Who is that man on the Tigers sideline, and what have you done with Coach Mike Anderson?

 

Someone please put out Coach Mike Anderson’s picture on a milk carton, because he has gone missing.  I don’t know where he went or who took him, but I am 99% sure he is not coaching the Missouri Tigers right now.  And frankly, I hope he stays gone because I like this new coach a whole lot better.

 

Don’t look now, but our beloved Tigers might be Dancing in a month, and frankly I cannot be more excited. Surprised? Don’t be.  Yes, I am the one who wrote that Mike Anderson was not the right guy for Missouri, and right now there is a possibility that I might be wrong (we’ll get to that later). When you give an opinion about something, there is always a chance that it is wrong. That’s why it is an opinion.  Like I said the first part of CMA post, I hope I am a wrong about CMA because that means the Tigers are playing well and basketball program is on the rise. 

 

Tigers now stand at 6-2, right in the thick of the race for a first round bye in Oklahoma City, and a probably tourney bid if they win four more conference game. That being said, I still think the old CMA is not the right guy for the job if he continues to play the 40 MoH. Now, I am ready for the “You are a freaking idiot” posts or worse to come rolling in from the loyal Atomicteeth readers, and maybe they are well deserved. Maybe. But, before you go writing a bunch of nasty grams to AT c/o Boo Radley, hear me out.

 

Like all of the other members of Atomicteeth, I share a passion for all things Missouri Tigers.  I spent seven of the best years of my life on that campus (not all in undergrad, but that would have been cool), and the success of Missouri athletics matters to me way more than it should.  Nothing will make me happier than to see us playing in the Tournament.  College basketball has just not been the same for me since we lost in overtime to Marquette and some guy name Dwayne Wade.

 

Unfortunately, work and life got in the way of posting Part III about point guards (that part is still coming) and who our next coach should be for the Tigers. That next coach part is probably moot if we make the tourney,  and it appears to me that we already have a new coach:  the all new and improved  Mike Anderson.   

 

Over the last week or so, it has become very, very clear to me:  Mike Anderson loves the Atomicteeth website. He obviously has Atomicteeth as one of his favorites on the internet like all good Missouri fans should.  He clearly read my post. Now, he may have posted his thoughts as Jorge who very nicely told me that it was the stupidest thing he had read in a long time. But maybe CMA/Jorge was just mad, and simply wrote with his heart.  But maybe, just maybe, he started to consider my opinion.

 

That is the only possible explanation for what I have seen lately.  I am pretty sure that while surfing the web looking at all of the negative things that we experts were saying about him, he came across our little website and found my article.  Did the light come on for him?  Did he realize that maybe his mentor may not have had all the answers?  Because the style the Tigers have played in the last few weeks is not the 40 MoH that we have come to expect from CMA.  Some of that might not be true, but one thing seems to be: Mike Anderson has changed his style.  

 

The premise of my anti-Anderson rant was that Mike Anderson was not the right guy for Missouri because his 40 MoH style of play would not lead to success in the Big 12.  I stand by that opinion, and frankly I think if you asked CMA about it, he would agree.  Obviously not the part that “He” is not the right guy, but the part about the style. What I didn’t count on when I wrote the article was that CMA had the ability to change his coaching style in order to win games.  I guess if Gary Pinkel can change, so can CMA.

 

While I would like to think that I was the cause of CMA’s transformation into a Big 12 basketball, that is likely not the case.  I would point to the loss at KSU as the turning point in this season.    In the five previous games, CMA unleashed the 40MoH and the results were good.  Three blow out home wins, a close win on the road, and an inexcusable loss at Lincoln.   But let’s be honest, none of those teams are sniffing March. I am sure Anderson chalked the NU loss to just a bad game.   I heard several interviews on the radio with CMA where he would say, it’s not about the other team, it’s about Missouri, which to me meant “Our style will win the game for us, no matter who we play”

 

Then came the KSU game. He unleashed the hounds, and the hounds got taken to the wood shed.  Clemente and Pullen killed the press, allowing their big guys to get lay ups and open looks for shooters.  While I don’t think Frank Martin is a genius, he sure had his kids ready for the press.  I really think it may have opened CMA’s eyes to the fact that he cannot rely on the 40MoH all the time.  It works in spurts, but at some point you have to play solid half court offense and defense.   

 

We saw glimpses of this against Baylor, but to be honest, Baylor can’t guard anybody.  Scott Drew reminds me of Quin Snyder  in that he gets the players to come there, but he doesn’t get them to play D.  What we saw was a much more organized style of offense and defense, and when I watched the game I thought maybe things were changing.

There is no better example of the changes than last night.  Had we come out in the 40MoH, I think we get blown out last night.  Texas would have killed the press. That’s what good teams with good guards do to a press.  When we got down 12, I grew concerned that CMA was going to turn up the full court pressure, and this thing would get out of hand in a hurry. 

But to his credit, he didn’t and that’s why we won.  I can count on two hands how many times we went to full court pressure. He used it in spots to change the look, but we never went full 40MoH. We would score, and then for the most part fall back into a half court man to man, or a “I can’t believe my eyes” ZONE.  A trapping zone in fact, which was brilliant.  With Damion Jones being injured, the only player on that team that could beat you from the outside was Abrams.  You find the shooter, make the other bums try to score, and you win the game.  That’s just what the Tigers did.  Kudos to CMA and his staff for coming up with a plan to win the game while abandoning the style he knows and loves.  That my friends, is good coaching and it really opened my eyes. 

 

Now the Tigers sit at a solid 6-2, good for 3^rd place in the conference. Did I think the Tigers would be in this position? Nope. My prediction was 8-8 at the start of the year, and at this point,   I would have told you they would have been at 4-4, with losses to Baylor, and at OSU, KSU, and Texas.   My prediction would have been based upon the guard play of those schools and my theory that the 40 MoH would not have worked against those teams.  I would have predicted the wins based upon the fact that we have better players than NU, ISU, CU, and TTU and the press would be too much for them.  As you will remember, I thought the 40MoH would work in those instances.  So I was off by two games, although two of the wins came down to last second shots, as did one of the losses.  It’s not an exact science, but clearly I was wrong.

 

But, am I wrong about CMA?  Perhaps.  Let’s hope so.  A lot will obviously depend on how the Tigers finish with several tough games left on the schedule.   What I have seen is that the Tigers clearly have more talent than most of the teams in the conference.  But, I would also point to the fact that the conference itself is down, and there are maybe 4 teams that are NCAA tournament worthy, including the Tigers. While I am willing to concede that if Anderson gets us to the Tournament, he deserves an extension.  Let’s just hope the Old Mike Anderson does not come back anytime soon.