My Mizzou Tigers have been invited to the Big Dance twenty-five times in history and have never made it to the final four.\u00a0 Is this the year they break through?<\/p>\n
Their bracket assignment this time around falls on a two line in the soft West region.\u00a0 Many Tiger fans initially interpreted the seeding as a snub.\u00a0 Turns out it\u2019s a gift, especially if you believe the public comments of the NCAA tournament selection committee chairman.<\/p>\n
Jeff Hathaway said the committee viewed Mizzou as the weakest of the four #2 seeds.\u00a0 He went out of his way to cite Missouri\u2019s weak non-conference slate to defend that view against polls that put the Tigers in the top four nationally.\u00a0 Even if Hathaway believes what he said, it doesn\u2019t jibe to put the weakest 2 seed in the same region as the team universally viewed as the weakest 1 seed.<\/p>\n
If you\u2019re rooting for the Tigers, you just let go of the Hathaway nonsense and run with it.\u00a0 Six games in 18 days.\u00a0 Two each in Omaha, Phoenix and New Orleans if all goes well.<\/p>\n
My concern with this Tiger team is its lack of bench depth.\u00a0 Michael Dixon is the only non-starter who plays meaningful minutes.\u00a0 Dixon is a great sixth man, but he\u2019s limited mostly to the perimeter.\u00a0 When big man Ricardo Ratliffe needs a blow, the Tigers are all small.\u00a0 Fast, yeah.\u00a0 But a bit too reliant on shot-making and the three ball.\u00a0 It\u2019s not the classic formula for success in a competition that has often rewarded board hogs and defense.<\/p>\n
On the flipside, the six guys who led this team to the conference title appear to have great chemistry.\u00a0 They score lots of easy baskets using the same frenetic push on the gas pedal implemented by previous head coach Mike Anderson.\u00a0 They make free throws.\u00a0 Scoring leader Marcus Denmon is a 90-percenter from the line.\u00a0 When many of the other elite teams throttled down in their conference tournaments to save gas for the Big Dance, Mizzou seemed hell bent on exiting the Big 12 with a tourney title despite being banged up a bit.\u00a0 They\u2019re a tough group and they appear to like each other.<\/p>\n
Haith still hasn\u2019t publicly explained his deep entanglement with a slimeball booster at Miami but obviously has done a lot with a team that could have been dispirited by Anderson\u2019s bolt.<\/p>\n
I can\u2019t pick Mizzou to win the whole thing but I think their path to the final four makes it a decent shot they\u2019ll get there.\u00a0 That\u2019s not a bold statement for sure.\u00a0 The Post\u2019s Lenn Robbins has Mizzou winning the championship.<\/p>\n
For the record, Mizzou made the tournament three of the four seasons I was on that campus.\u00a0 Each time, they were ousted in the first round (lost to UAB in \u201886, Xavier in \u201987 and Rhode Island in \u201988).<\/p>\n
-The venue for Mizzou\u2019s first two tourney games this year is the CenturyLink Center in Omaha.\u00a0 There will likely be lots of empty seats for the MU-Norfolk State\u00a0game\u00a0in a building that holds 17,500.\u00a0 Thousands of tickets for the Omaha sub-regional were sold to Creighton season ticket holders and that team will be playing in the Big Dance in Greensboro the same afternoon Mizzou is playing in Omaha.\u00a0 It\u2019s also believed many tickets\u00a0are in the hands of\u00a0KU fans who played a hunch the Jayhawks would open in Omaha.\u00a0 Kansas does indeed play in Omaha Friday, but will appear in the second game of the night session.\u00a0 Since NCAA tournament tickets are typically sold in\u00a0three-session bundles, it’s customary for some fans to skip a game or two on a day with four contests.\u00a0 Of course, easy access by buyers and sellers to the secondary market will reallocate some of that stock but it\u2019s hard to picture Omaha being a beehive when Mizzou tips off Friday afternoon.<\/p>\n
-Iona\u2019s at-large inclusion in the field of 68 isn\u2019t outrageous but Northwestern is a stronger team whether one uses the computer metrics at the committee\u2019s disposal or not.\u00a0 Is strength of schedule as highly valued as the selectors want you to believe?\u00a0 Northwestern slugged and fought valiantly through\u00a0 the 21st<\/sup> best SOS in the land while Iona\u2019s mid-major slate had them ranked #144.\u00a0 Northwestern\u2019s overtime loss to Minnesota in the Big Ten tournament left the Wildcats with a 8-11 record in conference games.\u00a0 I understand the unwritten rule that sub-500 league records merit automatic exclusion but inviting this Northwestern team would have made for a better tournament.<\/p>\n -Let\u2019s assume Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim had an inkling before Sunday night that his program would pull the plug on Fab Melo\u2019s season and waited until Tuesday to announce it.\u00a0 If that\u2019s the case, I don\u2019t believe there\u2019s anything crooked about the decision.\u00a0 Syracuse earned the one seed off its body of work and protected it by keeping a lid on Melo\u2019s self-made predicament.\u00a0 You can bet the committee would have thought long and hard about downgrading Cuse had it known Melo would stay home.\u00a0 Committees over the years have penalized teams for losing players to injury late in the season.\u00a0 They likely would have held the Melo news against the Cuse.\u00a0 That said, Boeheim\u2019s tactic to retain the one seed will only help so much.\u00a0 Melo\u2019s banishment makes it impossible for Syracuse to win this tournament.\u00a0 He\u2019s that important.\u00a0 He\u2019s a rare specimen on the defensive side and he\u2019s gonna be a big-time NBA player.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" My Mizzou Tigers have been invited to the Big Dance twenty-five times in history and have never made it to the final four.\u00a0 Is this the year they break through? Their bracket assignment this time around falls on a two … Continue reading