Naturally, I'm still reeling from the loss to a 15th seed yesterday. This shit isn't supposed to happen. Especially to a senior laden team with a lot of talent(though with a lack of height). I'm just glad I had to work, otherwise I probably would have a broken tv or a hole in the wall...
But my mind is already looking to future, combined with this catastrophic disappointment. Is this as good as its going to get at Missouri for Frank Haith?
Haith came into the job inheriting a wealth of talent and seniors, Marcus Denmon, Phil Pressey, Michael Dixon, Kim English and Laurence Bowers. And when the latter had a season ending knee injury, leaving the team with little front court depth and little depth overall,with the fact of Rickey Kreklow transferring and that between Haith and Mike Anderson there were no recruits, all seemed lost for 2011-12.
But Haith did a masterful job of putting these guys in an actual system of offense and playing controlled defense, not the 40 minutes of Hell that Anderson played that likely wore out the team by March.
The 30-5 record in itself was astounding. Aside from Norfolk State, the loss at Oklahoma State was the only other "bad" loss on the season. And we should have beat Kansas at Allen Fieldhouse...
But now Marcus Denmon, Kim English, Ricardo Ratliffe, Matt Pressey and Steve Moore are gone. Coach Haith only has Michael Dixon and Phil Pressey coming back next season. This is where the question marks start...
In addition to having two great point guards coming back, is the return of Laurence Bowers. Granted there are questions if he can come back to his old self, but his return provides senior leadership as well and hopefully an athletic power forward with a good 12 foot shot...
But this is where I'm wondering if 2011-12 will be as good as it gets for Frank Haith. He put together a great regular season, won the conference tourney, but lost a chance to put an exclamation point on the season with a deep or at least decent tourney run.
Just thinking about from a national standpoint and a recruiting one, it hurts. The transfer of Kadeem Green earlier this season, gave Mizzou another scholarship opening. A good national showing might have piped some interest from a Mizzou-leaning recruit. Or even one not considering, realizing Mizzou won't have but a few returning players and at the right position and skill level could walk into a starting role...
Mizzou does have several high profile transfers, in addition to a big recruiting class, in Earnest Ross and Jabrari Brown that could help fill in some gaps. But they're all unknowns and young especially at the power forward/center spots.
With that I'm scared Coach Haith will try the four guard lineup again next year, which I think only worked this year, because of the personnel and experience we had. Next year we have height, we need to capitalize it...
And then there's the fandom/alumni happiness. The tendency of Mizzou fans is to easily think, 'here we go down this road again,' when things start rolling in the negative direction. How will Haith handle this aspect to a school that does have a decent basketball tradition certainly compared to Miami? And then there's still a few black clouds floating about from his purported ties to Nevin Shapiro, which hopefully will blow over...
When Mike Alden announced Frank Haith's hiring last Spring, I was somewhat dumbfounded, but after it set in, there was something about the hire that I liked or it just made sense. A middle of the road coach with no expectations comes to a school used to heartbreaks. His big draw was his ability to recruit, which hopefully comes to fruition. Heck if he could just start picking off one major talent out of St. Louis each year from going elsewhere(Bradley Beal, B.J. Young, etc.), he'd be ahead of every other coach Mizzou's had the past 30 years...
The only thing I've disliked about Coach Haith or his decisions, was that somehow with only eight scholarship players and a lack of depth down low, Kadeem Green, a Redshirt Freshman decided to transfer. Green is a 6'8 210 lb. athletic(purported) forward. Granted there was probably a lot of things behind the scenes and honestly probably some kind of attitude problem that we didn't know about. And if he was that good, Mike Anderson would have played him last year after getting healthy.
But Coach Haith used the excuse of only playing a seven man rotation, which seems bogus, as looking at box scores, it looked like he used eight or nine at Miami. And he said he liked/wanted to have big guys down low. As I said, just the lack of players and he can't find a role(defensive stopper against small forwards?) or way to get him experience for a few mins a game?
I'm rooting for Coach Haith. I"m just pessimistic to be optimistic. I don't want to see a continuous downward slide over the next three to four years. I don't want a return to the late/Post Quin Snyder era from 2004 to 2008. I want to see them return to the tourney next season, get the younger players experience and keep stocking up the bench with good and maybe even a few great recruits each season. MIZZOU-RAH!
