Kim Anderson's got his team, and now it's time to get to work

So we pretty much know what Kim Anderson and his assistants will be working with in 2015-16. Time to make some adjustments?

The Trib: Missouri basketball notes: Anderson will have to adjust to new personnel

"We’re going to have to look at how we play," Anderson said Wednesday. "Whether we play with four guards? We’re going to be probably smaller."

How exactly the players fit together in the high-low motion offense Anderson adopted from Kansas Coach Bill Self during his time at Central Missouri and began installing last season at Missouri remains to be seen. [...]

"You’ve got to be willing to change. You’ve got to be willing to do that," he said. "But you also just spent 12 months and didn’t have a great year teaching an offense to a guy, and now you’re going throw that out the window. So it’ll basically be like me riding in here again and starting over." [...]

"Sure, different offenses are better for different teams, but it’s usually not the offense," he said. "It’s usually how you execute the offense or how you execute the defense. Now, obviously, certain parts make certain offenses look better, but it’s usually the players. … The offense we’re running, I didn’t make it up, so it’s not like I’m the only guy that ever ran it. You’ve just got to be able to execute."

Every time we post something about basketball recruiting, we get a Facebook comment or two resembling something like "Pssh, they don't need more guard, they need more big men." This was probably a case of choosing to solve one problem over solving another problem. Mizzou needed offense and bigs, and without being able to solve both at once, Anderson and company chose the former.

Post-Dispatch: Tigers put faith in freshman floor general
Post-Dispatch: MU's Anderson targets scoring over size

"The biggest adjustment I saw coming from what I’d call the elite high school or prep school level to college was everybody knows what you’re running (at the Division I level)," Fulford said. "We didn’t have fancy bells and whistles with video. My scouting reports at Huntington we either saw teams in person or went off stat sheets. You didn’t have the equipment. But what I noticed most last year, from a game plan standpoint and personnel, you better have some guys who can go get it — because otherwise your stuff doesn’t work. [...]

"Terrence is a guy who can go get it. He can create," Fulford said. "Martavian can go get it. Cullen is very different, but when those guys go get it, he’s not missing that jump shot. With K.J., that’s what he does. He gets to the basket. He scores. He’s very physical. He’s got a college-ready body. He’s been in Indiana, which from a high school basketball standpoint, it doesn’t get much better. He’s been coached. He knows how to play. He’s got an extremely high IQ. He’s got a lot of depth on the perimeter that we just didn’t have last year."

Looking at the roster at hand, it doesn't appear that Mizzou is going to become a team with great depth in the post anytime soon. But with a year of Division I experience for everyone from Anderson to Fulford to the five freshmen, they should have a better idea of what needs to be done this coming winter. And we'll see how much that translates to steadier, more confident, more high-caliber play.