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By the end of the game, there were literally high school level players in the game for both teams due to foul trouble. A&M was about to have to send their manager out if we went to 3OT.

Mizzou+ basketball=3 hrs of high comedy. The constant NCAA talk regarding Mizzou by Brad Nessler and Jimmy Dykes was hilarious. If the committee doesn't watch the games, our resume isn't too bad. But when you see the carnage live, the selection committee has to say to themselves "Isn't there someone, anyone else we can put on the bubble for consideration. ANYONE?" We won a game where Shane Rector made key contributions in the clutch. And where Jabari Brown (after a huge game) and Jordan Clarkson spent much of crunch time sitting on the bench fouled out. Basketball is weird. If I was a Florida fan, I'd be awfully excited to play Missouri tomorrow. I think we have a real chance to stay within 50 points of them, heck maybe even 40 if we play a little better. If we succeeded in anything it's throwing USC and Arkansas out of their rhythm by making them wait an extra hour to play.

Well the SEC tourney tips off for MO tomorrow at noon. The first round already started today. We'll be a slight favorite against A&M, but that home matchup a week ago was not encouraging. We'll have to play better to expect to beat them at a neutral site. We have to bet them and then (the fun part) beat Florida in the quarters to have a shot at making the dance. Not likely at all, but amazing that it's still remotely possible without the auto-bid. But after that we still might have to beat Arkansas/Tennessee in the semis to really lock things up beyond a doubt. We are talking about something like a 5% likelihood of getting that far. So yeah, it should be no problem at all. Arkansas has a must win against South Carolina to start up. Then they probably need to beat Tennessee to feel like they've locked up a bid, but it's not a "must". With a loss there in the quarters to UT, Arkansas would still be right on the bubble. But realistically, they probably would be out. That is most likely a "play in" game for both teams (with the likely reward a real play in tourney game in Dayton for the winner.) It's not the general opinion, but I think the committee puts UW-Green Bay in and takes a bid away from a major conference team. They've set a precedent with Iona in 2012 and MTSU in 2013 that is hard to ignore. That could change the dynamic, ever so slightly for the teams competing for the last couple spots.

Arkansas still has a shot. But they need to do damage in Atlanta. Missouri has one chance: beat A&M, then stun Florida in the quarterfinals. Then, they probably make the tournament. I'm more likely to catch a streamborn rainbow the next time I visit Maramec Springs.

Well, so much for that. I believe both MU and Arkansas may have punched their NIT tickets today. Mizzou is the 8 seed in Atlanta, playing A&M. Then Florida with a win. Fun, fun, fun.

One thing that's really important to MO and Arkansas (and every other bubble team). With Arch Madness starting we desperately need Wichita State to win. Obviously the Shockers are in for sure and no other team from the MVC can get in as an at-large, realistically. So if a team like Indiana State or Northern Iowa wins the auto-bid, that's one less tournament spot available, which could make all the difference. In the WCC, also, we need to cheer for Gonzaga and BYU, who are likely tournament teams regardless, and against St. Mary's, who is good enough to win the tournament but wouldn't make it as an at-large. In the Mountain West, cheer for New Mexico and San Diego State. Southern Miss is the only potential at-large team in C-USA (though a long-shot) so we want them to win it just in case. Basically, we want as few at-large bids as possibly going to conferences that would otherwise be 1 bid leagues, and preferably none. What we can't afford is to have an at-large team like Middle Tennessee last year.

That will be interesting. They actually have a defense this year unlike the last couple. Definitely a final 4 threat.

Not sure what to think of Wichita State. They'll get (and deserve) a 1 seed if they win Arch Madness.......but could they lose to a stronger than usual 8-9 seed in the second round? For sure. You see teams like Iowa, Pittsburgh, and Kentucky that could fall to that range, all of which are ridiculously dangerous. On the other hand, could they win it all? Given the lack of a great team this year, definitely. I think Florida is the overall favorite depending on their draw. Arizona and Louisville are close behind. Syracuse needs to get it together. Duke and Kansas are overrated. Wisconsin and Virginia are two other teams that are somewhat sneaky contenders. Personally I would pick any of those teams plus a few others over Wichita, but in a one game scenario anything can happen. I think in reality they are probably a top-10-15 team in that played a poor schedule and got lucky a lot....but a top 10-15 team is always going to be a legitimate national title contender if they get a good draw.

I saw they put up 110 on Ole Miss last night. When I get time I'm gonna have to watch the replay on ESPN3 to see how on earth that happened. Arkansas is playing at least like the second best team in the SEC. I think even Florida would be scared to meet them in the SEC tournament (which is pretty likely, given that you'll probably be the 4 seed if you beat 'bama.) But yeah, I think that win comes closer to locking the Hogs up in the NCAAs. Beating 'bama would do it almost for sure. Even if you lose that game, 1 or 2 more wins in the SEC tournament should finish the job. Mizzou's in a lot of trouble at UT! Our only hope is if we somehow channel the early season team that went on the road and took down NC State and Arkansas in tough environments. But I'm not sure that team even exists anymore.

