"There’s definitely a better sense of chemistry than last year, us being in Italy ten days together. That was a really cool experience and it seems like we’re all on one drum." --Missouri sophomore forward Kevin Puryear
"It’s not an entirely different team, but it feels like it. We’ve got a lot of new guys...A lot of new faces, a fresh new vibe around here, a lot of new energy, a lot of positive energy." --Missouri sophomore guard Terrence Phillips
Just so you know, it's 2016. You could be forgiven for wondering. Because in their first chance to talk with the media since the start of practice on Sunday, Missouri's basketball players are saying much the same thing they were saying a year ago at this time.
That improved chemistry and increased sense of team led to only the most miniscule of improvements, going from nine wins to ten.
Perhaps this year is different. Missouri's players insist they believe it is.
"We know what it’s like to go through a hard time and a drought and how draining that is," Phillips said. "We’re getting to our young guys saying we can’t do this, we can’t do that. We’re not trying to get into bad habits here. These new guys coming in they only know good habits from the start."
"Since the first night I actually got here," freshman Willie Jackson--one of those new guys--said. "After every practice or every workout, we sit in the locker room till about 6, 7 o’clock. Everybody just talking, watching TV. Most of the time they’d be in there arguing about football and sports."
Chemistry is all well and good to talk about. It is another thing to see it translate on to the court.
"I don’t think you ever know for sure," head coach Kim Anderson said. "This team is different. This team is probably, at least at this point, a 180 from last year."
But Anderson admits, chemistry is tested in the bad times. What's the old saying? Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth?
"It’s easy to have good chemistry when you’re successful. I’ve coached teams that were good and had good chemistry, but I’m not so sure if they weren’t good they would have had that chemistry," Anderson said. "These guys the chemistry’s been good. Will it continue to be good if there’s adversity? Because there will be. There’s going to be adversity. I think that’s the test. How strong are the leaders and how strong is the rest of the team? Are they gonna look up to maybe those four sophomores? Are those four sophomores going to be able to overcome their own adversity? Because they’ll have some too?"
It was the adversity that far too often sunk Missouri a year ago.
"I think last year we had problems we’d go two three minutes without scoring and it would effect us defensively. That’s not what I see," Phillips said. "I think that’s a new thing I’ve seen here. When we get in a hard times, we just keep going, we just keep going."
"Got to avoid the long drought in a game and in a series of games. Can’t go ten minutes without scoring, can’t go five games or six games without winning," Anderson said. "I think we’re headed in the right direction. Are there going to be ups and downs? Absolutely. There are with every team. Hopefully we’ve got enough experience that we don’t let the downs prolong themselves."
There will be down times. The key is to reduce the number and the length of them for this Missouri team. Off-season talk is nice, but it's just that. The proof will come after 28 more practices when the Tigers open the regular season against Alabama A&M on November 13th.
"Last season we got knocked down a lot," Kevin Puryear said. "The resiliency was there last year, but now we need to be the ones up 23 or up 10, up 15, showing our dominance, imposing our will on teams in the first half."
"We know what we have, we know our expectations and we know how much we can be better," Phillips said. "I just want to make the tournament, I want to win, I want to put people back in these seats.
"I think we have our core here for the next three years and we’re going to turn this program around."
Missouri needs to translate the words into wins. It didn't happen last year. Perhaps this year will be different. The time to back it up is coming.
