Mizzou hires Mike Anderson

[thetorch]

With a former CUSA coach in place at Mizzou will a SLU-Mizzou matchup be easier to come by?

Anderson doesn't really scare me as far as competition for local recruits goes. He had a good class coming into to UAB, but hasn't exactly outrecruited any of the big schools in Alabama for local talent. I don't think he will come into St. Louis and set the world on fire.

Not a great hire, but not a poor one for Mizzou. We will see if the run and gun style will work in the Big 12.

[SLUDrew]

is that his style is the polar opposite of ours and that could be a major key in him stealing some recruits away.

[TheGoat]

Brad should be on the phone tonight asking for a home and home starting next season. With the relationship from CUSA, this shouldn't be hard to get done. I cannot wait till they are in STL next year(hopefully) and we kick the ###### out of them.

[former_d1]

Noland had about 5 players or less to ever graduate. Mizz needed someone that would come in, and in the public's eye, run a clean ship. Not saying Anderson is going to dirty, but hard to get away from the mess that Noland was here in Arkansas.

I also see him coming into the stl area and getting players. What kid is not going to want to go play run and gun forty minutes of hell ball?

There are still a lot of people here in Little Rock that still would like to have Anderson coach at U of A.

[courtside]

I think it is a very good hire for them.

[Pfunk]

I'm very happy with it. Our biggest problems in the past have been poor shots & poor D. I know Anderson stresses D so that should pick that up. The main question is will the current players buy in to his system or will we have to wait until he gets his own recruits in the program.

[tseugnekillib]

I don't recall ...... did Anderson sign any metro St. Louis area players while he was at UAB?

[dewey33]

When you speak of "run and gun"....the 40 minutes of hell style is not for all kids....even if they think they want to run.

The Arkansas/UAB style demands alot of effort on defense and plays 10-11 guys...if the recruits that are drawn to the "run and gun" style generally want to "get theirs". This style will have many interchangable parts....not a lot of stars.

The good thing about him getting the Mizzou job is that alot of the guys that Quin recruited are well suited for this system if they buy into it and play hard.

I also hope that he will restart the SLU series...

[tseugnekillib]

imo, a very good hire for Missouri. Anderson now has recruiting ties from his long stay at Arkansas (includes the Memphis area) and his time at UAB. I'm sure Anderson will look at players in Kansas City and St. Louis......but they will have to be better than some players in Memphis ,Alabama and across the deep South. There are no players from the state of Missouri on UAB's current roster.

[estiger]

I agree. I haven't posted here in a while, but I still visit regularly. I am hoping that Anderson will schedule a yearly home and home with the Billikens. As a Tiger fan who lives in St. Louis, I have always thought the MU-SLU game should be played. Back before there was a Braggin' Rights game between MU and Illinois, I remember coming home from MU at the end of the 1st semester of my sophomore year (December 1979) and going to and MU-SLU game at the Arena about 5 days before Christmas. MU had a great team that year with Larry Drew, Curtis Berry, Stipo, Sundvold and Ricky Frazier, but SLU had MU on the ropes the entire game (David Burns and Kelvin Henderson both played out of their minds). MU won in overtime. It was a great game, and as I recall there were 15,000 or so people there (many more than the number who attended the early Braggin' Rights games). I have always felt that an MU-SLU Braggin' Rights game would have been as big as the MU-Illini game. Maybe we could play each other every year on the Friday or Saturday after Thanksgiving on a home and home basis. It would be cool.

The games would be all out defensive wars once Anderson toughens up the MU players, which will probably take most of his first season. I am an admirer of Coach Soderberg. SLU struggles on offense sometimes (although I feel that the offense generally gets good looks at hoop), but SLU usually plays terrific all-out defense. You guys would probably have a big advantage in this game if it was played next year, but after that it would be a great rivalry game every year.

My other idea is to have a yearly tournament with MU, SLU, Missouri State, UMKC and SEMO. The loacation could be rotated between St. Louis and Columbia (the hell with Springfield). UMKC and SEMO would participate in a playin game, and the brackets would be rotated each year to keep it fair for all programs. Play it Thanksgiving weekend each year and sell equal numbers of tickets to the fans of each program. It would be an awesome kickoff to the basketball season every year.

I am really excited about MU hiring Anderson. It will be nice to have a coach who has a lot of substance and who brings pride rather than corner-cutting embarrassment to the program.

[SLUDrew]

He isn't at UAB now. He is at Mizzou. That probably has a little more appeal to area players, don't ya think?

[Schasz]

First of all, if Anderson does come to Columbia as Mizzou's new HC then I would agree that he is a good solid hire even if it does turn out to be Alden's swan song.

It would not surprise me if he continued to recruit the areas where he has had the most success; however, I am not naive enough to think that he won't also include the same areas to search for talent that our coaching staff searches. I would expect Anderson and his staff will have their faces at some of the same area HS gyms that we see our coaching staff in the future.

[TheGoat]

and why wouldn't they, there is plenty of good to great local talent to fill up any college roster. Here is to hoping that all the local recruits get put off by all of this nonsense going on down I-70 and enjoy the stability and upswing of our program.