KcMizzou
03-28-2009, 01:05 AM
This Missouri team is hard to hate
GLENDALE, Ariz. | You probably know that Bill James, baseball writer extraordinaire, is an intense Kansas basketball fan. It is one of the obsessions of his life. He grew up in Kansas, went to school at Kansas, lives in Kansas, and he will refer to the Jayhawks as “we.” And as a Kansas fan, he takes very seriously all of his Jayhawk responsibilities.
“I hate Missouri basketball with a bottomless passion,” he says.
So, OK, Kansas fan hates Missouri? Great. News flash. What’s the point?
Only this: “I love this Missouri team,” Bill James says.
He does not want to like Missouri. He can’t help himself. And he is not alone. ESPN baseball writer Rob Neyer has been rooting against the Tigers ever since he arrived on the Kansas campus at the same time as Danny Manning. If you have read Rob’s work, you probably know that he does not get overly sentimental.
“I’m pulling for the Tigers,” he says.
And more. E-mails rush in from Kansas fans who, against every fiber of their being, find themselves oddly drawn to this Missouri Tigers team.
“I want to hate them,” a lifelong Jayhawks fan named John writes in. “I’m supposed to hate them. And I can’t hate them.”
This is not to suggest that all Kansas fans have gone soft on Missouri. I’m quite certain that at this very moment numerous Kansas fans are composing e-mails hammering home the point that they still despise Missouri with every hate fiber in their body.
No. The point is that this Tigers team is so lovable that even some Kansas fans find themselves swaying to the music.
Really, what’s not to love? The Tigers were picked to finish seventh in the Big 12. They use 11 or 12 guys every game. They play an all-out, full-court press defense. They led the entire nation in assists. The Tigers’ best player is the coach’s nephew. Their three-point shooter is a lifelong Missouri fan who was ready to walk on. Their most gifted player came to Missouri because his mother made him. Their gutsy point guard was recruited about as heavily as a triple jumper as basketball player. Their heart and soul was briefly homeless after transferring to Missouri.
“We’re the most unselfish team in America,” forward Leo Lyons says. He’s the gifted one who wanted to go to Kentucky but went to Missouri for his mother. And while it’s hard to measure unselfishness, there’s no question that this Missouri team radiates with it. In the Tigers’ last five games, which includes their Big 12 tournament championship run and their NCAA Tournament run, they have had four different leading scorers.
“We are the ultimate team,” Missouri coach Mike Anderson says and says and says.
He really wants to get this point across. Ultimate team. And there’s a good reason he keeps saying it: This Tigers team is the kind every coach dreams about. They really don’t seem to care about their statistics. They really don’t seem to care about their minutes either. Zaire Taylor — he’s the heart-and-soul player who took a chance and transferred from Delaware and found himself without a place to live — talks happily about how he doesn’t mind getting tired because he loves watching backup Miguel Paul play.
“I know Miguel Paul is going to come in and do the same thing or even raise it up another notch,” Taylor says. “So I don’t have to worry about if I get tired.”
This all reflects on the brilliant job Mike Anderson has done this year. Anderson is an outstanding basketball coach. But even more than that, he’s a leader. He grew up in a small house in Birmingham with five brothers, and he remembers that three or four of them would often sleep in the same bed.
A young man learns how to compete in that world “sometimes competition just for food,” he says and Anderson’s great gift is that he can instill his own spirit into his players. He took over a mess of a Missouri program three years ago, and as he says, “We went through the storms.”
And now they are here, playing great, playing together, one victory away from Missouri’s first-ever Final Four.
“They are seeing through my eyes,” is how Anderson explains it.
Yes, they are hard to dislike. Take senior DeMarre Carroll. He already graduated. He was selected to the Big 12 All-Academic Team. He transferred to Missouri from Vanderbilt to help Anderson, his uncle, turn around a dying program. And shortly after he made it to campus, he went to a bar to try and break up a fight, and he got shot.
“I was wondering, ‘Whoa, how did I end up here?’” he asks.
Only he stayed, and he improved — you can see Carroll’s life experiences in the way he plays. He is a great passer. He’s remarkably fast for a 6-foot-8 forward, and so he often leads the break. He’s the free safety on defense; Carroll is the one who runs all over the court trying to create havoc, knock away passes, dive for loose balls, fight for rebounds and all the other things that have sparked his nickname “Junkyard Dog.”
But the most remarkable part of his game is his feathery touch. Watch his shots tonight against Connecticut, and count how many bounce around the rim and then fall gently into the basket.
Take senior Matt Lawrence. He grew up in St. Louis; his mother and father had both gone to Missouri. He got precisely zero major Division I offers, so he went to walk on at Missouri. A day before school started, he got a scholarship because Missouri coach Quin Snyder had one to spare. One year later, Anderson took over and people told Lawrence to get out, he didn’t fit Anderson’s 40-minutes of heck philosophy, he wasn’t athletic enough, he wasn’t strong enough, he wasn’t tough enough.
