As the Autumn leaves fall, and we experience our yearly Big 12 Title beat down at the hands of the Sooner, its time to start thinking about basketball. Judging by the crowds at Mizzou Arena, not too many people have given much thought to Coach Mike Anderson and the Tigers, and I am no exception.  I want to, but I just can’t do it.

Part of my apathy toward the Tigers, is that I don’t think Mike Anderson is the right man for the job.  That’s a whole other post that I am working on, but basically I don’t think his system or ability to recruit will work in the Big 12.  I hope I am dead wrong about that because we need Tiger basketball to be good again.

Remember when we kind of kicked ass?  When Stormin Norman roamed the sidelines, and the likes of Frazier, Chievous, Skinny Doug Smith, AP, Sunvold, and Stipo took the court?   We never got to the Final Four, but we won conference championships and were ranked Number #1 on several occasions.   Hearnes would be packed, every game was an event.   But then something happened that changed all that. 

There are moments or events in every college sports program that shape the future of a program, whether it is for the good or the bad of the program.  I love reflecting on those moments thinking “what if.” As I wrote in “The Great Santino”  Riccio to Sesay erased the bitter football memories of the Stull, Smith, and partial Pinkel era, and hopefully put us back on the college football map as a team consistently ranked in the top 25.  For basketball, it has all gone downhill since what I term “the moment.”

What is that moment in basketball?  Was it Tyus Edney?  Maybe, but I don’t think so.  That game would have only put us in the Sweet Sixteen, and the chances of that team going much further than that were remote. 

Was it the firing of Norm?  I don’t think so. Norm was on the downside, and while I still think he could coach, he would not have been able to recruit the kind of talent needed to compete at that time.

Was it when Mike Alden apparently walked into the wrong hotel room near the Kansas City Airport, and chose Quin Snyder over Bill Self?  A very good chance.  But I often wonder if things would have worked out okay if something else had not happened.  While I was a Self supporter, I had no problem with the Quin hire.  The guy played point guard for a Final Four team at Duke. He coached at Duke under the Polish genius, and he had been the lead recruiter for all of the guys that went to Duke during that time.  He was the #1 assistant for the number #1 team in America.   He was the “IT” guy.

That all sounded good until the world came crashing down 6 years later. By the time he left Mizzou, the program was at its lowest point in history. Yet I still think he and the Tiger program would have survived if one event had not happened: Keyon Dooling leaving early for the NBA. 

Keyon Dooling was good.  Really good. I think he could have been great. He was a fantastic college point guard (NBA apparently agreed), and it is a known fact that most important position in college basketball is the point guard.   Look at all of the NCAA Tournament winners or the last 35 years, and they all had a great point guard.  It’s a guard driven game.

Keyon’s bio Courtesy of NBA.com:

Played two seasons at the University of Missouri before becoming an early entry candidate and averaged 12.1 points, 3.4 assists, 2.4 rebounds and 28.1 minutes while shooting 41.1 percent from the floor, 33.8 percent from three-point range and 73.3 percent from the foul line in 59 games…as a sophomore in 1999-00 he was named Second Team All-Big 12, First Team NABC District 12 and was voted Missouri’s Most Outstanding Player after leading the Tigers in scoring, assists and blocks…averaged 15.3 points, 3.6 assists, 2.7 rebounds and 31.7 minutes as a sophomore while leading Missouri to the 2000 NCAA Tournament…scored in double figures in 26 of the 31 games, including seven games with at least 20 points…scored a career-high 25 points on three occasions…appeared in 28 games as a freshman in 1998-99 and averaged 8.7 points, 3.0 assists, 2.1 rebounds and 24.1 minutes…was the runner-up for the Big 12 Freshman of the Year Award in 1999 after being named Honorable Mention All-Big 12 by the coaches and media…was named to the Big 12 All-Freshman Team and was also named to the Big 12 All-Academic First Team…was twice selected as the Big 12 Freshman of the Week.

Why was Keyon leaving early so devastating for MU?  Because there has never been a point guard worth a crap since he left.  Nada.  I will challenge anyone to present me with proof that there has been.  Had Dooling stayed for two more years, I think the last 6 years would have been a whole lot different.   Let me say, I don’t blame the kid for leaving.  If you are going to be a lottery pick, you have to go.  I just don’t think Quin was ready for it. He had recruited Wesley Stokes, but I am sure he never thought Stokes would be ready until his junior season.  Keyon was going to be his guy, the one to take us to the mountain top.

To be fair, Quin Snyder was a horrible coach.  No argument can be made to make me think otherwise.  But, there have been a lot of terrible coaches succeed in sports because they have talented players.   Had Keyon stayed, I think a lot more talented players would have played at MU under Snyder. 

Keyon was only a sophomore and basically had only played one year as a starter, and you could see by the end of his 2nd year he was going to be really good. Hell, the NBA agreed with me. In the Duke/Quin type of offense he would have dominated.  Watching Duke the last 25 years, the one constant they had every year they were a great team was a point guard:   Dawkins, Snyder, Avery, Williams, even Wojo.  They have sucked the last couple years because Paulus sucks. 

His junior season would have been 2000-01 and Gilbert, Rush and Grawer would have had open looks all day long because no one could stop Keyon from getting to the lane.   The big guys (AJ, TJ, Travon,) would have had someone to get them the ball.  Paulding could have slashed and dashed, and more importantly, Wesley Stokes could have learned how to play point guard.  

That team would have been way better than an eighth seed they got in the tournament. They would have competed for the conference championship, been ranked the whole year.  National publicity, a media darling.   Great team, good young coach, blah blah blah.

I loved Grawer, but he was not a big time point guard.   He should have been coming off the bench providing shooting and leadership.  Stokes could have learned from Dooling, and not Grawer.  More importantly, other high school point guards would have seen what could be done as a point guard under Quin and would have looked a lot harder at Mizzou. Guys will want to come to your school if they know a point guard will be there to get them the ball.

His senior season would have been the Elite Eight year.  That team was every bit as talented as KU, OU and Maryland that year…they just didn’t have a point guard.  Stokes was not ready to lead that team, and Gilbert had to run the point which we all know is not what CG needed to be doing.   I will argue until my dying day that the 2001-2002 team would have played for a National Title. While the talent was there to get to the Elite Eight, Keyon would have taken them to the promised land.  We would have been an elite program that could have recruited a big time point guard talent from the high school ranks. 

But Keyon left and there has never been a point guard since.  Stokes never learned to play point guard until he transferred when Quin made the fatal error of bringing in Ricky Clemons. Jimmy McKinney was coming in, but he was no point guard.  Quin knew he had the talent the next year to get back to the mountain top if he had a point guard, and Stokes was not the answer.  But he couldn’t recruit the top flight high school point guard, so he sold his soul for Ricky Clemons, and he and Missouri Basketball were never the same.  

Had Keyon Dooling stayed, I don’t think we would have ever heard of Ricky Clemons, his love for Roots, ATV accidents, the Krackers, Quin’s indiscretions, or that he really liked Klieza’s girlfriend.  Quin simply caved under the expectations.

Had Dooling stayed, Quin would still be coaching,  and while the program might not have been a perennial top 10 team, I think we would have been a heck of a lot better than we were during the last six years.  Even if he had gotten fired, the job sure as hell would have been a lot more attractive to a big time coach (no offense CMA but that is not you yet).

I want to believe we have turned the corner.  I have decided to make a conscious effort to watch the new Tigers and support CMA.  CMA has them playing hard, and Sunday was a great start to a possible Tournament Bid.  I am going to hope it is the start of great things to come, and I can forget about what might have been if Keyon had stayed.