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Missouri Basketball: Can Kim Anderson build a contender?

By John Bauman

Mar 14, 2014; Atlanta, GA, USA; Missouri Tigers guard Jabari Brown (32) drives to the basket against Florida Gators forward Chris Walker (23) in the quarterfinals of the SEC college basketball tournament at Georgia Dome. Florida won 72-49. Mandatory Credit: Paul Abell-USA TODAY Sports
Mar 14, 2014; Atlanta, GA, USA; Missouri Tigers guard Jabari Brown (32) drives to the basket against Florida Gators forward Chris Walker (23) in the quarterfinals of the SEC college basketball tournament at Georgia Dome. Florida won 72-49. Mandatory Credit: Paul Abell-USA TODAY Sports /
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The Missouri Tigers have never been to a Final Four.

Despite a long and illustrious basketball history, including 26 NCAA Tournament appearances and five Elite Eight appearances, Mizzou has never been able to get over the hump and reach college basketball’s biggest stage. Legendary coach Norm Stewart, who coached at Missouri for over 30 years, could not do it. Frank Haith, who had a 48-3 record at Mizzou arena in three seasons as head coach, could not do it. Tiger fans are hoping that Kim Anderson, recently hired from Central Missouri, will be the one that takes Missouri to the promised land.

The closest the Tigers came to ever reaching the Final Four was in 2011-12, when the team led by Marcus Denmon, Kim English and Laurence Bowers won 30 games and the Big 12 tournament. Those Tigers climbed as high as number two in the national polls and were arguably the most talented Missouri team ever assembled.

Missouri basketball received a number two seed in the NCAA tournament and were paired with Norfolk State in the second round. The Tigers were a trendy Final Four pick out of the West Regional, which featured a Bradley Beal-led Florida team and a Louisville team headlined by Peyton Silva and Gorgui Dieng.

May 15, 2014; St. Louis, MO, USA; Missouri Tigers basketball coach Kim Anderson waits to throw out a ceremonial first pitch before a baseball game between the St. Louis Cardinals and the Chicago Cubs at Busch Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Scott Kane-USA TODAY Sports
May 15, 2014; St. Louis, MO, USA; Missouri Tigers basketball coach Kim Anderson waits to throw out a ceremonial first pitch before a baseball game between the St. Louis Cardinals and the Chicago Cubs at Busch Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Scott Kane-USA TODAY Sports /

In a loss that will sting in Tiger fans’ hearts for eternity, the Norfolk State Spartans upset the Tigers 86-84. The Spartans shot 10 of 19 from three point range and were led by Kyle O’Quinn, who had 26 points and 14 rebounds. Another season gone, another disappointment for the Tigers.

After Frank Haith left this offseason for Tulsa, Missouri needed a new face of the program that would hopefully take it in new and exciting directions. Kim Anderson was a controversial hire, coming from the Division II ranks. He landed the job at his alma mater after his team won the Division II National Championship, defeating West Liberty 84-77. His teams also made the D-II Final Four three times.

Anderson had a great first summer as coach, keeping Tim Fuller as assistant coach and bringing Rob Fulford onto the staff. Those two are important because they will help greatly in signing big-time players to come to Missouri. The assistants have already paid immediate dividends — Fuller was able to keep Jakeenan Gant and Namon Wright, two Haith recruits, at Missouri and Fulford guided his former prep star Montaque Gill-Caesar to the Tigers.

In order to win in the modern era of college basketball, you need blue chip recruits, and in order to get blue chip recruits, you need blue chip assistants. Anderson did a great job recognizing that right away and having these two assistant coaches on the staff will help Missouri draw in top recruits.

The SEC is not quite the powerhouse that it is in football, but it is still a very good conference, with Florida and Kentucky making up tier one of the conference. To consistently compete with those two schools, Missouri needs NBA-caliber talent. Anderson’s first recruiting class ended up being a really strong building block for the program going forward. Gant and Gill-Caesar are ESPN 100 four-star recruits who can step in and play right away, and a trio of three star recruits will provide depth for a program that lost a lot of talent to the NBA over the last three years.

Jordan Clarkson, Earnest Ross and Jabari Brown are all gone from last season’s 23 game winning squad, which lost in the second round of the NIT. Clarkson and Brown will be especially tough to replace, as they ranked third and first respectively in percentage of minutes played in the SEC, per kenpom.com.

Stepping up in their place will be point guard Wes Clark, power forward Jordan Williams III and center Ryan Rosburg. With a very young team in 2014-15, Anderson will be able to mold the Tigers into his style of play pretty easily. Check out this post from Sam Snelling of Rock M Nation for a detailed breakdown of the Tiger offense, but here are the basics from the article. Anderson will be running a high low offense predicated on an inside out approach and four guys passing the ball on the perimeter, looking to feed the ball inside. Snelling outlines in the article how the offense stems from Bill Self’s Oral Roberts teams.

That offense should fit Mizzou pretty well next season, as the team will have a plethora of options at guard. An emphasis on passing could also help the Tigers, as the team had no player rank higher than 284th in the country in assist rate last season, per kenpom.com.

Missouri should be better defensively in 2014-15, as the trio of Clarkson, Ross and Brown were more offensive oriented players than defensively oriented ones. A good scheme will help the Tigers, but looking at the roster, no go-to scorer jumps off the page.

An honest outlook for next season pits the Tigers at around 23 wins again, the same as last season. If Anderson turns out to be a better coach that we think, he could win 12 or 13 games in conference. Mizzou went 9-9 last season in the SEC, losing winnable games against Alabama, Vanderbilt and two against Georgia. Winning 12 or 13 games in the SEC would get the Tigers into the NCAA Tournament, which should be the goal of Anderson and his staff in year one. Missouri can get to the Final Four coming out of the SEC as well, as the conference produced two Final Four teams in Kentucky and Florida last season.

Looking towards the future, recruiting top tier talent will be the key for Anderson. With the strong assistant coaching staff that he has assembled, Anderson has set himself up well for success. 2015 ESPN 100 recruits Antonio Blakeney, D.J. Hogg and Dwayne Bacon all have Mizzou on their short lists, and signing any one of those guys would be a great start to the 2015 class.

Zero players return from that 2012 team that was a number two seed in the NCAA Tournament. The only freshman on the team that year, Jabari Brown, went undrafted in the 2014 NBA Draft but had a strong summer league showing with the Houston Rockets.

2014 represents a new era of Mizzou basketball, with a new, young team and a new coach, Kim Anderson. Tiger fans are hoping that in Anderson’s reign, he can cut down the nets at an NCAA regional and lead his alma mater to its first Final Four.