He did not transfer. And Lawrence has probably been as important during this tournament run as anyone on the Tigers team. He badly missed shots in the tournament opener against Cornell, and he could have gone into a shell. But he scored 16 points against Marquette in that wild game. And he played a huge role in Missouri’s upset of Memphis on Thursday. He scored 13, grabbed three tough rebounds, got an assist, got a steal.
“I’m just so proud of what Matt has become,” Anderson says.
Take J.T. Tiller. He was not a big high school star. He was not even first-team all-state in Georgia. He signed up to play at UAB for Anderson, and then he came along to Missouri, and there was a feeling that he was more track star than basketball star. He was the promising triple-jumper. But Anderson says he saw something in Tiller’s eyes. Anderson recruits the eyes.
“I could see that this was a tough young man,” Anderson says.
And Tiller has gotten better and better and better. Thursday against Memphis, he was the most irrepressible player on the court. He drove into the heart of the Memphis defense over and over and over again. And his line told a gritty story: a career-high 23 points, four rebounds, three assists, three steals, zero turnovers, 35 rugged minutes.
A reporter asked Tiller on Friday whether he could drive that hard to the basket today against Connecticut considering that the Huskies have the single most dominating defensive force in college basketball: 7-foot-3 Hasheem Thabeet.
And Tiller, a thoughtful young man, said: “I don’t know if driving is going to be any harder. It is just the layups that might be a little tougher.”
Yes, there is so much to like about this team. Today’s game against Connecticut will be a tough one. The Huskies are not only a No. 1 seed, but many believe they are the best team in the country. They pound you defensively, they move the ball around offensively, and Thabeet is a game-changer in much the same way that Patrick Ewing was at Georgetown years ago.
But you get the feeling many people — even unexpected people — will be rooting hard for Missouri. Let’s face it: There haven’t been many teams like this one. The Tigers are underdogs. They are not McDonald’s All-Americans. They are not future NBA lottery picks. They are led by seniors, and they play their guts out, and they had no idea they could make it this far. And here they are.
“I enjoyed it when Missouri was coached by Quin Snyder because Quin was so easy to hate,” Bill James says. “But this is a fun team. It’s a really good team that you have to respect.”
http://www.kansascity.com/180/story/1110943.html
GLENDALE, Ariz. | You probably know that Bill James, baseball writer extraordinaire, is an intense Kansas basketball fan. It is one of the obsessions of his life. He grew up in Kansas, went to school at Kansas, lives in Kansas, and he will refer to the Jayhawks as “we.” And as a Kansas fan, he takes very seriously all of his Jayhawk responsibilities.
“I hate Missouri basketball with a bottomless passion,” he says.
So, OK, Kansas fan hates Missouri? Great. News flash. What’s the point?
Only this: “I love this Missouri team,” Bill James says.
He does not want to like Missouri. He can’t help himself. And he is not alone. ESPN baseball writer Rob Neyer has been rooting against the Tigers ever since he arrived on the Kansas campus at the same time as Danny Manning. If you have read Rob’s work, you probably know that he does not get overly sentimental.
“I’m pulling for the Tigers,” he says.
And more. E-mails rush in from Kansas fans who, against every fiber of their being, find themselves oddly drawn to this Missouri Tigers team.
“I want to hate them,” a lifelong Jayhawks fan named John writes in. “I’m supposed to hate them. And I can’t hate them.”
This is not to suggest that all Kansas fans have gone soft on Missouri. I’m quite certain that at this very moment numerous Kansas fans are composing e-mails hammering home the point that they still despise Missouri with every hate fiber in their body.
No. The point is that this Tigers team is so lovable that even some Kansas fans find themselves swaying to the music.
Really, what’s not to love? The Tigers were picked to finish seventh in the Big 12. They use 11 or 12 guys every game. They play an all-out, full-court press defense. They led the entire nation in assists. The Tigers’ best player is the coach’s nephew. Their three-point shooter is a lifelong Missouri fan who was ready to walk on. Their most gifted player came to Missouri because his mother made him. Their gutsy point guard was recruited about as heavily as a triple jumper as basketball player. Their heart and soul was briefly homeless after transferring to Missouri.
“We’re the most unselfish team in America,” forward Leo Lyons says. He’s the gifted one who wanted to go to Kentucky but went to Missouri for his mother. And while it’s hard to measure unselfishness, there’s no question that this Missouri team radiates with it. In the Tigers’ last five games, which includes their Big 12 tournament championship run and their NCAA Tournament run, they have had four different leading scorers.
“We are the ultimate team,” Missouri coach Mike Anderson says and says and says.