Worse than you can imagine. Down 30-20 at halftime and we were shooting 28% at that point...... Then A&M had us beat, some Mizzou fans starting to leave, and the Aggies proceeded to totally give it away in the last 20 seconds with a turnover, missed free throws and an awful, awful foul. As A&M players/coaches were walking off the court I couldn't help but feel sorry for them. They looked like they didn't even know what happened.

Planning to be there for senior night tonight. Let's go out with a win, fellas.

That's probably true. But I think it's possible both teams could be out if the winner doesn't also have a decent conference tourney. Certainly it's unlikely that there's room for both. A lot of bubble teams are winning right now, which isn't good. Could squeeze out teams like MU and UT, who honestly, have the bare minimum in terms of tourney credentials. And we obviously have to beat A&M too. And let's be real: as much as we'd like it to be otherwise, that's not going to be easy at all. They are an 8-8 team in the SEC, just like us, and beat Tennessee in Knoxville. Mizzou will very likely find themselves in a real battle just to stay alive until the Tennessee game. Arkansas is definitely in right now, but the RPI is still a concern. They need to win one of their two remaining regular season games (which should be quite manageable) and then maybe another in the SEC tournament. If they sweep this week I don't think they'd need any wins in the SEC tournament to stay in.

March is here, and the teams in the SEC just have one week until the conference tournament starts next Wednesday. Just happens that both of the main rooting interests on here (Mizzou and Arkansas) are taking their postseason fates right down to that last week and the SEC tourney. Arkansas is in better shape at the moment. They have a bunch of good wins (Kentucky twice, SMU, Minnesota) and no really terrible losses. Their RPI is still in the 50s though, and that keeps them on the bubble for the time being. They have Ole Miss and @Alabama left on the schedule. If they sweep those two to finish 11-7, 22-9, I think they will have a spot basically locked up before they head to Atlanta. A loss to Ole Miss wouldn't be too damaging, but if ya'll pull a Missouri and lose @Alabama to close the regular season, that will necessitate some kind of a run in the conference tourney. But realistically, the Hogs should be in and just need to avoid doing anything really stupid between now and Selection Sunday. Missouri can't lock up a spot as easily. The senior night game against A&M is a true must. Lose that and the auto-bid becomes the only way. If they can get past the Aggies, the UT game becomes almost like a play-in game for both teams. If MO sweeps those two (and beating Tennessee in Knoxville is a tall order) then they finish 22-9 (10-8) with an RPI that will probably be in the mid-40s. They'd probably be in the NCAA field headed into Atlanta at that point, but would need to avoid a bad early loss to stay there, and another decent win over Arkansas, Kentucky, or Florida to really lock things up beyond a doubt. If they lose @UT to finish 9-9, they aren't eliminated from at-large contention, but they'd probably need to make the tournament finals and beat Kentucky or Florida along the way. So here's the deal-win the last two regular season games, and Missouri probably just needs to avoid a bad conference tournament showing to likely sneak in. Lose @UT, and they need a big run in Atlanta and another big win. Lose both, and they need the auto-bid for sure.

True. Sometimes falling to an 11 is pretty good for your chances. You get a somewhat beatable 6 seed in the first round and then a really good team, but at least slightly flawed 3 seed next if you win. And compared to what you'd expect, a decent number 11 seeds make a sweet 16 run. It's much harder for 8/9 or 7/10 seeds who have a likely top-5 team in their second game. And as far as the first game goes, there's precious little difference between playing an 8 seed or a 6 seed. Both will be tough, borderline top 25 teams still with a lot of holes to potentially exploit. If Missouri somehow sneaks in (probably as a play-in) an 11 seed is what I'm hoping for.

Yeah, I'm looking forward to it. Since you brought up Kentucky....boy are they scuffling to finish out the season. Despite their ranking, that loss to Carolina yesterday puts them not far at all from the bubble. They only have one RPI top 50 win (Louisville) and one more over Missouri (right at #50 this morning.) With a record of 21-8, that is a profile of a bubble team right there. The thing that will save them is their non-conference SOS and a correspondingly inflated RPI. So they have no real chance to miss the tourney despite those poor numbers, but a 9-10 seed is extremely possible for a team that was dreaming of 40-0 before the season. Calipari will not be fired after this year. But if they take a round of 64 or 32 loss this year, look for him to be near the top of the hot seat list headed into next season. Anyway, right now I'm just hoping for the auto-bid for MO. There are ways to get in without it, but I don't like the math. So I'm hoping MIssouri can just avoid UF as long as possible, or else see the Gators upset before we would meet them. I think we have a shot against any other team, UK included. Arkansas might actually be the second scariest team in the SEC at the moment. This all depends on what seed we get. There is a ridiculously wide range MO could still secure, so I can't even begin to have any idea. A double bye is very much in play if we win out. By the way, I can only thank Arkansas for getting red hot right after we beat them. Ya'll are not only playing yourselves into a 8-9 seed, you're also giving MO a couple quality wins we didn't know we had.

