2021 Macadoodle's Mailbag: 7th Edition

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GD: I'd go with the 2018 Villanova team that won the national title over North Carolina on Kris Jenkins' buzzer-beater. That team may not have been loaded with the household NBA names, but the Wildcats went 35-5, including 16-2 in a Big East that had two other ranked teams. They were ranked in every poll of the year and beat two one seeds in the tournament.

If that one doesn't do it for you, the year before that, Kentucky won its first 38 games of the season behind Karl Anthony-Towns, Devin Booker and the Harrison twins. They were ranked No. 1 every single day of that season. They lost in the national semifinals to Wisconsin, which does not mean that they were not a great team, only that they had a bad day on the wrong day.

Overall, I agree with you that the product isn't what it used to be. But there have been some great teams.

GD: I'd probably go with wrestling because I wouldn't really have to do anything. Missouri is already a national power. And that's good. Because if I were an AD, I wouldn't really invest in much of anything except football and a little men's basketball.

GD: I don't know because, as you say, they seem to be pretty up to date. I'm sure they'll find something. The answer to this question is whatever Eli Drinkwitz says he wants. He's got the power right now and he knows it. If there's anything he thinks could benefit the program, now is the time to ask.

GD: These guys are just wired different than we are. If someone paid me $21 million to not work, I would respect their wishes and not work. Football coaches want to immediately start working again, usually at an inferior company. Good for Gus. If that's what makes him happy, cool, and there's no offset clause in his Auburn contract, so he's getting that full payment plus whatever UCF is paying him. He's coaching there because he wants to coach. It's what he does. It's not about the championship and it's not about the money. He just wants to coach. And maybe he'll get another shot at a Power Five school soon. I wouldn't bet against it.

As for calling plays, I assume if you call plays, there's no reason to stop. Pretty sure Mike Gundy still does it. So does Andy Reid. If that's your strength, why give it up?

GD: It certainly emphasizes how important he has been. In 17 games played, Tilmon is averaging 12.8 points and 7.8 rebounds in 27.8 minutes. In Missouri's six losses, he has missed two of them, but in the other four, he's averaged 12.5 points and 6 rebounds. So the truth is, even in the losses, he's been relatively consistent (granted, he had 21 and 10 rebounds against Auburn, which helps the averages).

I went through the numbers for Xavier Pinson and Dru Smith too, thinking that in the losses they would be less productive. They aren't. At least not by a margin that is significant. They're probably less efficient, but the numbers in those six games are relatively close to their numbers on the season as a whole. All of which proves statistics can lie to you.

The fact of the matter is this team has the pieces to be really good. It has shown that this season. But it has pretty much no margin for error. Everything has to be working. If one or two things isn't working, they aren't nearly as good. There's not much depth. That goes to the last two recruiting classes, which have consisted of Kobe Brown and, well, hey, Kobe Brown looks good.

Obviously Tilmon is important. And any team is going to suffer if you take away their most important player. But in year four, you'd hope Missouri would be in a little better situation to handle losing an important player for a couple games. So far, it hasn't been.

GD: Not at all. It's a really good recruiting class on paper. But I don't look at it and see a bunch of guys I'd expect to be day one starters. I think you'll get that out of juco guys like Jadarrius Perkins and Daniel Robledo maybe. And maybe the transfers Blaze Alldredge and EJ Ndoma-Ogar. So that is a good job of plugging holes. But you can also argue Mizzou lost its four best players (Larry Rountree III, Nick Bolton, Joshuah Bledsoe, Tyree Gillespie) from last year's roster plus its best offensive lineman (Larry Borom).

But the gap between Missouri and the top of the league is still absolutely there. Games against Georgia and Florida and Texas A&M are going to be likely losses. I look at the schedule and see a 7-5 type season. Which I don't think would be bad at all. That wouldn't be a step back, but if you trip up in a game here or there, it could turn into a step back. I think a lot of times after a coaching change year one is better than year two. There are a few reasons for that. It's all new and there's a lot of excitement and momentum and guys trying to prove themselves. In year two, you sometimes see a little bit of regression, even if it's a really good coach who goes on to do very well.

Missouri beat South Carolina, Kentucky and Arkansas last year. Those aren't guarantees. They lost to Tennessee even though the Vols ended up falling apart, so you can't just automatically count that as a win. A road game at BC early in the season, who knows? I don't think Missouri is going to lose all of those games by any means, but I don't think they're going to win them all either.

GD:Yes. Without question. He won 205 games, seventh most all-time. Some of the coaches who won fewer are Chuck Noll, Dan Reeves, Bill Parcells, Mike Shanahan, Mike Holmgren, Paul Brown, Bud Grant, Joe Gibbs and Bill Cowher. He absolutely should be. It's not even a debate.

GD: I like it and I agree overall, but as long as human beings are involved, the eye test is going to be a thing. If we have a selection committee, or a playoff committee, or a committee of any sort that involves human beings picking teams, it is by definition a subjective process. Unless you simply make selecting the College Football Playoff or the NCAA Tournament a mathematical process with a set formula, I don't know how you eliminate the "eye test." You can stop saying it out loud. You can stop calling it that. But it still exists.

And while I think there might be some merit to doing it that way, it's never going to happen. First of all, I don't know how you'd get people to agree on what that formula should be. But more important, it would take all the guessing out of it. We couldn't have bracketology and we couldn't have selection shows and rankings and polls and all of that during the year wouldn't matter. And while none of those things truly matter right now, people still pay attention to them and love them. If those things are rendered completely meaningless because I can plug a formula into Excel document and figure out the tournament field (and I don't mean guess or estimate, I mean absolutely figure it out, which I'd be able to do in this case) then all of that drama and caring goes away. And they don't want that. They want the drama and the caring.

