Originally Posted by jjchieffan:
This was certainly a great win. If they can win out, they've got to be a 3 seed. But I shouldn't get ahead of myself. Nobody remaining is going to just roll over. Kentucky is the only ranked team. But did you see the Auburn vs Arkansas score? They hung with Auburn much better than Mizzou did. Our boys should beat them. But you never know. I'm excited to see how they finish and how far they get in the dance.
Originally Posted by jjchieffan:
Haha! Me too. I remember watching Anthony Peeler and Doug Smith playing when I was in college. That's been an eternity ago.
I used to be a huge Mizzou baskeball fan back in the day. The Melvin Booker and Jovan Crudup team after Peeler and Smith was really good too. I always loved Paul O'liney also, but I met him when I was ~12 and he had to be one of the dumbest humans I've ever engaged with. [Reply]
Originally Posted by crispystl:
I used to be a huge Mizzou baskeball fan back in the day. The Melvin Booker and Jovan Crudup team after Peeler and Smith was really good too. I always loved Paul O'liney also, but I met him when I was ~12 and he had to be one of the dumbest humans I've ever engaged with.
Loved the Peeler/Smith teams... also loved the Pauling and Dooling teams. [Reply]
I was a young kid during rush and Gilbert years and that’s when I fell in love with mizzou basketball. This team might be one of my top three favorites. The team that lost in the first round with that stacked team with English and Ratliff and Pressey is up there but that loss really hurts my perception of them. [Reply]
Originally Posted by jjchieffan:
This was certainly a great win. If they can win out, they've got to be a 3 seed. But I shouldn't get ahead of myself. Nobody remaining is going to just roll over. Kentucky is the only ranked team. But did you see the Auburn vs Arkansas score? They hung with Auburn much better than Mizzou did. Our boys should beat them. But you never know. I'm excited to see how they finish and how far they get in the dance.
Win out and in all probability they end up a 2 seed. Hell, at that point they're an SEC tournament win away from a 1 seed. Especially if they beat Auburn in the process.
I think Duke is a lock in a 1 spot. Houston probably as well. Auburn presently has one and the final 1 seed might be Florida.
So if you're Mizzou and you end up winning the SEC tournament, you'd have presumably gone through 1, if not 2 of those teams. You've already beaten Florida on the road. You've beaten one of the other teams in Bama that had an argument for a 1. You took TN down to the wire and honestly could've won that game had you just hit some of the looks you usually it.
Absolutely everything is still on the table for Mizzou, up to and including getting a 1 seed.
But winning out is going to be quite an ask with as many road games as we have left. And the teams they're playing are similar to Georgia in that they're not great teams, but they're not bad. Lots of bubble quality teams still to come.
South Carolina kinda sucks but we get them at home.
Arkansas, Vandy, Oklahoma and Kentucky are all teams that are, at worst, top 50 squads and will be playing for their tournament lives. Any of those wins could be the one that gets them into the Dance.
And that's to say nothing of the SEC tournament which will, IMO, be a harder tournament than the NCAA tournament will. To get through it even with a double bye will almost certainly require 3 wins against ranked teams (probably top 10 teams) in 3 days.
That's as hard as any elite 8 run ever is during the NCAA tournament because of upsets and such.
And to put into perspective how brutal this league is -- right now Kentucky doesn't even get a bye -- for Kentucky to win it, they'll have to play 5 games in 5 days, 4 of them almost certainly against ranked opponents.
Mizzou picked an awfully tough year to have the best team in program history because this conference is unlike anything I've ever seen. There are 14 teams in this conference with a genuine chance to make the tournament. The worst team in the conference very easily could've beaten Auburn, Vandy, Mississippi State, Ole Miss and/or A&M.
Originally Posted by crispystl:
I used to be a huge Mizzou baskeball fan back in the day. The Melvin Booker and Jovan Crudup team after Peeler and Smith was really good too. I always loved Paul O'liney also, but I met him when I was ~12 and he had to be one of the dumbest humans I've ever engaged with.
I vaguely remember Smith, definitely remember Peeler.
The first real Mizzou team I clearly remember watching every chance I got was the Booker/Crudup team.
But I remember being real confused as to why Mizzou couldn't play in the tournament in the early 90s and thinking "Man, we self-reported and still got screwed?"
Some things never change...
But I think that's also why I remember Peeler and not Smith. I believe Peeler was on that 92 team with Booker that made the tournament. I'd say that was my true 'first team'. [Reply]
Arkansas away - 37 kenpom
South Carolina home - 84 kenpom
Vanderbilt away - 47 kenpom
Oklahoma away - 50 kenpom
Kentucky home - 17 kenpom
South Carolina is hella bad. Mizzou is 12 in kenpom. It would be nice to in out and get a 2 seed. It’s doable but we gotta be better on the road. [Reply]
Originally Posted by DJ's left nut:
I vaguely remember Smith, definitely remember Peeler.
The first real Mizzou team I clearly remember watching every chance I got was the Booker/Crudup team.
But I remember being real confused as to why Mizzou couldn't play in the tournament in the early 90s and thinking "Man, we self-reported and still got screwed?"
Some things never change...
But I think that's also why I remember Peeler and not Smith. I believe Peeler was on that 92 team with Booker that made the tournament. I'd say that was my true 'first team'.
I idolized Melvin Booker and one year I went to Norm's camp and he was my coach. It was unreal. Buck Grimm was there reffing games and he smashed my cousin's foot. I remember that was funny AF at the time because we always talked a ton of shit on Grimm during his career there. [Reply]
Originally Posted by crispystl:
I idolized Melvin Booker and one year I went to Norm's camp and he was my coach. It was unreal. Buck Grimm was there reffing games and he smashed my cousin's foot. I remember that was funny AF at the time because we always talked a ton of shit on Grimm during his career there.
Lawrence Bowers coaches my daughters basketball team.
He is an INCREDIBLY cool dude. I mean just the nicest guy. They're the penguins -- he showed up in game 1 in a big ol' penguin costume because he told a pile of 7 yr olds he would.
Now he has a couple younger kids as mascots on the bench with them also in penguin costumes.
But he gets so excited for these little girls anytime they do something. And man, my little, to my absolute shock, is a stick of dynamite out there. She's diving for loose balls, getting shots up and mostly just being a menace (she tells me how many fouls she gets after the game -- we've decided that she shouldn't have more than 3 but absolutely shouldn't have fewer than 2; you're not gonna be tall so you'd better be tough). Of my 3, that little princess is the absolute last of my children I figured would be sharpening her elbows in pre-game...
I think Bowers just being a damn good youth coach has something to do with it.
On that note, my eldest absolutely steamrolled Drinkwitz's daughter in a practice one day. Didn't really do it on purpose -- just chasing a rebound and didn't see her, went straight through her. No killer instinct at all but she's 65 lbs of pure muscle and sinew because of the 12 hours of friggen gymnastics she does every week. I wouldn't want her charging into me either. Eli's kid took the worst of it. [Reply]