He's at UCM, and winning a bunch of ball games there. His team nearly beat MIzzou in the exhibition this year, which was ironic as heck. As for the game today.....looks like the post players are coming along...Post (no pun intended), and Jones actually might be decent at some point in the future. This win itself doesn't mean much, but the development of those two (plus Johnathan Williams III) does. If they win on senior night against A&M, despite all the damage their resume has taken, they would go into Knoxville on Saturday with their tournament hopes alive. But we really need to sweep this week to have any chance at all (which won't be easy, because Tennessee is borderline great at home and Texas A&M isn't a pushover.) Do that, and a trip to the semis of the SEC tournament would at least get us on the bubble. It's not likely, but it's not impossible. The team that you could compare Mizzou with would be Ole Miss last year, who took a couple of late, bad losses to fall off the bubble before making a crazy run to steal the auto-bid and win a tourney game. Who knows, maybe they can do the same. And that would be the safest thing, to just go ahead and get the auto-bid. There are scenarios short of that where Mizzou can get an at-large bid, but none in which they'd be a total lock.

Yeah, we can and should be competitive every year (or almost every year in both sports. There is no way at Missouri that our basketball program should be the one dragging us down. They need to shell out big money to a proven commodity if/when they finally give up on Haith. Or if they insist on going for another bargain hire, at least appease the huge section of the fanbase who still wants a Stewart connection and give Kim Anderson the chance that everyone is curious to see what he could make of. He'd be extremely inexpensive compared to any other viable candidate, and if the experiment failed massively after a couple years we wouldn't really be down anything for it. If nothing else it would bring some excitement. And personally, I think it could work. He'd need a good staff to help him transition to big-time recruiting, but he's already a much better coach than either Mike Anderson or Haith. We might have less talent and go further with it. But we don't want some one hit wonder mid-major guy, and definitely not someone who is a .500 coach in a major conference. We can do better than either. Frank Haith is fine, but he strikes me as "generic college basketball coach". Nothing innovative, nothing special, no real culture in the program. That's fine if you are okay with beating your cupcakes every year to pad the win total, and going 9-9 or 10-8 in the SEC. We are not fine with that.

Greg Marshall. Give him $10 Mill. Make him the highest paid basketball coach in history. But I dream. Haith will be here at least one year. Then we'll get a mid-major or mid-tier major conference coach. I'd honestly be up for hiring Kim Anderson just for a change of pace, though. We had Mike Anderson and the "40 Minutes of Hell" now we are Transfer U. I wasn't in love with either, though both have had fun moments. I think there is a major longing for continuity and high quality, well coached basketball. The only time we've gotten that (either in the Anderson or Haith era) is 2011-12, and that had everything to do with a roster full of incredibly talented seniors.

I admit I will have a tough time cheering for Suitcase Mike. But if it can keep the SEC from going down as one of the worst major conferences ever it might be kind of worth it. But forget about basketball. Less than two weeks until spring football. Apparently Eddie Printz is really going to be giving a chance at the starting job. No chance he wins it, my guess is its just to push Mauk a little to avoid complacency. I am already excited for September. I'm really interested to see who's going to step up on the d-line to replace Sam and Ealy. Big shoes to fill, but that position group has rarely been a weakness for Mizzou. Also, I'm curious as to who will be our top receiving threats behind DGB. There's some good talent behind him, but it's still relatively unproven. Jimmie Hunt stands out as the most likely breakout candidate,but who knows. I think we are losing too much to be the east favorite but I could very realistically see anything from 7-5 to 10-2. Of course you are never too many injuries away from 5-7 or worse in that conference. Just ask Florida. I hereby declare basketball season over in favor of the spring football preseason. And yes, that means we've completed our transition to the SEC when football is probably more relevant than basketball in late February.