He really wants to get this point across. Ultimate team. And there’s a good reason he keeps saying it: This Tigers team is the kind every coach dreams about. They really don’t seem to care about their statistics. They really don’t seem to care about their minutes either. Zaire Taylor — he’s the heart-and-soul player who took a chance and transferred from Delaware and found himself without a place to live — talks happily about how he doesn’t mind getting tired because he loves watching backup Miguel Paul play.
“I know Miguel Paul is going to come in and do the same thing or even raise it up another notch,” Taylor says. “So I don’t have to worry about if I get tired.”
This all reflects on the brilliant job Mike Anderson has done this year. Anderson is an outstanding basketball coach. But even more than that, he’s a leader. He grew up in a small house in Birmingham with five brothers, and he remembers that three or four of them would often sleep in the same bed.
A young man learns how to compete in that world “sometimes competition just for food,” he says and Anderson’s great gift is that he can instill his own spirit into his players. He took over a mess of a Missouri program three years ago, and as he says, “We went through the storms.”
And now they are here, playing great, playing together, one victory away from Missouri’s first-ever Final Four.
“They are seeing through my eyes,” is how Anderson explains it.
Yes, they are hard to dislike. Take senior DeMarre Carroll. He already graduated. He was selected to the Big 12 All-Academic Team. He transferred to Missouri from Vanderbilt to help Anderson, his uncle, turn around a dying program. And shortly after he made it to campus, he went to a bar to try and break up a fight, and he got shot.
“I was wondering, ‘Whoa, how did I end up here?’” he asks.
Only he stayed, and he improved — you can see Carroll’s life experiences in the way he plays. He is a great passer. He’s remarkably fast for a 6-foot-8 forward, and so he often leads the break. He’s the free safety on defense; Carroll is the one who runs all over the court trying to create havoc, knock away passes, dive for loose balls, fight for rebounds and all the other things that have sparked his nickname “Junkyard Dog.”
But the most remarkable part of his game is his feathery touch. Watch his shots tonight against Connecticut, and count how many bounce around the rim and then fall gently into the basket.
Take senior Matt Lawrence. He grew up in St. Louis; his mother and father had both gone to Missouri. He got precisely zero major Division I offers, so he went to walk on at Missouri. A day before school started, he got a scholarship because Missouri coach Quin Snyder had one to spare. One year later, Anderson took over and people told Lawrence to get out, he didn’t fit Anderson’s 40-minutes of heck philosophy, he wasn’t athletic enough, he wasn’t strong enough, he wasn’t tough enough.
He did not transfer. And Lawrence has probably been as important during this tournament run as anyone on the Tigers team. He badly missed shots in the tournament opener against Cornell, and he could have gone into a shell. But he scored 16 points against Marquette in that wild game. And he played a huge role in Missouri’s upset of Memphis on Thursday. He scored 13, grabbed three tough rebounds, got an assist, got a steal.
“I’m just so proud of what Matt has become,” Anderson says.
Take J.T. Tiller. He was not a big high school star. He was not even first-team all-state in Georgia. He signed up to play at UAB for Anderson, and then he came along to Missouri, and there was a feeling that he was more track star than basketball star. He was the promising triple-jumper. But Anderson says he saw something in Tiller’s eyes. Anderson recruits the eyes.
“I could see that this was a tough young man,” Anderson says.
And Tiller has gotten better and better and better. Thursday against Memphis, he was the most irrepressible player on the court. He drove into the heart of the Memphis defense over and over and over again. And his line told a gritty story: a career-high 23 points, four rebounds, three assists, three steals, zero turnovers, 35 rugged minutes.
A reporter asked Tiller on Friday whether he could drive that hard to the basket today against Connecticut considering that the Huskies have the single most dominating defensive force in college basketball: 7-foot-3 Hasheem Thabeet.
And Tiller, a thoughtful young man, said: “I don’t know if driving is going to be any harder. It is just the layups that might be a little tougher.”
Yes, there is so much to like about this team. Today’s game against Connecticut will be a tough one. The Huskies are not only a No. 1 seed, but many believe they are the best team in the country. They pound you defensively, they move the ball around offensively, and Thabeet is a game-changer in much the same way that Patrick Ewing was at Georgetown years ago.
But you get the feeling many people — even unexpected people — will be rooting hard for Missouri. Let’s face it: There haven’t been many teams like this one. The Tigers are underdogs. They are not McDonald’s All-Americans. They are not future NBA lottery picks. They are led by seniors, and they play their guts out, and they had no idea they could make it this far. And here they are.
“I enjoyed it when Missouri was coached by Quin Snyder because Quin was so easy to hate,” Bill James says. “But this is a fun team. It’s a really good team that you have to respect.”
http://www.kansascity.com/180/story/1110943.html