I guess that could indicate that Rhoades has his guy, and Barry ain't it.

If MU put enough money on the table, sure. Doubt they will.

Odom was never a serious candidate imo

Pretty obvious they're targeting someone involved in this weekends games...Fedora? Someone else?

If I had to lay money on it, i'd say either Fedora or babers.

Still holding out hope for Herman, though...

I would be underwhelmed with Babers. I'd be happy with Fedora but ecstatic with Hermann. That being said, I'm not very educated about any of the three.

Fedora is by far the best hire we can make right now realistically IMO...I've already counted hiring Herman out.

I agree. And other than Herman (and not counting a surprise name hire ) Fedora and Odom are close to even, AFAIC.

What don't you guys like about babers?

I don't dislike him, and I like him far more than other names out there (Dykes, etc). It's just not a hire I'll be excited about.

Same here.

Babers and Dykes have the same issues: Both have had horrid defenses since becoming HCs.

Now, some could say that's a reflection of resources and assistant coach availability/hiring. And that might be right.

But it also could just be that those guys' programs set Ds up to fail.

You heard anything else?

They're targeting a championship game coach right? I mean if it were Odom...he'd have it already right?

That is my assumption.

I still think Rhoades' actions this week smack either of 1) A smoke screen to hide interest in the real top choice; 2) Incompetence.

I don't believe he's incompetent, so 1) makes more sense to me.

I don't think anybody other than Mack Rhoades and maybe a few of his closest confidants have any idea what's going on. Everyone I talk to is confused.

Makes a lot of sense...the Calhoun, Bobo, etc. stories never really added up.

I do think he's going to make a surprise hire whoever it is...

What about 3) Out of his depth.

This is the SEC; its big boy football. And he's still out there beating the bushes for under the radar coaches like he's back at Houston and has to find unheralded guys on the cheap. He's approaching this like he would have at a smaller school that doesn't have the resources and conference cache that Mizzou has.

Finally, I'm not going to dismiss Incompetence out of hand either. Extending Tim Jamieson and not moving on from Kim Anderson has put a damn foul taste in my mouth. Thus far he's had 2 decisions by which to judge his tenure here and I believe he's made the wrong call both times.

If forced to make a decision, I'd say he's just ****ing this up. This feels so much like the Pioli/Haley hire that it's terrifying. Everyone kept saying "don' worry, Pioli knows what he's doing" even though he'd never assembled a coaching staff. When the good candidates went off the board, we started saying things like "well it's clear his real candidate just isn't available yet....just wait". Then everything kept falling through and he hired a golfer as his head coach.

I turned on Pioli as soon as that Haley hire was made because it told me that the guy had been Peter Principled. Rhoades had better damn well pull a rabbit out of his hat because right now this has the same feel.