Mizzou Links: A&M a tough challenge for a team in a rut

D'Angelo Allen wants to win, Kim Anderson looks for a way out of a rut, and Derrick Chievous is an SEC Legend.

By Bill Connelly@SBN_BillC Jan 21, 2015, 5:30am CST

What's On

How about a D'Angelo Allen spotlight?

A&M tonight

Now that I'm back in town after a sojourn to Oklahoma, expect a long-awaited Tennessee Study Hall later today...

MUTIGERS.COM: Road Trip to Texas A&M Up Next for Mizzou
The Trib (Courtside View): Anderson discusses Tigers' continued struggle for consistency

On how the season has gone thus far …

"I think it’s been a learning experience for everybody. We didn’t inherit very many guys, so consequently we recruited five freshmen and we had one senior transfer, so trying to gain a measure of consistency has been a challenge for us. We’ve played well at times. We’ve had opportunities to beat good teams. We’ve fallen short other than the LSU game. So my biggest probably disappointment so far — other than the record; you don’t want to be 7-10 — is just trying to get the consistency level. People when they ask me questions, they’ll say, ‘Well, you don’t have a set rotation yet.’ My answer is ‘You’re right, I don’t,’ and it’s because we just haven’t been consistent, not only in games but also in practice. That’s kind of what we’re working for, and we’re trying to get better every game, and we were on an uptick, and now we’ve kind of gone down a little bit. So hopefully, we can regain some confidence and play well this week." [...]

On why he thinks Missouri’s back in a rut …

"Again, I would think it goes back to the consistency factor — being able to execute different phases of the game in a consistent manner. We handled Tennessee’s press pretty well for probably 35 minutes. I don’t know. I don’t think we turned it over much. We turned it over, but not against the press. Then in the last two or three minutes, we made some mistakes. I said this in the press conference after the game — people are tired of hearing about the youth factor, but we made some freshman mistakes, and we pay for it. So we’ve got to get better at that aspect. We don’t have a large margin of error, so we can’t waste possessions. We’ve got to value every possession that we have … especially in a game like Tennessee, which was a close game. With five minutes to go, I think we even led maybe, so you’ve got to be able to finish, and that’s been a problem for us. You can go back to Illinois. You can go back to Oklahoma State, go back to several games. You want the answer of how do you do it? You just keep going to practice every day and trying to get better."

Post-Dispatch: Texas A&M rising in improved SEC
The Trib: SEC basketball getting better at the bottom

Can he suit up tonight?

SEC Sports: Allstate® SEC Basketball Legends Announced

Derrick Chievous, Forward 1985-88

Chievous burst on the Missouri basketball scene in 1985. He went on to become the leader scorer in Tiger basketball history with 2,580 points, and posted three of the top-ten season scoring figures in MU annals. He led the Big Eight Conference in scoring as both a junior and senior, and led the Tigers to the league regular-season and post-season tournament championships in 1987. He was a Freshman All-American in 1985, consensus second-team all-American in 1987, all-conference in 1987 and '88, and was twice MU's most valuable player. He is one of only two players in school history to lead the team in scoring three times, and holds a host of other school records. A first-round draft choice of the Houston Rockets in 1988, Chievous also played in the NBA with the Cleveland Cavaliers.

MUTIGERS.COM: Chievous Named to Class of 2015 Allstate SEC Legends