FanHouse Missouri Tigers

Everyone keeps tuned to sports sites and ESPNews for the latest plumes of smoke from Memphis and/or Lexington regarding John Calipari and whether he stays at Memphis or goes to Kentucky. The flip side is that the move has paralyzed nearly every other coaching search as programs and coaches in-demand wait to see what happens.

Oh, sure some little things have happened. Viginia Commonwealth has apparently hired Shaka Smart to be their next head coach. As with the last hire of VCU's former coach, Shaka Smart is a Florida assistant.

Everything else, though, appears to be on hold, if only for a moment.

This is a thank-you note.

On behalf of basketball fans everywhere, thank you, Missouri, for a brilliant run and a tough, impressive effort against Connecticut in the regional final. You gave us a great game to watch, and you really made the Huskies earn their way into the Final Four. And everybody should have to earn their way into the Final Four.

The way this thing started, it looked like a rout. UConn raced to that huge early lead, and you figured, "Oh well. Mismatch."

But then a funny thing happened. Missouri didn't go away.

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Having slept on it, I've come up with no reason to change this viewpoint. But when you use the O-word, you get reaction, and some of it just isn't reasonable. Saying Memphis was overrated isn't the same thing as saying they weren't good. They were. Memphis was a good team that played a terrible game at a time of year when one terrible game ends your season.

But they were overrated. They were a 2-seed. The 3-seeds were Villanova, Kansas, Syracuse and Missouri. Having watched the tournament so far, can you really believe Memphis was better than any of those teams? I might even have seeded 4-seed Xavier ahead of them, having watched the Musketeers nearly take out Pitt last night. So the point is, while the Tigers were one of the top 15 teams in the country heading into the tournament, they weren't one of the top eight. Hence, overrated. According to the actual meaning of the word.

This is too easy, right? You watch all year as Memphis rolls through Conference USA without a challenge. You listen to the debates about whether it'd finish any better than sixth in the Big East. You ponder its tournament seeding, weighing the impressive lack of losses against the unimpressive quality of the competition against which the record was built. And then Memphis gets smacked in the mouth and knocked out in the Sweet 16 by a team from the Big 12 and you get to say, "See?? See?? We TOLD you they couldn't play with the teams from the real conferences! Oh-ver-RAY-ted!"

Leo Lyons is the Missouri Lions' second-leading scorer and rebounder. He is also the team leader in career suspensions. First it was over academic issues. Last January his suspension came from his involvement in a night club incident.

Lyons recently grabbed suspension number three. It wasn't exactly for anything major. If it were not for his previous problems, it probably would not have led to a suspension. However, Lyons was arrested after being pulled over for a traffic violation. Not for that incident, but because he failed to pay the fine for a previous traffic violation in 2006.

Missouri likes to play a press defense. Coach Mike Anderson is a Nolan Richardson disciple and has sought to bring "40 minutes of hell" to the Tiger defense. To play that way, though, you need to rotate players and experience in the backcourt to put the pressure on the opponent when bringing up the ball.

Missouri's backcourt experience took a big hit with guard Keon Lawrence asking for and receiving his release from his scholarship. Ostensibly, it was because the New Jersey native wanted to be closer to his family, but maybe not.

"It's not my teammates, and it's not the fans. That should tell you something," Lawrence said of his reasons for leaving.

He backed away from that statement later to the "need to be closer to home" chestnut. He is likely focusing on Big East schools.

Wide receiver Will Franklin has decided to pay respect to former Missouri star Damien Nash (pictured at right) by wearing his No. 2 jersey in 2007. Franklin had previously worn No. 3 for the Tigers.

"We were real close. I just wanted to pay my respects to my friend," said Franklin "I kind of made a name for myself as No. 3, but this is more about Nash than myself as an individual."

Nash died on February 24th after collapsing at a charity basketball game in suburban St. Louis. Franklin will be looking to honor Nash's legacy by building on the successful season he had in 2006. He led the Tigers with 826 receiving yards, was third on the team with 48 receptions, and also scored six touchdowns a year ago.

Tiger fans are just happy to have Franklin back after he decided to explore his NFL options after last season.

"They told me that I would be late second round - third round. Just knowing what we have coming back (to Missouri) can help me in the long run," Franklin said.

