The 7-0 Missouri Tigers travel outside of its state borders for the first time tonight to face the 5-2 Villanova Wildcats in the Jimmy V Classic at Madison Square Garden in New York City.

Mizzou has been steamrolling opponents thus far, highlighted by a 39-point victory over the then-18^th ranked Cal Bears, the largest margin of victory over a ranked opponent in school history. But despite its two losses, Nova should give Mizzou a good challenge.

First and foremost, the matchup to watch will be in the low post. Mizzou's 6-8, 240 lb center Ricardo Ratliffe will have his hands full all night with Villanova big man, 6-10, 255 lb Mouphtaou Yarou. Cardo has been hitting on all cylinders this season, leading the Big 12 in field goal percentage at 74.1% while shooting an amazing 91.7% (22-24) over his past three games. Yarou, meanwhile, is second on the Wildcats in scoring, averaging 16 ppg and averaging 8.4 rpg, good for fifth best in the Big East.

On the perimeter, Nova is guided by team scoring leader, and potential NBA lottery pick Maalik Wayns and backcourt mate, another potential NBA pick, Dominic Cheek. Wayns and Cheek average 18.7 and 12.9 ppg and will keep the guard-heavy Mizzou defense on its toes.

Mizzou will counter with hot shooting Marcus Denmon, coming off a 7-10 shooting from behind the arc in route to a career-best 31 point performance in Mizzou's victory over NW State on Friday night. The game prior, it was Kim English who scored a career high 29 while also shooting 7-10 from three.

Vegas lists Mizzou as a five point favorite and Jeff Sagrain thinks Mizzou will win in a 13-point route. If Mizzou can even stay half as hot from the field as they have been so far, I feel Mizzou will win the game with a point differential somewhere in the middle of those predictions.

The game tips at 6pm CST on ESPN.

They are a collective 7-0, but this will be the first true test for either the Missouri Tigers or the Notre Dame Fighting Irish when they square off in the semifinal game of the CBE Classic from Kansas City, MO.

With an undersized team, mainly playing in a four guard set, Missouri has been using sharp shooting to cruise through their first three games, hitting on 29 of 60 (48.3%) from behind the arc, good for seventh nationally.

Notre Dame has won their four games without Tim Abromaitis, their second leading scorer last season. Abromaitis was suspended for violation of the NCAA rules governing redshirting and was forced to sit for the first four games after playing in two exhibition games to start the 2008-09 season. According to NCAA rules, only freshman can play in exhibition games before redshirting and part of the NCAAs agreement to grant Abromaitis a fifth year was for him to sit to start this season.

Abromaitis should be able to control this game with his inside-outside play. He is 2 inches taller and 40 pounds heavier than Mizzou's Kim English and can play further outside than equally sized Ricardo Rattliffe's comfort zone, so he is a matchup nightmare for the Tigers.

The key to this one - and probably every big time Mizzou game forward - will be Mizzou's guards. If they can continue to hit open shots then the Tigers could beat most teams on most nights. But we all know that when teams who rely too heavily on outside shooting get cold, the results can be disastrous.

One thing that I've noticed thus far with Mizzou is that they are passing the ball around the perimeter, but aren't doing much dribble-drive penetration, and the stats show it. You'd think that a guard heavy offense with a spark plug like Phil Pressey would utilize whatever it could to find an open man, and dribble-drive would collapse the D, leaving Kim English, Marcus Denmon or another of the Tiger sharpshooters open on the wing. Maybe it is the level of competition they have been playing, maybe it is their hot shooting, but that is something the Tigers could utilize to their advantage at some point... maybe tonight?

How will the Missouri Tigers fare this season? What will their overall and Big 12 records be? Will they make a postseason tournament?

We'll answer all those questions, plus guess which teams they'll upset and which will upset them after The Jump.

Continue reading this post »

The Missouri tigers are the coaches' fourth best conference team, and we should be able to get a good sense of how they'll be during a moderately tough pre-conference schedule which includes teams from the SEC or Pac-12, Big East and Big 10.

This also might be the last time Mizzou faces any of their longtime conference-mates, if all the rumblings about a move next year to the SEC pans out in time.

Our projections will go up tomorrow, but see the complete Missouri Tigers 2011-12 basketball schedule after the Jump.

Continue reading this post »

Check these links, then come back each day for updated information. If you have any links of interest, post them in the comments section or send them to me for inclusion tomorrow.

	KANSAS JAYHAWKS kusports.com - Danny Manning runs walk-on hopefuls through drills
	KANSAS ST. WILDCATS Manhattan Mercury - KSU men's basketball to host public scrimmage on Saturday kstatesports.com - Men's Basketball Holds Annual Media Day
	OKLAHOMA SOONERS Tulsa World - OU's Kruger already making an impact on players
	OKLAHOMA ST. COWBOYS Cowboys Ride For Free - 2011 Oklahoma State Basketball Preview, Part 1 Continued okstate.com - Basketball Hosts Special Olympians
	MIZZOU TO THE SEC? KC Star - MU timeline: Deaton leaves for India next week
	HERE WE GO AGAIN - BIG 12 REALIGNMENT AND/OR EXPANSION AND/OR RETRACTION Columbia Daily Tribune - Substitutes for Tigers are on deck KC Star - Red River rivalry seeps into Big 12 expansion talks
	OTHER BIG 12 BASKETBALL NEWS Searching For Billy Edelin - Big 12 Basketball Preview: A wide open league for the taking
	OTHER BASKETBALL NEWS Rock Chalk Talk - Kansas Basketball 50 in 50, No. 6: Picking Every Conference Champion Part Deux The Big Lead - You Should Probably Read This Story About Dirty College Basketball Recruiting ... and they use Perry Jones' picture int he article... hmmm

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To be Frank Haith or not to be Frank Haith, that is the question.

