[KChiefs1]

From the Columbia Tribune:

Anderson hopes state's best stop running for border

In-state recruits have shunned MU.

David Lee, Tyler Hansbrough, Brandon Rush, Alec Burks, Bradley Beal, Otto Porter and Ben McLemore have three things in common. They're in the NBA, they're from the state of Missouri and they did not attend the University of Missouri.

Although the MU basketball program had some good times under three coaches in the last 15 years, Quin Snyder, Mike Anderson and Frank Haith struggled to land the state's elite recruits.

"To not get any of them, I just go back to the most important piece, and that's relationships," said Kirkwood High School Coach Bill Gunn, the president-elect of the Missouri Basketball Coaches Association. "There was a time when I first started coaching when Norm Stewart would have a clinic and everyone in Missouri would go. You just felt that connection. You felt like you wanted your teams to go to summer camps.

"I think you build that respect and build those relationships whether or not you have players. In time, when those players come along, they feel like the University of Missouri is a destination where they want to be, playing for their home state university. I really think they don't have to look far, because Gary Pinkel has been able to do that."

Kim Anderson was tabbed as Missouri's basketball coach on Monday, and by Tuesday he had heard so many pundits question his ability to recruit that he joked about it during his introductory press conference. After spending the last 12 years coaching at the Division II level at Central Missouri, Anderson obviously will have to land higher-caliber athletes at MU. But the reality is he doesn't have a high bar to clear to improve the school's in-state recruiting.

He inherits a roster with only two scholarship players who are Missouri natives — Ryan Rosburg and Cameron Biedscheid — and only Rosburg chose MU out of high school.

The advantage Anderson has over his three predecessors is he arrives at Missouri as an insider. He's from Sedalia, he played at MU and with the exception of a six-year stint as an assistant at Baylor and three years as an assistant commissioner of the Big 12, Anderson has coached in the state since 1982.

Many high school coaches in the state already know him. Hickman's David Johnson, who grew up in Columbia, even recalled playing some pick-up basketball games with Anderson.

"Great guy, personable, great communicator — just a guy you felt comfortable being around," Johnson said. "He's always kept that relationship every time I've seen him. I can always sit and chat with him."

Conversely, Haith, who from the start of his tenure was trying to put out NCAA fires and come up with short-term fixes to his roster, never really developed a recruiting base in Missouri. Johnson and Gunn said Haith got off to a bad start with the state's high school coaches in his first year when he declined an invitation to speak at the annual MBCA fall clinic, which was held at Columbia College.

"As long as we've been doing this, we've always tried to go out of our way to make them feel welcome and build that partnership," Gunn said of the relationship between the state coaches association and MU. "At some points, the relationship seemed important, and at other points it didn't. Sometimes we might get an assistant to come, or sometimes we might get invited to go to a practice, but it wasn't until this past year that we could get Frank Haith to come speak.

"Meanwhile, Bill Self would come and Bruce Weber came. We've had really impressive coaching staffs come to our clinics and want to be there and have an opportunity to address 1,200 of Missouri's basketball coaches, but for some reason there was a disconnect with Mizzou."

The other convenient opportunity to meet lots of high school coaches without leaving the city limits is at MU's annual summer camps. But there were missed opportunities to connect there, too, as high school coaches reported being ignored by members of MU's staff who were preoccupied with their cell phones.

"When Kim Anderson was an assistant and Bob Sundvold was an assistant and Norm was the head coach, they spent time at every camp with the high school coaches," Rock Bridge's Jim Scanlon said. "They spent time during the day with the coaches, mixed with the coaches. They enjoyed doing that. They weren't just talking to us because they wanted to recruit our kids — we didn't have guys that were recruitable. But they just enjoyed having camp with you. We had laughs. We had fun together.

"Now, it's the high school coaches, and then the college coaches are over in the corner somewhere. I think Kim will change that. He was brought up the other way."

Anderson relied heavily on junior college players and some four-year-college transfers at Central Missouri. Last year's Division II national championship roster was composed of eight jucos, five transfers and three players who came to UCM out of high school. Haith took so many transfers — initially, at least, to balance the classes on his roster and avoid a total rebuilding season in his second year — that Missouri was nicknamed Transfer U. Several of those players — Alex Oriakhi, Keion Bell, Earnest Ross, Jabari Brown and Jordan Clarkson — were key contributors, so the strategy made sense.

But Anderson told reporters he will take a different approach at Missouri.

"I want kids that fans can identify with over a period of four years, and, obviously, if you can get the great players, then you do that," Anderson said. "That's kind of the blueprint. I just kind of want to build them over the four years."

Anderson arrives at a critical time, as there are some highly touted uncommitted players in the state who could be impact players. Rivals.com rates Hickman guard Jimmy Whitt 74th nationally in the class of 2015 and Chaminade guard Jayson Tatum fourth in the class of 2016. Tolton's Michael Porter Jr. is expected to be near the top of the class of 2017.

Christian Brothers College Prep Coach Justin Tatum — who is Jayson Tatum's father — said he thinks the state's best players do see value in staying home to play for Missouri or Saint Louis University so family and friends can see them, but that doesn't sway them "if they see Roy Williams more than coaches from Mizzou and SLU."

In the end, the task for Anderson will be making the state's best players see MU the way he did and still does.

"He has ties with high school coaches around the state and I think values the talent in the state as well as the high school coaches who work with that talent," Lee's Summit West Coach Michael Schieber said in an email. "If he can get the top-tier talent that has left the state over the past 15-plus years to stay and play for Missouri, he will most definitely have success."