost certain that there's a candidate we have no idea about that point. That's pretty fun, and it's also pretty maddening.

The dream scenario

We still don't have a good sense for anybody outside of No. 1 on the list. But ... let's piece a few other tidbits together, just for fun.

  1. Gregg Marshall still hasn't said no.
  2. Wichita State's basketball banquet is tonight.
  3. My SOURCE!! who told me on Monday that interviews were roughly planned for Wednesday out of town contacted me yesterday to say that those had been moved, potentially to Friday, and potentially in town.

If you are the optimistic type, you can find dots to connect there. (And if you're not, that might be good, as there might not be dots to connect there.)

We've been saying it all week: The longer Marshall remains on the table, the better it is for Mizzou. But I've got to be honest ... I didn't expect him to still be on the table on Thursday. Maybe he uses tonight's WSU banquet as an opportunity to announce that he's unequivocally not going anywhere, and we use that as a reasonably accurate cue to move on. But he hasn't yet, and we haven't yet. And that's interesting.

Regardless...

...the next 24 hours or so might be a pretty good time to test your FlightAware search capabilities. (Go crazy in comments. I'll share the most fruitful searches in this thread.) Wichita to Columbia ... Warrensburg to Columbia ... Nacogdoches to Columbia ... Cincinnati to Columbia ... LOCATION X to Columbia ... I can tell you that nothing with those searches is scheduled for the coming days yet, but these things pop up pretty quickly. So have fun.

KC Star: Very few certainties in MU search, but don’t count on Gregg Marshall, Tim Floyd

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