re: Official Laugh at Mizzou thread

quote:

---

A lot of you seem to be hung up on the headline. "Mizzou hires Division II coach." I'll be honest, when I scrolled ESPN.com a few hours ago and saw a headline similar to that, it actually did finally sink in. We hired a Division II coach. We're Missouri, in the SEC, and we hired a Division II coach. That never happens. Bo Ryan coached at Wisconsin-Milwaukee for a few years before getting the Wisconsin job. Bruce Pearl went from Southern Indiana to Wisconsin-Milwaukee (coincidentally) and then to Tennessee. There seems to be some shame in that, some embarrassment from the fan base, that we weren't good enough to get a "real" coach, so we went to the Division II ranks. On some level, I do understand your concerns.

But what you're not realizing is that this is a once-in-a-lifetime scenario. Do you know who Jim Crutchfield is? I didn't before I googled him. He's the coach at West Liberty University in West Virginia, the team Kim Anderson and Central Missouri beat in the Division II title game this year. According to his biography, he was 241-45 entering this year, which makes him the winningest active coach in any level of college basketball. He apparently runs some crazy style that is highly entertaining and averages 100 points a game. Anyway, I'm digressing-- do you know who he is? No. Of course not. It's great that he's a Division II legend, but he didn't even play on the basketball team when he attended West Virginia, and he's only coached in high school and at West Liberty. You would never, ever see West Virginia hire him if Bob Huggins ever retired. You probably wouldn't even see Marshall University hire him. If he wanted to jump to D-I, he'd probably take a job in the Atlantic Sun or something. That's just how it works.

So, yes, under normal circumstances, Kim Anderson would probably make more sense at SEMO, or, in a stretch, Missouri State. But these aren't normal circumstances.

Think about this: Kim Anderson is the REIGNING Division II champion. As in, it JUST happened, this year. His alma mater, where he was a Big Eight player of the Year in the '70s, immediately has a job opening. He was an assistant here for a long time, he was an assistant at Baylor as well, and we're fresh off a coach who had no offensive philosophy, couldn't coach defense and constantly underachieved with NBA talent. Missouri fans are starving for good basketball again. It's what the fan base grew up accustomed to. So why the hell not hire Kim Anderson finally? He's from here. He played here. He coached here. He won a Division II national championship, for god's sake, a month ago! IN THE STATE OF MISSOURI!

These are not normal circumstances. If I had a choice, I'd take Gregg Marshall or Ben Howland. Sure. There's no use in denying that. But Mike Alden opted to take a bit of a risk. He knows his arse is on the line if this doesn't work out, but I really think it's going to. I watched Kim Anderson's first interview with Mizzou Network, and you can just tell, he's night-and-day different than Haith. He doesn't spew bull****. He's laid-back, calm, stoic, and exactly what we need.

As a younger fan who began watching Mizzou basketball at the beginning of Quin's tenure, I for one am really excited to actually be able to get a taste of the Norm Stewart era. To me, Norm Stewart is some sort of far-fetched fantasy, back in the "good 'ole days" that I don't have much of a connection to because I never watched those teams play live. But now, whether any of the fans of my generation realize it or not, we have live flesh and blood from the Norm Stewart era in control of our program. That's cool, don't you think? All these talks of the undefeated Big Eight seasons, epic games against Kansas, Dr. Detroit, and all that other stuff you hear about... it's back with Kim Anderson. And it's more than just nostalgia. It's a mindset. It was so frustrating watching Haith's teams, not because I had a problems with the players but because I had a problem with Haith. I had a problem with his complete lack of identity and the way we seemed to be regressing into this horrible, awful black hole with every passing road loss and embarrassing effort.

Kim Anderson is exactly what we needed right now. Kudos to Alden for making the tough call. And, on a side note, I really hope that I don't hear any grumblings that Mizzou fans pushed out a black coach in favor of a white coach. I understand why people might think that, but it's more a matter of pushing out the ****ty, slimy, underachieving coach who had all sorts of black clouds from Miami in favor of the old-fashioned, back-to-the-basics winner from our home state. I absolutely loved Mike Anderson for many of the same reasons I like Kim Anderson (although Mike wasn't from this state, obviously). CMA, before he left on bad terms, was very similar: defensive-minded, tough-nosed and blue-collar. I loved watching those teams. The dynamic defensive point guard duo of Zaire Taylor and J.T. Tiller, the sharing of the basketball, the team identity, the ASSISTS, FOR GOD'S SAKE (something Haith's teams never had in their box scores), even random guys like Butterfield and Volkus who, on the surface, should have been absolutely horrible and nowhere near Division I but managed to have some decent moments. Matt Lawrence got better. DeMarre Carroll and Leo Lyons got better. The players progressed as the years went on.

Kim Anderson is restoring some of what Mike Anderson built. And, probably most importantly, he's restoring what Norm Stewart originally built. It was very hard to watch much of the 2013-14 season, but I can't wait for November now.

---