Hoops Tigers Now Wear a Target

COLUMBIA - A run to the Elite Eight of the NCAA Tournament last season did many things for Missouri basketball.

Not all of them were good.

“The label, the tag’s on our guys, our basketball team this year,” said Missouri Coach Mike Anderson on Wednesday. “The opponents we play this year are going to be playing that team last year.”

Last year Missouri won a school-record 31 games and lost only seven. Won the Big 12 Tournament. Beat Marquette in scintillating fashion to make it to the NCAA West Regional semifinals and then upset Memphis to move within one game of what would have been the school’s first ever Final Four.

A preseason pick to finish seventh in the Big 12 Conference, Missouri caught fire down the stretch.

“At the end,” Anderson said, “we were probably playing some of the best basketball of any team I’ve been associated with as a head coach.”

Yet gone from that team are DeMarre Carroll (with the NBA Memphis Grizzlies now), Leo Lyons (playing in Israel) and Matt Lawrence (playing in Norway).

And without a proven big man? Missouri has been picked to finish seventh in the fourth year of Anderson’s tenure in Columbia.

Still, Anderson said, opponents will not take the Tigers lightly. They’ll remember last season.

“We’ve got to put on our hard hats and really get prepared,” Anderson said.

That process - built on a summer of conditioning and evaluation - begins officially on Friday with the first practice of the 2009 season.