Each Wednesday, PowerMizzou.com publisher Gabe DeArmond and recruiting editor Pete Scantlebury will answer questions from subscribers in our Tiger Mailbag. This feature will allow for longer, more in-depth answers than you may get on the message board on a daily basis. To have your question in next week's mailbag, send an email to Gabe at powermizzou@gmail.com. On to this week's inquiries:

PaulEC asks: In your opinion with recruits, are they more truthful to the coaches than with people in your profession? It would seem with decommitments that these players have developed a relationship with the coaches and when they start to wain in their commitments they might not want to tell the coaches everything that is going on. Curious if you have any info regarding recruits that are not always the most truthful.

PS: Maybe Gabe can answer this better (or differently) but it seems like, whenever a kid decommits, they almost always inform the coaching staff first. I can't think of many situations in which I've talked to a kid who said he decommitted, but when I asked if he talked to his previous team's staff, says he didn't tell them. I'm sure cases like that do happen, but almost always the recruits tell the coaches first.

MizzouDominate asks: So what's YOUR take on the Mizzou bball attendence or lack thereof?? 150,000 people in and around COMO, 30,000 students. It can't all be Haith or last seasons bad ending. Mike Anderson went to an Elite 8 and won the most games in school history and the following year was abismal as usual. So is it a mixture of ticket prices/donation requirements, bad opponents, and time of the games??? it's not a KC/STL problem, its a COMO problem IMO. People seem to just not care.

GD: My take is that Missouri just doesn't have a very rabid basketball fan base. Most of the fans who get season tickets do so largely to be able to attend the Kansas game (it will be interesting to see what happens to season ticket sales when that game is no longer on the schedule). It's not Columbia problem, a mid-MO problem, a KC problem or a St. Louis problem. It's a Missouri fan problem. I understand some of the reasons. People were mad the way Norm was shown the door. They were turned off by the Quin-Clemons deal. There were some down years. The schedule isn't good enough. They don't like the Haith hire. The school doesn't advertise or market games well enough. Those are all reasons people give. And it's fine. There's even some legitimacy to most of them (not the marketing deal. If you have a computer and know what Google or Yahoo! is, you can find the schedule as long as your IQ is in double digits). But the fact is, just as in football, Missouri fans can always find a reason to stay away. To me, great fanbases are the ones that show up all the time no matter what. In football, Missouri probably has a base of about 45,000 of those fans. In basketball, it appears to be about 10% of that. There's really no fix to it in my mind. A lot of the empty seats have been sold. So people who can't afford season tickets but want to go to a couple games, or people who just randomly decide to go to one, it's not like they look for tickets and see nine thousand available. It's probably a few hundred. As far as the unused seats, it seems to me there should be some easier way to make sure they're used. Mizzou has some culpability on that front. But the fact is, Missouri's basketball fans just aren't that passionate anymore. Look for any reason you want, but the fact is, it largely contributed to Mizzou losing a pretty good coach after last season (as I told you it might before last season started) and the players (and recruits) notice that type of thing. I'm not telling anyone they should go to games. Whatever. Your money, your tickets, do what you want. I am telling you it has an impact on the program in my opinion.

awade89 asks: You have 5, five-star players coming in for next year. You pick the positions. Which positions would you attempt to bolster with these players in order to be more adequately prepared for what we will see in the SEC? Put another way (although not as much fun), where will need the most improvement/depth in order to compete for the next 4-5 years in the SEC?

GD: Quarterback is always the most important position. I honestly think James Franklin could be a top three QB in the SEC next year. So you start there. After that, you use AT LEAST three of the other four spots on the lines, either offensive or defensive. Then, you have a choice. My personal choice would be a stud five-star shutdown cornerback. But I think you could make the argument for a true star at tailback as well. The lines are the clear difference between the SEC and everybody else. I'm of the opinion you can find wide receivers all over the place and plug them in. That's not to say they're unimportant, just that I think it's easier to put a three-star kid in there and have success than at some of the other spots I mentioned.

drbrhc asks: Mizzou Basketball = Best backcourt in the Big 12? (assuming Kim English stays consistent). In your opinion, how well would our guards have to play to Win the Big 12 in our final year? (Does Flip need a Henry Josey type Soph year?)

GD: To WIN the Big 12? Denmon has to be player of the year, Dixon and Pressey have to combine to give Missouri the best point guard play in the league and Matt Pressey has to be really good. Sorry, but with the complete lack of frontcourt depth, I just don't see this as a team at all capable of winning this league. As far as the best backcourt in the Big 12, yeah, I think that's possible. I haven't seen enough of anyone else to answer it for sure. Also, you can't count Kim English as a guard. I know he's a guard. But he's playing power forward this year.



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