If not now, when?
On multiple levels, that will be the theme of the Missouri men’s basketball season. That question will be asked as games are postponed and rearranged on short notice. And that question will be asked If the Tigers can’t find their way back to the NCAA Tournament despite a roster overflowing with oldsters.
Season four of Cuonzo Martin’s tenure began on schedule Wednesday with an impressive thrashing of Oral Roberts. I know these are mostly the same players who have provided you with nondescript winter weeknight diversions the last two years — the basketball version of “NCIS: New Orleans” — but I do see the makings of a good team.
Xavier Pinson and Dru Smith can break down defenses in distinctive ways, and Jeremiah Tilmon gives Missouri an attention-grabber inside. If one or two of the wing players could try to not shoot so terribly from three-point range when they’re wide open this season, the Tigers will be fun to watch and hard to defend.
Partly by choice, Missouri is trying to win at basketball differently than many of its SEC peers. I say partly, because Jim Sterk certainly could have hired someone sketchier than Martin and joined the conference’s FBI wiretap club, enjoying the short-term high that strong-ass offers bring before all the vacating starts. Not that Missouri has room to wag its finger at anyone else’s NCAA compliance, given its own once-a-decade run of tournament bans and probations. But it is a mark of honor for Martin that he signed his superstar recruit in the most above-board way currently available to a college basketball coach — by hiring the kid’s old man.
Let’s not get too revisionist or defeatist here, though. When Martin was hired and rewarded with a sweetheart contract, he was expected to put Missouri back in play for the best recruits in St. Louis and to eventually do what he had done at his other stops, which is win about 20 games a year and make the NCAA Tournament now and then.
Entering his fourth year, Martin’s recruiting hasn’t wowed anyone after the initial Porter sugar rush. There are seven SEC teams who have signed or received a verbal commitment from a player ranked among Rivals’ top 50 in the Class of 2021, and Missouri isn’t among them. In the Class of 2020, two St. Louis kids were ranked in the top 50, and neither chose Missouri. So if the Tigers are going to compete with schools attracting one-and-done talent, they need to take advantage of the extra years of development in the gym, weight room and film room.
After a weird but rewarding debut season ended in the NCAA Tournament, Martin’s last two teams had losing records. That was understandable because he inherited a mess and dealt with injuries he couldn’t afford. In year four, he’s got a roster full of his guys, he has more experienced point guards than he knows what to do with and he apparently has settled on an offensive system. I think it’s entirely reasonable to expect this team to make the NCAA Tournament … if there is an NCAA Tournament.
The Tigers could play 20 games or two games, or go months between games, or only play a handful of bad teams, or play Kentucky five times. It’s going to be a disjointed season, but Missouri needs to make the most of it.
Counting Blessings
Have you ever been kidnapped by a radical environmental group whose members are trying instill in you — they frown on the term “brainwash” — a confusing ideology outlined in their manifesto, “The Sixth Declaration of Sustainable Tribal Communities for Humans, Animals, Vegetables and Minerals: The Edna Document,” which they reinforce with food and sleep deprivation for three weeks before they realize you do not have wealthy parents and are apolitical about the plight of feldspar, so they drop you off at 3 a.m. in the parking lot of an International House of Pancakes?
Even if you’re a Waffle House person, just go inside, order the original buttermilk full stack and be thankful. You’re in no position to complain.
Same goes for followers of a college football team that occasionally gets to play a game in 2020. Each game is a miracle of dogged determination to fulfill TV contracts. Each is a merciful break from another episode of “The Crown” or “Downton Abbey” or whatever British-accented butler-centric drama is currently streaming against my wishes on the television I paid for despite my stealth campaign to ask so many naive questions about why they are always wearing suits and gowns while they just sit around the house that my wife will give up and let me watch MACtion.
It had been 21 days since Missouri played football, and it was nice to watch Nick Bolton bounce ball-carriers around again Saturday.
I’m not going to tell you that I was fully engaged for every single play as Missouri’s skeleton crew tackled and punted its way to victory over the scattered remains of South Carolina. I’m not going to pretend I didn’t question why, on a third-and-6 play late in the fourth quarter, Eli Drinkwitz didn’t just put Tyler Badie in the game and have Connor Bazelak throw him the ball out of the backfield and get this over with. Did I groan when the announcer reminded me for the sixth time this year that Bazelak ran the triple option in high school, or when he suggested wideout Jalen Knox had been playing at Missouri forever when Knox is in fact only in his third year and doesn’t have a receding hairline? Yes, but I make allowances when I’m living that SEC Network Alternate lifestyle. Will I be less charitable when SEC Network Alternate announcers remind me Bazelak ran the triple option in high school when he’s still starting games in 2024 and actually has been around forever? Yes, I probably will. But at least we can agree the announcers were speaking with American accents and not getting all huffy about the rude behavior of some visiting duke or lady.
Trophy Talk
I always forget there is a trophy on the line when Missouri plays South Carolina until I see a postgame photo with someone holding the Mayor’s Cup aloft. The Tigers have an unusually large number of football rivalry trophies in their case at the moment. Say what you want about the Missouri football program, but never say the Tigers don’t pick their rivals wisely.
The Mayor’s Cup: Two straight wins against South Carolina.
The Battle Line Trophy: Four straight wins against Arkansas.
The Arch Rivalry Trophy: Six straight wins against Illinois.
The Telephone Trophy: Five straight wins against Iowa State.
The Indian War Drum: Three straight wins against Kansas.
Unless I am forgetting something, the only trophy missing is the Victory Bell. Nebraska won the last two meetings with Missouri, in 2009-10, so perhaps the Cornhuskers can turn to the bell for comfort during these difficult times when even the Illinois social media manager is trolling them hard.
A special mention should go to the Tiger-Sooner Peace Pipe, which got lost in the middle of Oklahoma’s decade-long dominance of Missouri in the 1970s, never to be found or awarded again. I would like to believe it was overused and incinerated during a wild postgame party in Barry Switzer’s basement in 1974.
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