Mizzou: Compared to a Few Years Back

A year ago just before the start of the Big 12 Tournament in Kansas City, I had no expectation Missouri would win the tournament.

That Mizzou did was a surprise, even after a quaterfinal round in which the other three teams that - like Mizzou - had received byes in Oklahoma City - lost.

I have no expectation the Tigers will successfully defend that tournament title this time around in Kansas City.

But I've come to believe that the Tigers believe, that Mike Anderson - after a flub signing of Stephon Hannan - is now filling his roster with the kind of athletes who find it no hardship to play unselfish, team basketball.

Zaire Taylor - the senior point guard out of Staten Island who started his college career at Delaware and sat out as a sophomore waiting to play for Mike Anderson - puts it this way:

"You look at the nation, all the things that have been going on, people getting in trouble and making poor choices.

“He cleaned this program up. He got some guys that want to win basketball games. They want to enjoy college life.
They want to enjoy it the right way."

Pointing that out is not a slap at any other team in the nation. It is just an observation that is easy to make about Missouri under Anderson these last two seasons.

Ricky Clemons has been gone a while now. Club Athena has closed and morphed into something else.

And win or lose this week in KC, so has Missouri basketball.