Have to cheer a bit for the Hogs at this point. They are by far the best chance to sneak team #3 from the SEC at this point and avoid epic embarrassment for the conference. They are really the only conference bubble team that's winning games right now. It's a good time to get hot. The RPI has gotten into more reasonable territory as well. They are very close to cracking the field, might just need to get to 10-8 in conference. A win over Kentucky would lock up a bid, but I don't think it's necessary. The big wins are already there for ya'll. It's just time to avoid bad losses, but we all know that can be hard in the SEC. Missouri and Arkansas may have close to the same tourney resume at this point. But Arkansas is trending up while Missouri appears to have called it a season a few games early. The selection Committee says they don't really care about how you finish, but that's a bunch of bull. "Hot" teams will just about always get the benefit of the doubt if two teams have a similar resume. That's why Missouri (IMO) is out until further notice and Arkansas may just sneak in. And I have no problem with this. Arkansas might be capable of winning a game in the Dance. Missouri might not be capable of beating Mississippi State at home on Saturday. In December and January, sure, we were better, but that only matters to a point.

CBS Sports STILL has Mizzou projected in the NCAA tournament, though now in a play in game. Honestly, I just checked to see if we'd even be listed on the first four out, and saw us still in there. Bizarre. Still not making it though. Certainly we'd have to win out the regular season. Frankly, I'd be ecstatic just to go 2-1 at this point, even with the pillow-soft schedule.

While I didn't think we were an NCAA team since the Alabama disaster, I think this one really gets us uncomfortably close to the "auto bid or bust" type of territory. So in other words, we get to spend the rest of the season figuring out whether our NIT opener will be at home or on the road. I don't know how we can handle the pressure of such weighty expectations:) I've said before that Haith almost cannot be fired after this season. That remains true, but he is trying his best to make a case otherwise. He must win the MSU and A&M home games. Even though the dreamer could carve out a path where that leads to a spot in the first four in Dayton (it won't) that's not what this is about. This is about salvaging some pride and proving that they are still buying in and fighting hard.If Haith can win those two home games, another 1-2 in the SEC tournament, and get a high NIT seed (or maybe even get a look on selection Sunday), then he'll be okay headed into next year. But if the team finishes 20-13 and loses in the first round of the NIT, then he's really going to be in a tough spot. He wouldn't be fired, but he'd be essentially a lame duck unlikely to make it through '14-15. Another thing that will largely determine his future, and is mostly out of his control: if Clarkson and/or Brown come back, he has a chance to do well enough next season to salvage his job. Without either, the roster probably won't be good enough to give him much of a chance. He really needs one of those two to stay, unless he somehow can coach up an inexperienced, unproven roster to an NCAA tournament.

Missouri ain't UNC or Duke, but I'm not concerned about our ability to get a better coach than Haith. The search that resulted in him was botched pretty badly. Sure, Matt Painter and Shaka Smart were pipe dreams, but there were a bunch of better, gettable candidates. Missouri doesn't steal coaches from Purdue, but could we have gotten a really good mid-major guy? Sure. But we had to go with a sub.500 ACC coach. I thought it was dumb when it happened. We had a one year honeymoon where we thought it was going to be okay. And then reality (in the form of terrible mediocrity) has set in the past two seasons. Can't fire Haith after this year, but I think like many it's basically a matter of time. Unfortunately you've probably got to let have at least one truly disastrous year (something like 17-14) before you can let him go. Might come sooner than later. But one NIT in a bubble season won't do it. That would make it hard to replace him with an acceptable candidate. Nothing scares away coaching candidates like "the AD is quick to give up on his guy". Basically, Haith is driving the bus right now, and we have to let him run it into the ditch before we look for a new driver. Fun stuff. That said, each year is worse than the last. Not a good way for a tenure to go. Doesn't matter if they sneak into the tourney as a 12 seed and get destroyed in the first four or make it to the round of 64. It wouldn't be terrible, but it still wouldn't be good enough for a 3rd year.

Funny thing: I had seem one place that we were listed as still in, but just disregarded it as not having been updated. But sure enough, CBS sports and ESPN still have Missouri in, and not even as one of the "last 4 in". How is this even possible? We are 19-8, .500 in a terrible conference, with a bad loss @ Alabama and only one RPI top 50 win. Is this really what expanding the field to 68 gives us? I honestly don't know why teams like Arkansas or Oregon aren't ahead of us, but Joey Brackets loves Ol' Mizzou I guess.

I get what you're saying. I don't dislike this team at all. I do disagree with the premise that they don't play hard. By and large they do, with a few exceptions. But we just need better frontcourt talent to compete, and some semblance of perimeter defense. Some of that is on the missing recruiting class. Some of it is on the transfers of guys like NWC and Jankovic (who I think Haith did a terrible job with) and the inexplicable downturn of Tony Criswell's play. I don't care if we have 14 walk-ons on the roster next year. Haith must make the tournament in '14-15 or he better get fired. Never having won a tournament game makes it really simple, and his chances of breaking that trend this year is slipping away rapidly.