| 14 July 2009
Unfortunately, I don't get ESPNU, so I was stuck listening to last night's game on the Tiger Radio NeTwork (emphasis on the T, just like Mike Kelly). Not a big deal. I don't think a whole lot can be learned from this game so I'll try to keep it brief. - Laurence Bowers, I think I'm gonna like you. It's funny, before Christmas I was much more impressed with the performance of the freshmen guards than the bigs. That's steadily reversing itself. I'm not a big stats guy but the guys over at Rock M are and they say all signs indicate that Bowers needs to be getting more minutes.
- The emergence of Bowers and Ramsey coupled with Leo's continuing discipline/focus problems are going opens the door for an obvious Bill Simmons Ewing Theory scenario. For those of you unfamiliar with the phenomena and too lazy to read the link, the Ewing Theory is when a team loses it's "best" player and for some reason starts playing better without him. The prime example of the Ewing Theory in action was with the 1999 New York Knicks when Ewing got hurt and the Knicks inexplicably went on a magical run to the Finals. I think it all comes down to which Leo shows up. You can't really argue that we're a better team without Leo even when he's coming to the arena focused and ready to play. But when the Leo that's showed up the past few games steps onto the court....different story.
- I'm going to start calling Kim English the Senior Freshman, because if you weren't familiar with him there's no way you would guess that he's a freshman. He might be the most poised player on the Tigers' roster. He has yet to really come up big in a tough environment (Illinois, Nebraska) but then again, what Tiger has? But I was pleased to see him get the start over Matt Lawrence. At this point it just doesn't make a lot of sense to play Matt more than English unless Matt is having one of those vintage 2006 type games. Kim just brings more to the table.
- I wrote those last few sentences as a compliment to Kim, not a knock on Lawrence. All of a sudden Matt is shooting 42 percent from behind the 3-point arc. I'd say he needs to be shooting at least 40 percent to make having him on the floor worthwhile. However, those numbers are a little misleading. He's shot 35-of-57 (61 percent) against Chattanooga, Fairfield, Oral Roberts, Ark PB, Murray State, Stetson, Coppin State and Colorado. Meanwhile, he's struggled against some of the stiffer competition the Tigers have faced. He's gone eight-of-34 (23.5 percent) against Xavier, USC, Cal, Illinois and Nebraska.
- Zaire Taylor has now gone two consecutive games without taking shot. I know we didn't need him to score last night but he can't continue this trend. The weird thing is that Taylor appears to have a decent offensive game. His jumpshot has hardly been lights out but it should be good enough to at least keep defenses honest.
- I can't say I'm at all surprised by the fact that the Tigers blew out a terrible Colorado team. I definitely didn't expect them to win by 45 but I also didn't expect it to be a close game even with Leo suspended. This is a team that's going to look awful one game and great the next all season long. Hopefully, they look great at least nine more times this conference season. The most encouraging thing about this game for me is that it appears that Mizzou is going to be very good at protecting its home floor. I imagine the Tigers might drop at least a couple more games they probably shouldn't on the road, so protecting Mizzou Arena against the teams they should beat becomes all the more important. They should have a similar performance on Saturday afternoon against Iowa State.
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