Trust the Process
As a Royals fan, over the years I came to loathe the above idiom. As did other Royals fans. It became a running joke as General Manager Dayton Moore failed to assemble a playoff team his first seven years on the job and wasn't even close to doing so. All along, however, he echoed the same three words: Trust the Process.
Dayton, though luck certainly played a part and eight years is still an awful long time to put a playoff-caliber product on the field in baseball, did prove prophetic this past season. The Royals made the playoffs for the first time since 1985 and had a magical postseason run that ended one game short of winning the World Series. (Still hurts to type that sentence, two months later).
So what does any of this have to do with the University of Missouri basketball program? Well, trusting the process is just about all any fan of the team can do at this point. The program isn't at its nadir — that occurred in Quin Snyder's final season back in 2004 — but it is certainly in a valley of sorts.
Mike Anderson, who did a wonderful job taking a terrible mess left behind by Snyder and turning it into a respectable program once again, bolted for his roots at Arkansas at the end of the 2010-11 season. There was some obvious turmoil in Anderson's final year, as the team sputtered toward the finish line, despite a talented roster, and Anderson failed to recruit a single player in his final season. Given the fact there were seven juniors on the team, this created a bit of an issue for whomever the next head coach would be.
Athletic Director Mike Alden shocked everyone by hiring Frank Haith, he of a 129-101 record in seven years at the University of Miami (Fla.). It was a baffling hire. And Haith flipped the criticism quickly with an incredible first season in which the team went 30-4 in the regular season and won the Big 12 Tournament. Again, this was an extremely experienced team that had been built by Anderson, however, this particular group never flourished under Anderson the way they did in Haith's system.
Mizzou played its worst game of the season at the worst possible time, in the opening round against Norfolk State, losing in one of the biggest upsets in NCAA Tournament history. All the good feelings toward Haith quickly dissipated. And what's more, the real uphill battle was ahead, as he had to maintain a winning program, due to the scrutiny of the hire and the credibility lost with the fan base after the Norfolk State loss.
Haith could not afford to build with freshmen and take the unavoidable lumps for a season or two. He had neither the time nor the equity. He had to win now. So, he built with transfers and JUCO's, sprinkling in some under-the-radar freshmen.
This is not how you build a program.
Haith was on borrowed time after he failed to make the tournament last season. The fan base didn't like what they had seen and were already sick of all the transfers. There was serious disconnect between the fan base and the team. Haith, despite accumulating a good recruiting class last season, which followed up his first real recruiting class, which was also good, saw the writing on the wall. He needed to have a good year or he was gone. So, he stayed ahead of the whip and bolted to...Tulsa!? Yes, Tulsa.
Rumors of big fish like Greg Marshall, Ben Howland and Mick Cronin filled Twitter and the message boards as for who Mizzou would be targeting for its next coach. No one, absolutely no one, had Kim Anderson on their coaching list as a serious candidate. But, here we are.
The Anderson hire was met with more criticism than the Haith hire. Anderson is a Norm Stewart protege of sorts, so it pleased the old-school alumni crowd, I suppose. I did not like it. But was and am willing to give him his just time to build a program.
Anderson did a great job in assembling a talented assistant coaching staff around him in retaining ace recruiter Tim Fuller and adding former Hunnington Prep (W.V.) head coach Rob Fullford, who brought with him top-50 recruit Montaque Gill-Caesar. The staff also held onto Haith's best two recruits in top-35 forward Jakeenan Gant and top-100 shooting guard Namon Wright. But the roster lost more than 75 percent of its scoring from last season in Los Angeles Lakers guard Jordan Clarkson, Jabari Brown, who is in the D-League, and Earnest Ross, who should be on an NFL roster. Seriously, that guy is a monster.
This season was an inevitability. Mizzou, for all intents and purposes is really bad. The Tigers are 5-4 and have lost to UMKC at home and their five wins are: Valparaiso, Oral Roberts, Chaminade (D-2), SEMO and Elon.
At times, you see flashes of talent, but it's too sporadic. Gill-Caesar (Teki) has looked the best of the freshmen and appears to be the team's best player. Gant has yet to play due to some questions about his eligibility, but he would figure to help this team out significantly. Namon Wright can stroke it, but has too many freshmen moments. D'Angelo Allen has looked good in the small minutes that he's played and Tremaine Isabell appears to be a bit of a project, but he looks like a nice piece.
Of the sophomores, Jonathan Williams III is the clear centerpiece of this team down low. But he's way too inconsistent. At times he looks like a force on the glass and other times completely disinterested. He hit a few outside shots early in the season, which was maybe the worst thing for him, because now he thinks that's part of his repertoire. Spoiler alert: It's not. He needs to add bulk and focus on his craft in the low block, which is where this team needs him the most and where he can blossom. Once he's improved that facet of his game, the mid-range and 3-point shot is something he can certainly look to add in the next two seasons. Wes Clark was one of my favorite recruits when he came in last season. He is painfully enigmatic as a point guard. At times, he shows the ability to lead by distributing and also hitting a pull-up jumper or two when the offense appears stagnant. And then you have his final two minutes against Elon Thursday night, which was the worst extended stretch of basketball I've seen from one player in a long time. Missouri led Elon 70-61, and although the lead had slipped away, the Tigers were ahead by nine with 2:12 remaining.
