2018 Tiger Mailbag: 19th Edition

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GD: I don't think the chances are good with those records. I think Missouri needs to win seven games. I know some won't agree with me. Some will say if you go 6-6 and make a bowl game, you can't fire him. Here is the easiest path to six wins:

Tennessee-Martin, Wyoming, Memphis, Kentucky, Vanderbilt, Arkansas.

What's impressive about that? Not much. Probably not a win over a bowl team. Almost certainly not a win over a Power Five team with a winning record. Definitely not a win over a good team.

It's year three. It's time to show it. Last year was progress from the two previous. He deserves credit for saving a disastrous start (and blame for the same disastrous start). But after three years, you've got to know whether he's the guy going forward. Or at least have a pretty good idea. This is his team. It's well more than 50% his roster (and it's worth pointing out that the best player on each side of the ball was here before he got here).

There are two other things that factor in here: Jim Sterk didn't hire Odom. And if you think that's not a factor, you're just wrong. Sterk doesn't have extra loyalty to Odom. His future isn't connected to Odom's future. If he fires Odom, it's real easy to say "I didn't hire him and I wouldn't have hired him and I think we need to go in a new direction."

The second factor, and really to me it's the biggest thing: The interest in the program is lower than it's been in more than 20 years. Attendance has declined the last couple of years. I think I saw that season ticket sales are up, but it's by a marginal number (a few hundred I believe). But more than anything tangible, there's just no buzz about this team right now. People aren't engaged. I don't get many questions from people I bump into about the football season. Even here at PowerMizzou, where we like to think the most die-hard Missouri fans choose to talk about the Tigers, there's far more interest in 2019 and 2020 basketball recruiting, and what to make of the point guard situation, than there is about football. On the first page of our message board, there are three threads linking to stories about next season and one lone, solitary thread about next year's team (which is actually a video of Adam Sparks dunking on his head coach). I get that it's May. And that's always the slowest month of the year for football and hoops talk and recruiting. But I don't ever remember it being this slow.

Five or six wins doesn't change that. I'm not sure seven does either, but seven (and I'm talking in the regular season) can at least be argued as a step forward, albeit a small one. More than seven gives you real hope Odom has this thing going in the right direction. Fewer than seven just doesn't. And I think it would result in a change.

GD: I don't know if it's a major factor. But the SEC is a physical league and you've got to have at least a little bit of bulk to your frame. Pinson's a pretty small dude right now. Again, it can work. Tremont Walters was listed at 5-11, 167 and he did just fine. Pinson is listed at 6-2, 170. So if those numbers are accurate, he's skinny, but he's not unheard of little. I guess I'd just say I'm sure Cuonzo Martin will make the call on that. If he thinks Pinson needs to add weight, he'll add weight.

GD: I haven't heard of any reason to believe the rest of Mizzou's 2018 class won't make it. That said, there seems to be one every year that fails to qualify late, so we'll wait and see.

GD: First off, I want it to change because I don't think it's fair or ethical. Why are we telling 18 year old kids they aren't allowed to pursue their career at the highest level? If you're good enough to get a job at that top of your field at 18 without going to college, more power to you. Go do it.

But I also hate the argument that one-and-done is killing college basketball. Would you rather NOT see Michael Beasley and Kevin Durant and Marvin Bagley and Jahlil Okafor and DeAndre Ayton and guys like that play college basketball? Give me a break. Just because a team led by a one-and-done doesn't win the national championship every year doesn't mean they shouldn't be here. Most guys that play four years don't win one either. The argument that they make college basketball a worse game is lazy and wrong.

I can already hear somebody telling me that it's worse because those players are only at college because they're being forced to and they aren't invested in their teams, they're only out for themselves. BREAKING: WE ARE ALL OUT FOR OURSELVES. Once they get on the floor, they want to win.

GD: Under. Way, way, way, way, way too much is being made of this thing about Tilmon practicing his three-point shot. He's not suddenly going to turn into Kassius Robertson.

GD: 1) It better be. Odom's first three classes were ranked 47, 49, 41. That's an average of 46th. Here are the three-year rankings and averages for other SEC schools:

Alabama--1 1 7 (3)

Georgia--9 3 1 (4.3)

LSU--5 8 13 (8.6)

Auburn--8 14 12 (11.3)

Florida--14 9 18 (13.6)

Texas A&M--17 10 16 (14.3)

Tennessee--15 15 20 (16.7)

South Carolina--26 16 19 (20.3)

Ole Miss--7 39 27 (24.3)

Kentucky--28 26 30 (28)

Mississippi State--34 27 25 (28.6)

Arkansas--30 24 60 (38)

Vanderbilt--59 57 42 (52.6)

So the upshot is Missouri has the 13th best average. But more telling than just the average is this: Three of the seven lowest-ranked recruiting classes in the SEC belong to Barry Odom at Missouri. Three belong to Vanderbilt and one belongs to Arkansas when Chad Morris had a few weeks to put together a class.

