If you had told me before the season that the Missouri Tigers would be 30-4 and Big 12 Tournament champs, my response would have been, “Yeah, and the St. Louis Blues lead the NHL in points, too, right?”
Right indeed.
Disproved are the concerns over a relatively unknown coach with a career 43-69 record in ACC play and who had storm clouds in the form of an NCAA investigation gathering on the horizon.
Disproved are the concerns of a roster with two players taller than 6 feet 6 inches after Laurence Bowers’ preseason ACL injury.
Disproved are the concerns of the abilities of the seven holdovers from a team that greatly underachieved the year before.
And yet, after playing the best basketball in this school’s history, the doubters remain.
People say the Tigers are too small. But they’re fast. People say the Tigers can’t rebound. But they can shoot. People say the Tigers don’t have enough depth. But Michael Dixon is the best sixth-man in the country and Steve Moore has done all the little things right this season.
People have been writing this team off all season. Keep writing. They keep winning.
People say Ricardo Ratliffe is the only big man that can score. But he led the nation in field goal percentage. People say Phil Pressey can’t shoot. But he’s averaging 10 points per game on 41 percent shooting. People say Kim English can’t play the four position. But opposing fours have had a tougher task guarding him than he has guarding them.
Everything the Tigers have accomplished this season, people have said they couldn’t and wouldn’t be able to do.
The latest Tiger naysayers are the 10 members of the NCAA Tournament Selection Committee. Citing a “weaker non-conference schedule,” the committee deemed the Tigers the eighth best team overall, giving them the No. 2 seed in the West Region.
Missouri is 11-3 against the RPI top 50 and 4-1 against the RPI top 25. The Tigers are the first 30-win team ever to not receive a No. 1 seed.
Comparing non-conference schedules is like determining which raw meat is healthier to eat, chicken or steak? It’s a moot point: The food will poison you either way, and there are not seven better teams than these Tigers, which they will prove over the next few weeks.
After steamrolling three opponents on their way to winning the Big 12 Tournament, the Tigers, all seven of them, are walking into the Big Dance as sharply dressed as anyone: shoes shined and shirts tucked.
English and sophomore guard Phil Pressey are playing the best basketball of their lives. Leading scorer Marcus Denmon scored two points Saturday against Texas and the Tigers still won by 14.
When the Tigers are playing their absolute best, which they did in all five trips to the Sprint Center this year and for 26 minutes at Kansas, they are the best team around.
Sure, they don’t make heads turn in airports, and sure, there are only seven of them. But they’ve had “Faith in Haith” from the very moment students on this campus turned to Google to find out who exactly the new coach was.
Man, that Mike Alden, he sure knew what he was doing.
Yes, it’s been quite the improbable run. But go ahead, continue focusing on what this team supposedly can’t do — you know, like, go 30-4 — instead of turning your attention to what they can and will do.
Like, make it to New Orleans.