The following is what the next two minutes looked like from Clark:
— Clark receives inbounds and proceeds to head toward the basket and attempt a twisting, well-defended layup with 32 seconds still left on the shot clock WITH A 9-POINT LEAD AND 2:12 REMAINING
— Clark commits a foul on Elon's Luke Eddy (get familiar with this name, what he does to Clark the next few possession is X-Rated). Eddy makes both free throws. 70-63. 2:02 left.
— Clark panics under the Elon full-court pressure and throws a somewhat ill-advised pass to Keith Shamburger at half court. Shamburger is ruled for an over-and-back violation as he never established himself on Elon side of the court where he received the ball. This is partly on Shamburger, no doubt, but Clark certainly could have seen where he was standing and only three seconds or so had come off the clock when Clark passed it.
— Clark plays off Eddy, who buries a 3-pointer to make it a 70-66 game with 1:41 left.
— Shamburger misses jumper on the other end. No blame to Clark here. Phew.
— Clark gets caught ball watching and loses Eddy, the team's best shooter, on a back screen. Eddy buries a wide open 3-pointer in the corner to make it a 70-69 game with 57 seconds left.
— Williams III is foul and hits both free throws. 72-69 with 47 seconds left.
— Clark gets caught under the basket and commits a touch foul on Kevin Blake, who easily hits the layup and goes to the line on the and-one. 72-71. 36 seconds left. That is Clark's fifth foul, so he's mercifully out of the game.
That, ladies and gentleman, is as bad of a stretch as you will ever see in a "high-level" basketball game. The fact it came in crunch time from the guy who is supposed to be the team's floor general and one of the few "veteran" leaders, is very concerning. It is also to be noted that Blake missed the free throw and after Clark left the game, the Tigers got two straight stops and hit four free throws to seal the game and eventually win 78-73.
Alas, this team has much bigger problems than Clark. There is some talent, albeit young, but real talent on this team and that will only improve when/if Gant is thrown into the mix. The real issue on this squad is its lack of any post play whatsoever. The Tigers have to trot out junior Ryan Rosburg and senior Keanu Post. Both are of absolutely no threat to catch the ball with their back to the basket and score. Anyone who has watched five minutes of Mizzou this season is fully aware of that. It makes it very difficult to score on a consistent basis when you can't rely on points in the paint. But it doesn't end there. Post and Rosburg also have a propensity to foul and foul a lot.
In five of the nine games this season, Post and Rosburg have failed to score more points than fouls committed. FIVE TIMES. That is abhorrent for an entire season, but five times in the first nine games? I don't have a word for that. These are those games:
Oklahoma: 1 foul, 0 points
UMKC: 4 fouls, 3 points
Elon: 3 fouls, 2 points
Purdue: 7 fouls, 4 points
SEMO: 4 fouls, 4 points
For the season the duo has committed 40 fouls and accumulated 52 points. This is what Mizzou has in the way of big men right now. And this is the biggest thing ailing the program currently. If you put Kentucky's backcourt (Version A or B) with this front line, it would still be a very bad team. You simply cannot win at even a marginal rate without some sort of semblance of low-post play.
The only solution in the interim is to give Post's minutes to D'Angelo Allen. That's exactly what happened against Elon, as Post reportedly asked out of the game after playing three minutes in the first half. He got his wish and was in warmups the entire second half. Allen played 21 minutes, scored 12 points and grabbed seven rebounds (four offensive). He's slightly undersized at 6-foot-7, but he's a significant upgrade over Post. When Gant returns, he should be seeing Rosburg's minutes. The kid tries and I would love to see him succeed, as he's a local kid, but he is a liability on the defensive end and provides nothing on the offensive end.
If I were Anderson, going forward I would roll with this starting five:
PG: Shamburger
SG: Wright
SF: Gill-Caesar
PF: Allen
C: JWIII
Once Gant returns, see what he can provide off the bench and work him into the front-court rotation, with an eye on him starting over Allen moving forward. You have Clark, Duece Bello and Isabell off the bench. Beyond that, I'd play Rosburg sparingly to give the front-court trio a breather. He can't play big minutes for this team. As for Post, I don't see what value there is in playing him at all. Anderson seems to have the same line of thinking, as Post has played a combined 15 minutes the past three games. And if he actually did ask out of the game against Elon, that should be the final straw. As cruel as it sounds, he's a hindrance to this basketball team and doesn't fit into the team's long-term plans, as he's gone after this season. His minutes, which don't appear to be valuable to him, should go to the youngsters.
In all likelihood, this team will be 6-7 heading into SEC play. The SEC isn't a great league, but Missouri might be the worst team this season. A reasonable goal for this team should be five wins in the conference. That would put them at 11-20, which is awful, but this season isn't about wins and losses. It's about establishing an identity and building a program. It would be great and would look prettier if they managed to go 8-10 and finished 14-17 overall, but there is absolutely no difference between the two.
I'm interested in how the team progresses throughout the season and what they look like by the end of it. Most Missouri fans will point to this season as an indictment of Anderson and how it was a mistake to hire him. And they may ultimately be right about the latter, but this season won't be the reason why. This team was destined to be bad. How the players develop and what happens beyond this season will determine Anderson's fate. He deserves at least four years to build.
For better or for worse, you'll know if he's the right guy after year four. You just have to sit back and trust the process.