We can argue until we're blue in the face about how much recruiting rankings matter. But you won't convince me they matter this little. You can win six or seven games, maybe eight, recruiting that way (if you schedule four wins in the non-conference). You can't win more than that. The cynics will say: Gary Pinkel did. No, he didn't. Pinkel had four classes ranked 40 or lower. The 2006 class was ranked 47th (and actually turned out to be really, really good). The 2009 class was 40th. The 2011 class was 48th (due in large part to having only 17 commitments) and the 2013 class was 41st. In other words, Pinkel's fourth worst class was ranked higher than any Missouri has had over the last three years. Add to that the fact that Mizzou was 41st and 34th in the two years immediately before Odom was hired and it's not all that surprising to see what the Tigers have done on the field. In addition, Pinkel did that in a conference where he was still 5th-8th in the league in recruiting most years. Missouri is now in a league where it has been 13th three years running.

Will this be the highest ranked class? I don't know. If it isn't, the future doesn't look so bright.

2) I'm going to assume we're talking 2019 guys at this point. And assuming that, I'll go with E.J. Liddell, who is largely seen as the best player and the key target in the class.

GD: Oh, this is easy. It's the 2006 Sun Bowl. I actually did a blog about it, but I can't find it anymore. I'll give you the abridged version:

The actual trip was good. I like the Sun Bowl. Cool setting for the stadium, excellent hospitality from the bowl folks and a fantastic football game. Then came the trip home.

I had a 6:30 a.m. flight out of El Paso so I got to the airport around 5 a.m. I knew it was a bad sign when I walked in and saw no fewer than 300 people in line. Flight was cancelled. After checking with every airline there, there was no way I could get back to Kansas City that day (or at least not any way 2006 me could afford). So I rent a car, drive four hours to Albuquerque (I remember it seeming more like seven, but mapquest said it's four). I fly from Albuquerque to Kansas City with a stop in Denver. I think I got to KC around midnight. Then I got in the car and drove to Columbia. I got home some time around 3 a.m. So all told it was about a 22-hour day. All I was missing to make a major motion picture out of it was John Candy.

GD: Mizzou and some of the football staff is tweeting out pictures and/or video pretty much every day. That's your best bet. They're digging stuff up and then building new stuff.

GD: It's never happened to my knowledge and I have no reason to believe it will happen this time either. I have no indication Missouri has any interest in Tramaine coming back. I don't mean to knock the kid. He had a good year and scored a lot of points. But the obsession over this one was a little bit strange to me. I don't see Tramaine Isabell as the difference between making the NCAA Tournament or not.

GD: I'll take them in reverse order. Of the quarterbacks, the best bets right now seem to be K.J. Jefferson and Justin Fomby. I expect Fomby's recruitment to blow up and that will be a tough battle. Jefferson won't be easy either as he has multiple SEC offers, but the Tigers were in pretty early and seem to have a shot.

As far as the next commitment, the simple answer is I have no idea. There's just not anybody out there that we see ready to make a commitment to Mizzou in the short term. The only official visitor they've had so far is Andrew Coker, who picked up a Texas offer the day before the trip and hasn't replied to our interview requests. They're going to host Aidan Robbins next month, but we don't see him making a decision right away. Other than that? There's nothing out there. See the earlier answer about lack of buzz around the program.

GD: This is the route Missouri should go (and should have gone a long time ago). Retiring jerseys is silly when you have a limited number. A very, very, very few jerseys should be retired. You need to be an all-time great or have significance--for example, I'm on board with Norris Stevenson (the first black football player at Mizzou) having his number retired. I'm even okay with Norm Stewart having his basketball jersey retired (I don't know if he does or not). Other than that, don't retire any.

But as far as the criteria, it's kind of like the definition of pornography: I know it when I see it. I don't want any set "you have to be an all-American" or "you have to win an award" because those things are voted on by people who don't really pay that much attention and they shouldn't be criteria for retiring a jersey. When I watch someone at Mizzou, were they great? Were they so great to belong in a ring of honor? I'd reserve it for the very top tier of players. If you're in the Ring of Honor, there really shouldn't be more than a very small percentage of people who say "Does he really belong there?"

GD: I can't really answer this because I haven't spent any time seeing the facilities at most other schools. But the goal for Missouri should always be somewhere in the middle of the pack. You're never going to be in the top third, but avoid the bottom third. And that goes for most things, not just facilities.

GD: Someone that isn't on the roster right now. Micah Wilson, Taylor Powell and Lindsey Scott Jr. all have a shot and I'm not writing them off, but I haven't yet seen anything that tells me they're going to be an SEC starter next season. If the Tigers were confident Powell or Wilson would be, I don't think you go add Scott this year. And I didn't see anything this spring to tell me Scott is the guy. Again, I could be badly wrong on one or more of these guys, but as of today, that's my answer. Hitting a home run at quarterback in 2019 would do a lot for my confidence in the future of the program.

GD: First, I had to google what the Met Gala is. Then I had to google what Blake Lively wore. I'm on board. But I'm not sure there's anything she could wear that I'd think, "Man, she doesn't look good at all."