Mizzou

Thoughts on Mizzou’s coaching hire and baseball

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The Tigers hired a new coach and after a week of thinking about it, I’m still not too happy with the hire.  It is not necessarily a bad hire, Haith had Miami competitive if not consistent and Miami is not really a basketball school, but the flirtation with Painter and Tubby Smith made me think they were going to get a big-name, proven coach.  But they apparently could not lure any big name to Columbia.  Which is okay.  I’m surprised that the talk with Painter got as far as they did, considering the situation Painter was in.  He has is alma mater is great shape, why would he leave that for a school that is at best equal in standing.  Other than money, which Purdue matched when they heard Mizzou had Painter’s ear.  It was a worth chase, but I’m not sure Mizzou ever had a chance at success.

Frank Haith coached Miami for 7 mediocre seasons, with only one trip to the NCAA tournament.  He apparently (i.e. according to wikipedia) ran a clean program off the court, with success in getting his players to graduate, which is definitely good thing.  However, that will not help him keep his job if the Tigers do not win on the court.  The big problem is that it is a small-splash hire when the fans were expecting a big one.  I hope he is able to overcome everyone’s doubt, but I’m not confident.

I am glad Mizzou did not go for, or get, VCU’s Shaka Smart.  I know he is the hot name, along with Brad Stevens, after the Rams great Final Four run.  He got VCU deeper in the tourney than Mizzou has ever been.  But his record at VCU has not been exactly stellar.  They have been good, and I hope that they continue to do well, but I do not think it would be a good idea to pay him the money they were offering when he has only 2 years of head coaching experience and his team hasn’t finished higher than 4th in the Colonial Athletic Association.  Maybe the potential of Shaka Smart would have been better than the known talents of Haith, but I a little glad Mizzou played it safe.  I’m at least confident the program will not fall apart under Haith, I’m not so sure about Smart.  At worst, MU looks like they did this year for the next 3 or 4 before trading up for a good coach and maybe hitting a home run with that hire.  At best, Haith works out and the Tigers maintain what Anderson has built over the last 5 years.

 

It is also the start of the MLB season.  I don’t watch much baseball, usually only opening day and the playoffs.  This is because, as a Royals fan, I kind of hate baseball.  I am unfortunately just old enough to remember the days when the Royals were not only relevant, but also actually good.  They won their only World Series about 2 weeks after I was born.  The first baseball I watched was the waning days of the George Brett era.  The amount of attention I pay to baseball correlates directly with how good the Royals do, which means I usually pay little to not attention to baseball.  I don’t think I was ever going to be a big baseball fan, but the complete collapse of the Royals organization didn’t help.  But hey, through the first 2 weeks of the season, the Royals have at least been entertaining, though I do not expect their success to continue.

So I hope all the baseball fans enjoy the season.  I’ll keep watching as long as the Royals are in the picture and check out when they inevitably trail off into irrelevance.  But I’ll be back in October for the World Series.

NCAA Tourney Thoughts

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What an NCAA tournament it’s been so far, huh?  With the Final 4 set, my bracket in complete shambles and Mizzou’s season ending as badly as it possibly could, I guess I have some college basketball to talk about.

First Mizzou.  After a very promising start to the season, the Tigers went into a tailspin, going from 17-4 to 23-11.  Their season ended by being bounced easily from both the Big 12 and NCAA tournaments.  Then Coach Mike Anderson bolted for his old stomping grounds at Arkansas.  While Anderson leaving is no big surprise, he has entertained offers each of the last 2 years and Arkansas is his home, the way it happened was one.  Anderson said he was staying; then a few weeks later, he was gone.  I, naïvely to be sure, thought that Anderson was a stand-up enough guy to at least make his intentions known.  But no, he went from expected to sign an extension to new coach at Arkansas basically overnight.  His departure clouds his whole tenure at Mizzou, leaving nothing but hurt feelings.

Also, people are now incredibly pessimistic about Missouri’s chances next year.  This year ended with disappointment, but MU is losing one player to graduation (and possible a few to transfers).  Plus, the core team is not bad.  Kim English, Marcus Denmon and Lawrence Bowers are all very good players.  Mike Dixon is pretty good and Ricardo Ratliff and Steve Moore can give quality minutes.  Sure, they need a few good recruits, and to play much better than they did down the stretch, but this team is definitely good enough to make a tourney run.  Mizzou just needs to find a good coach who actually wants to be there.

The Final 4 includes both an 8 and an 11 seed.  That is great.  While I am very grateful to VCU for knocking off Kansas, (I cannot think of a more disgusting end to the season than the Morris thugs cutting the nets) I think I’m rooting for Butler.  I want to see them finish what they started last year. Either way, I’m going to be rooting for the winner of the Butler/VCU game in the final.  I don’t really have anything against Kentucky or UConn, but I don’t like either one enough to root for them over the underdog.

Do you want to guess how many Final 4 teams I got in my bracket?  None.  How many eventual Final 4 teams did I have in the Sweet 16?  None.  How many of my Final 4 picks made the Sweet 16? 2.  This year’s tournament was particularly wild, but I still picked the worst bracket I’ve ever filled out.  It was embarrassingly bad.  I think the two biggest problems are that there really were not any great teams this year and that the committee did an absolute terrible job seeding.  Like K-State as a 5 seed and Texas A&M as a 7.  They played in the same conference and Texas A&M actually had a better record, but they got a lower seed.  It made no sense.  I attempted to address these mistakes with my picks, but they did not pan out.  And picking between most of those mediocre teams, which was every seed 4 and down, was a complete guessing game.  Honestly though, I’m okay with my bracket being in ruins since the tournament has been so damn entertaining.  I just wish TruTV got fewer games, because I did not get to watch any of them.