So it's a good concept. But it can't happen.

GD: Give you percentages on guys that don't exist or aren't known? I'm not gonna do that. Missouri is going to add at least two transfers, I think. It could very well be more. But Bradford and Fletcher, as of right now, aren't transferring. If they do, I would think Missouri would absolutely take a look at both of them. And they might take another transfer or two to revamp the roster and help the incoming class of freshmen have time to adjust. But I'm not going to start throwing out percentages on players that I don't even know who they are or who only exist in the hypothetical realm. I'd just say it's safe to say we don't yet have any idea what the roster is really going to look like for next season.

GD: I know Brooks Ford walked away from basketball before this season. Not sure about Evan Yerkes. I wonder if it's a situation where they're trying to limit the number of players at practice every day with COVID and they know they have enough scholarship guys that there's not a role for walk-ons. I don't know that to be true, it's just me wondering out loud.

If I have to put a basketball player on the football field, I guess I'd probably go with Kobe Brown, who looks like he might be capable of playing some tight end. But I've got to admit seeing 7-3 Jordan Wilmore as a red zone target on a tackle eligible would bring me great job. Moving the other direction, I'd take Keke Chism on the basketball court. I'd be willing to bet he's got some ability.

GD: At the beginning of the season, I would have viewed making the tournament as clear and sufficient progress for the program. As the year went on, I amended that to make the tournament and win a game. First of all, they looked like they absolutely were not only capable, but that it should be expected. Second, it's been a long ass time. Eleven years to be exact. This program needs to not only get to the tournament, but be allowed to spend a night in the hotel there. It's time.

I understand if you want more than just winning a game. That's fair. But I wouldn't call it a failure or disappointment if it doesn't happen. I also understand, to some extent, the fear that this is as good as it's going to get because OH MY GOD LOOK AT THE ROSTER NEXT YEAR EVERYTHING IS FALLING APART AND LIFE IS TERRIBLE, but I'll start worrying about next year on November 10th or whenever they play their first game. I'm not into wishing away my life and worrying about next year when this year is still going on. We don't even know what the roster is going to look like. Next year is next year and we'll mess with it when we get there. For this year, making the tournament and winning a game is a clear step forward.

If Missouri makes the tournament and wins a game and you're unhappy with it, you're just looking for reasons to be unhappy. And that's your call. But it seems like it would be terrible.

GD: Zero. Not hot. Cold.

GD: I mean, I guess I'll say lower because every class Missouri has ever signed has been lower than last year's, so the odds are kind of on my side. Of course, at this point, I'm basing that on absolutely nothing because we are 11 months and 2 weeks from signing day and I have absolutely no idea where about 98% of the kids they're recruiting will go.

GD: It's an interesting question. To answer it, first, I want to find out if it's true.

Tennesseee: Martin's recruiting classes were one 2-star, 10 three-stars, two 4-stars and a 5-star (Jarnell Stokes).That's an average player of 3.2 stars.

Cal: At Cal, he signed seven players in three years. Three of them were unranked. There was a three-star, a four-star and two-five stars (Ivan Rabb and Jaylen Brown). Even if we give the unranked players two stars, that's an average player of 3.3 stars (without doing that, the average is 2.4 stars).

Mizzou: In five classes, Martin has signed two unranked/two-star players, 15 3-stars, four 4-stars and two 5-stars.

By recruiting rankings, he has actually recruited better at Missouri than either of his previous two stops. He had three four-star or above players in three years at each of the previous stops. He's gotten six in four years here. The issue is that he has gotten almost nothing out of those players other than Jeremiah Tilmon. Here are the highly ranked players he has signed:

Michael Porter Jr.--You know what happened

Jontay Porter--Got one very good season, hurt before year two

Jeremiah Tilmon--Four-year starter, quite possibly all-SEC this year

Tray Jackson--Transferred

Torrence Watson--Playing time has slipped every year, currently averaging 1.3 points in 7.1 minutes per game

CJ Roberts--Never played a game

So there are two issues. Through either injury or misevaluation, the highly ranked players he has gotten here have not produced like highly-ranked players almost without exception. Second, the recruiting is trending down. Kobe Brown is the only player from the four-man 2019 class to make it to year two on campus. The 2020 class has combined for four points and two rebounds in 22 minutes all season (all from Jordan Wilmore). Those two classes should be the core of the team and the program next season. That's....ummmm...concerning.

In short, I don't think his recruiting at Tennessee and Cal was as good as Missouri fans convinced themselves it was. And I don't think was as bad here as they convinced themselves it is (at least prior to the 2020 class). But the highly ranked guys haven't really worked here so far, which is as equal parts bad luck and bad evaluation.

GD: I'm not sure what you're asking here. There's no secret story. There were two $10 million donations. If you're asking me who gave them even though they want to remain anonymous, I don't know and if I did I wouldn't tell you. But I'm not sure what kind of scoop you're looking for honestly.

GD: From that era, I don't know how you couldn't go with Kareem Rush. He was a scorer. He could get his on his own. He was a hell of a three-point shooter. He's got to be the guy. I don't even know who would be a close second. The other guys I considered were Clarence Gilbert, DeMarre Carroll and Phil Pressey, but I'd go with Rush.

GD: At this point, no. The issue was tabled in January. It's almost universally expected to pass at some point, but it hasn't yet.

GD: I don't know but if I had to guess I might say it had something to do with you being on the Internet as Snoop Frog.

GD: Nothing. And no.

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