Over the 32 days leading up to college basketball season, we’re profiling 32 different teams who could be in the NIT mix, aided in this effort by those who know them best (or the closest we could get). Today, Jim Root responds by email to our questions about Missouri.
Jim Root is the remaining third of Three Man Weave, Three Man Weave, an outlet which boasts one of the two best Chicago-based college basketball podcasts in the game (Apple Podcasts, Spotify). He also writes for The Almanac, which we believe is the most comprehensive written college basketball preview on The Internet™. He can be found on Twitter at @2ndChancePoints.
Here’s the full list of 32 for 32’s published so far, with links:
- Auburn, with the Sickos CBB Committee
- BYU, with Mitch Harper
- Cincinnati, with Zach Fries
- Dayton, with Tyler Cronin
- Duquesne, with Tristan Freeman
- Indiana, with Matt Cox
- Iona, with Sam Federman
- Iowa State, with Joe Stunardi
- James Madison, with Bennett Conlin
- Loyola, with Ky McKeon
- Michigan, with the Sickos CBB Committee
- Missouri, with Jim Root
- North Texas, with Harry Miers
- Northwestern, with John Templon
- Notre Dame, with Stuart McGrath
- Ohio State, with Mark Titus
- Oregon State, with Andy Dieckhoff
- Penn State, with DJ Bauer
- South Carolina, with Brian Rauf
- St. Bonaventure, with SBUnfurled
- St. John’s, with the Sickos CBB Committee
- Syracuse, with the Marshall Street Podcast
- Texas, with NIT Stu
- Utah, with Andrew Crowley
- Virginia Tech, with Ken Pomeroy
- Washington State, with Dave Andersen
- Wisconsin, with Cole Amundson
The Barking Crow: Going by kenpom and similar systems, Missouri was an NIT-quality team who played far too well to make the NIT. What hope is there of the Tigers correcting that this year?
Mizzou’s biggest issue last year was a sieve-like defense. They were small and fast, so they gambled a ton for steals defensively and bet they could outscore opponents. Most of the time that was true, and this year’s team might be even more potent from beyond the arc. The hope for improvement lies in the paint – can they rebound a little better, rather than be arguably the worst defensive rebounding team in the country? Does Connor Vanover add enough length at the rim to avoid getting dissected there? Some development from Aidan Shaw and contributions from freshmen Trent Pierce and Jordan Butler would help, too. I’m hopeful, but the onus will largely fall on the offense again.
TBC: Missouri’s NIT history is lacking. They’ve only won two NIT games in their history, and they’ve never made it past the second round. Some of this is that they’ve made the NCAA’s preferred tournament a lot of times, but even that seems to be a feature of these wild swings between Good Mizzou and Bad Mizzou. Why does Missouri in particular seem to ride such a rollercoaster between competitiveness and non-competitiveness?
Coaching hires have been a big part of it. Norm Stewart was a legend, but the follow-ups have been a hit (Mike Anderson) or big, big misses (Kim Anderson, Cuonzo Martin). I don’t really know how to classify Quin Snyder – should have been a home run, but he got derailed by, let’s say, off-court stuff. The lack of consistency (even just being an NIT team more often!) has been very frustrating for the fans.
TBC: Apologies if this is overdone, but I love the football school/basketball school question. Where does Missouri fall on that spectrum, and how does that inform how much fans do or don’t miss the Big 12?
I’m not sure Mizzou identifies strongly as one or the other. Both have been so up and down that neither has been able to truly imprint itself as THE team. I think the fanbase is starved for a great football team (this year?!?!), and the lack of a basketball Final Four hurts the legacy there. I *think*, all things equal, the school would lean football (SEC! SEC!), but it’s a pretty solid balance. We absolutely miss the rivalries of the Big 12 though – Kansas, K State, the Oklahomas…even Colorado and Nebraska had some epic battles with us. Some fans are super pleased with the money and security of the SEC (which makes sense), but generally, the historical Big 12/Big 8 associations and rivalries are still rooted deep.
TBC: Speaking generally, we see three kinds of programs in the NIT, in terms of school and fan support. Some never get support. Some get support the whole way through. Some only get support once they’ve won a few games. How enthusiastically would you expect Missouri to support an NIT run?
Dennis Gates still has a ton of cache with the fanbase. My guess is that Mizzou would get very enthusiastic support throughout an NIT run – Gates is the great hope of the program, he’s reinvigorated the passion for hoops after Cuonzo neutered it. If the NCAA miss is super narrow/controversial, there would be some bitterness, but I think right now, people are just glad to support a fun basketball team that has actual short- and long-term upside.
TBC: Dennis Gates’s tenure, from my far-off perspective, seems to be going really well just over one year in. Is that an accurate read on how the Missouri ecosystem feels? What role did Cleveland State’s near-upset of Xavier in the 2022 NIT First Round play in Gates landing the job?
Oh yeah, Gates has been a home run hire (along with top assistant CY Young, a recruiting ace). The immediate turnaround via the transfer portal, winning the first NCAA Tournament game since 2010 (!!!), stacking a loaded 2024 recruiting class already – he’s a king in Columbia. I’m not sure how much that near-upset factored in…from my perspective, his quick resurrection of Cleveland State from the depths (he got hired in late July, 2019, after what amounted to a player mutiny) was the kind of “build from scratch” blueprint that Mizzou needed. Getting to The Big Dance was probably the cherry on top of his sterling rebuild resume.
TBC: Who is Missouri’s dream NIT opponent? Whom would Missouri least like to see in the NIT?
Does Kansas count? Because that means KU somehow is in the NIT? More realistically, any former Big 12 foe would light a fire under the fanbase. UCLA would be a good one too (revenge for Tyus Edney, and that’s a young team that could realistically stumble to the NIT if they don’t get their international guys eligible). The nightmare matchup is Norfolk State – the ghosts of the 2012 tournament still haunt us – but the NIT’s DESPICABLE decision to exclude regular season champions may have derailed that as a possibility.
TBC: Dare we dream of a Missouri NIT title?
ALWAYS dare to dream! Given how experienced the team is + Gates’ ability to motivate, if they end up in the NIT, I think they’d be a formidable foe with so many fifth-year guys wanting to go out on a high note.