To Be Frank Haith
Haith is boarding a Mizzou train stocked with experience. When Haith was announced as the head basketball coach, succeeding Mike Anderson, he took over a roster that had six of last season's top scorers returning and 90% of last season's rebounding coming back. Six seniors were expected to log significant playing time and the two other main contributors were Flip Pressey and Mike Dixon, two of the most dynamic players on the team. Unfortunately for Haith, he lost forward Laurence Bowers before the season began, but regardless, he has a boat load of talent coming back and should have the talent to contend for a conference title.

Not To Be Frank Haith
It has been a rough ride for Haith, and the guy hasn't even coached a game at Mizzou yet.

First there was his hire. Mizzou faithful were convinced that Purdue head man Matt Painter was going to leave his alma mater for Columbia. After Painter used Mizzou as leverage for a pay raise, there were many well-known names on Mizzou fans' lips. Shaka Smart and Ben Jacobson were the headliners, but the name nobody was talking about was Haith. During seven years as head coach of the Miami Hurricanes, Haith amassed a 43-69 conference record - 129-101 overall - and had only been to one NCAA tournament.  Mizzou AD Mike Alden, though, saw potential in Haith (he had a Big 12 background after seven years as an assistant at Texas and Texas A&M) and hired him four days after Painter negged the Tigers. Mizzou fans were stunned.

But not as stunned as they were when the now infamous Yahoo! Sports report came out about purported widespread payments to players at Miami. A report in which Haith was singled out.

Questions that used to swirl about whether Haith would make it past his first season as head coach were now shifted to wonder whether he'd be on the sidelines his first Mizzou game. Since the report, Alden has stepped in and said that Mizzou was cooperating with NCAA investigators and unless they find something concrete, Haith will be Mizzou's coach for the long term.

So on one hand you have a guy coming in with the prospect of a conference championship. On the other hand you have a guy already muddled in controversy. Coach Haith is the only one who can write the end of this story. Mizzou fans are hoping for a fairytale.

Missouri Tigers senior Kim English has a smile that can light up a room. He is a media darling and his @Englishscope24 account is a must follow for anyone on Twitter.

But I think much of the attention that Kim attracts - and deservedly so considering the reasons above - went to his head last season.

During his sophomore year, English led Mizzou in scoring, putting in 14 ppg, averaged 3.4 rpg and shot 37% from beyond the arc.

Then the spotlight hit. He was a preseason Wooden Award candidate and on the honorable mention Preseason All Big 12 team and his numbers slipped.

He dropped from 14 ppg to 10. His 3pt% dipped to 36.6% and his rebounding went down to 3.1 rpg. Maybe these aren't dramatic decreases, but from ones sophomore year to junior year, numbers should be going up, not down.

It seemed like Kim felt that he needed to be the leader. It felt like he would take ill-advised shots, because a basket at that moment would excite the crowd. He was influenced too much by what could happen around the court, than what was happening on it.

During the course of last season, I was talking to the Nuggets beat writer for the Denver Post, a Mizzou alumni, and had a wild theory that English's summer workouts at Carmelo Anthony's gym in their hometown of Baltimore did more to harm Kim's game than help it.

I theorized that the attention and exposure to the premier players in the world got English wide-eyed, and inflated his self-worth. He is a humble man, don't get me wrong, but I think his game suffered because of who he was rubbing elbows with. (He attended Melo's wedding).

I think the opposite happened this offseason. After Mizzou was ousted from the NCAA tournament, English declared for the NBA Draft, and subsequently withdrew his name after competing in a pre-draft camp. Later this summer he was a finalist for a spot on Team USA for the World University Games, and ultimately was one of the last cut.

I now have a wild theory that this rejection will benefit English's game. The "whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger" idea.

Last summer it was Champaign and caviar. This summer, Diet Rite and Cheetos.

English is smart and I think that he understands the difference between this offseason and last. The fact that his teammate Marcus Denmon was selected for Team USA and is now a preseason All Big 12er takes some of the self-induced pressure off Kim to be the leader, and he can revert to sophomore year English, where he didn't expect to the be the star and could play within the flow of the game.

English is a man who rises when people tell him ‘no' and he heard that this summer. Because of that, Mizzou fans will be yelling ‘yes' when Kim has the ball.

Missouri's departure from the Big 12 to the SEC could be announced some time this week, according to numerous sources. As long as there are no unforeseen hurdles, Mizzou has the nine presidential votes required for admission to the SEC. On Friday, the Missouri Board of Curators authorized Chancellor Brady Deaton to move forward with the realignment. The Big 12 Board of Directors is meeting in Dallas today, where Mizzou is expected to withdraw from the conference. Deaton is personally attending the meeting, adding fuel to the rumor that the Big 12 breakup is happening today.

How will Mizzou fans feel about their not-so-Southern-or-Eastern school moving to the Southeastern Conference? Will the Tigers leave immediately or wait a  year? Who will the Big 12 consider to replace MU? Will this kick off a new round of musical chairs? There's a lot to discuss. Leave your thoughts in the comments and check back here for updates.