His return, coupled with a talented tight end duo in Martin Rucker and Chase Coffman, should give quarterback Chase Daniel plenty of options, as the Tigers look to improve on last year's 8-5 record.

The nation's second most-played rivalry game between Missouri and Kansas will have a new home in 2007 and 2008. This year's game originally set for November 24 at Memorial Stadium in Lawrence, will now be played at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City. The 2008 game will then be played at Arrowhead instead of Columbia, Missouri. For their efforts, the schools are guaranteed to receive at least $1 million from the game in each of the next two years.

While this isn't the first Big 12 game to be moved to Arrowhead – previously Nebraska played Oklahoma State in 1998 and in 2005 Kansas met Oklahoma at the NFL stadium – switching rivalry games to off-campus sites is a disturbing trend. At some point it becomes a question of how willing a school should be to trade a home-field advantage for a bigger payday. As one Kansas fan notes:

"KU has been great against Missouri at home in the last four years," he said. "We've had their number every time. We've killed them. I'd hate to see that momentum go away just because we want to play at Arrowhead."

But fans aren't the only ones disturbed by the move. Business owners in Lawrence are also upset and a recent economic study concluded the move will cost Kansas, Douglas County and the city of Lawrence a combined $713,000.

(via The Wizard of Odds)

In case you've missed the FanHouse's awesomely awesome and fantastic Spring Practice Questions, I've cobbled together the "Complete Series" for Big 12 teams.

Seriously, read these, folks. They're about football. And right now the sporting world isn't about football. And you're dying for more football. That's why you're here. To endure this choppy writing of mine. And read these Big 12 Spring Practice Questions. The complete series. Below.

Previously at the FanHouse:
Spring Practice Questions: Texas Tech Red Raiders
Spring Practice Questions: Iowa State Cyclones
Spring Practice Questions: Missouri Tigers
Spring Practice Questions: Kansas State Wildcats
Spring Practice Questions: Oklahoma Sooners
Spring Practice Questions: Texas A&M Aggies
Spring Practice Questions: Texas Longhorns
Spring Practice Questions: Colorado Buffaloes
Spring Practice Questions: Nebraska Cornhuskers

Last Year: (8-5, 4-4) Unranked.

Fans Are: Losing patience, if that's possible after a solid 8-5 season. Not much was expected of Missouri last year, but then the Tigers went out and won their first six games and very nearly a seventh behind a productive offense and stingy defense. Things fell apart soon thereafter as the Tigers went just 2-5 their last seven games including a last-second bowl loss to Oregon State. Coach Gary Pinkel's name has cooled a bit, but for several years he was a flight risk to more prime destinations.

Expectations: Don't repeat last year's heartbreak. Things were going good on both sides of the ball but both the offense and defense were never quite the same after a very winnable midseason 25-19 loss to Texas A&M. Junior quarterback Chase Daniel is one of the nation's best, so a quality offense is expected. The defense must rebuild but the hope is fresh faces can be more consistent than last year's sometimes dominant, sometimes porous unit.

Questions:

1. Can the offense carry this team?

Sure looks like it. A very good quarterback returns. He'll have both of his productive tight ends back. Tony Temple returns to help the running game. The starting line is loaded with juniors and seniors. This is about as good as it gets for an offensive coach and the Tigers back up their experience with a productive offensive scheme.

The goal for this spring should be to get everyone back on the same page and then start to look for next year's starters as these veterans have already proven themselves over the course of the last two seasons.

2. Can this season be a runaway success?

Absolutely. The schedule is difficult, but not daunting. The only elite opponents this year are Oklahoma and Nebraska and maybe Texas A&M. Every other game is categorically "winnable". Those games tend to come down to coaching and veteran poise. Last year Missouri won its winnable games in the first half of the season then lost them in the second half. If last year's players learned anything from those losses this season could be fairly special, in the range of 9-10 wins and a shot at the Big 12 Championship game if division rivals are taken care of.

3. Any closing thoughts?

Chase Daniel is awesome. He's a system quarterback, but he also has moxie and the ability to make plays with his feet. To date he's a better player than the more ballyhooed Brad Smith and should go down as one of the all time Missouri quarterbacks. Coach Pinkel is a quality coach but this season is fairly critical for him in that he must stay loose and avoid collapses like the one that happened last year. He is now the dean of Big 12 coaches and the last man to be named "dean" was soon pushed out the door (Iowa State's Dan McCarney).