You may not know this about me, but I enjoy the occasional What If Game.
Okay, now that you’ve digested that thoroughly unfathomable statement, I’ll mention what a What If thrill it was reading Filip Bondy’s Tip-Off: How the 1984 NBA Draft Changed Basketball Forever. It really doesn’t break too much new ground overall (though I didn’t know about the potential Sampson-for-Jordan trade in the works or how the Mavs sort of got strong-armed out of a coin-flip for Jordan), but it’s a fast and easy read, and as I noted...for fans of the What If Game, it leads your imagination in some pretty fun places.
The first two-thirds of Tip-Off are focused on all the minor details that went into setting the specific draft order that resulted in Houston getting #1, Portland #2, et cetera. He establishes this though character profiles of the guys who actually went #1, 2, 3. It's a pretty easy trick, but it's well-executed.
Like Boston and Memphis (among others) this year, Houston was accused of tanking down the stretch to get a better draft position (playing anicent star Elvin Hayes 53 minutes in one game near the end of the season). Meanwhile, Indiana (whose pick was owned by Portland), Chicago, and Cleveland (whose pick was owned by Dallas and whose ownership and management were so bad in the early-‘80s that David Stern decided to give them an extra first round pick if a new buyer would come into the picture) finished just two games apart. Also, the San Diego Clippers didn’t own their own pick (it was in Philly’s hands) and—possibly because of this—didn’t slack off down the stretch, improving their record and hurting their draft standing. Philly absolutely loved Michael Jordan (eventually making numerous offers to Chicago for their #3), but instead of getting the #2 or 3 pick like they thought they’d get earlier in the season, they fell to #5 and had to ‘settle’ for Charles Barkley.
It's hard to tell how well-written this part is simply because the story basically tells itself (though I can say with absolute certainty that he does a better job of telling the story than I did in that last paragraph). You don't need great literary prowess to make this readable, though Bondy deserves credit for realizing this and not blowing things out of proportion. He doesn't take the Joss Stone approach--showing off all your skills in every song even when totally unnecessary...and therefore ruining something simple and solid--and that's good. His tone is measured and straight-forward. There are a few minor editing errors throughout the book--it could have benefited from better editing--but not enough to discredit the writing as a whole.
So Bondy establishes the characters and does a relatively amusing play-by-play of the draft broadcast (let's just say things have changed slightly in the last 23 years). Before moving on to the last third of the book--what happened after 1984--he does all the What If'ers a favor by summarizing a lot of the What If’s on one page (pg. 180), and I hope I don’t get in trouble for blurbing this:
1. If Portland had won the coin flip, the Blazers planned to choose Olajuwon while the Rockets would have taken Jordan at the number 2 spot to complement Sampson.
2. If the Rockets had offered a deal sending Ralph Sampson to Chicago, the Bulls were willing to trade away their #3 pick.
3. If the Cavaliers had just lost one more game during the regular season, or if the Bulls had won one more, the two teams would have finished in a tie. A coin flip might have awarded the #3 pick to the Dallas Mavericks, who owned Cleveland’s draft choice.
4. If Sam Bowie’s frail legs had failed a physical exam with Portland, the Blazers would have settled on Jordan.
5. If Bowie had come out after his sophomore year, when his mother hung up the phone on that notion, the Blazers would have tabbed Jordan.
6. If the Rockets had grabbed local hero Clyde Drexler in the 1983 draft with their second pick, number 3 overall in the first round, then Portland would not have been able to choose Drexler much lower at #14. Without Drexler, the Blazers would have lacked a young shooting guard and would have picked Jordan in 1984.
7. If Jonathan Kovler, the Bulls’ chief operating officer, had insisted on accepting Harold Katz’s offer of the established, aging superstar, Julius Erving, then Thorn might not have been able to retain the #3 pick.
The What If’iness doesn’t stop with 1984, however. Tip-Off is full of little blurbs about previous drafs and scenarios—Rod Thorn and Chicago lost a coin flip in 1979 that would have resulted in the Bulls drafting Magic Johnson, for example; and hell, for that matter, the only reason the Lakers were involved in that coin flip was that they hade traded Gail Goodrich to the New Orleans Jazz in 1976 for a then-future #1.
The book's full of fun stuff like that. Granted, this really is an easy topic—I mean, how freaking fantastic was the talent level here? It’s hard to imagine that one class produced FOUR of the all-time Top 50 players—Hakeem, Jordan, Barkley, and Stockton—along with all-stars like Alvin Robertson and Otis Thorpe and other strong players like Ageless Kevin Willis, Sam Perkins, and Jerome Kersey...and yes, Sam Bowie. But easy topic or no, there really hadn't been a solid, in-depth look at this draft, and Bondy fills the void nicely.
When we last left off, Missouri was trying to figure out what to do with coach Larry Smith. After back-to-back West Division titles in ’97 and ’98, Smith’s Tigers fell to 5-7 in ’99 and 3-8 in ’00. Larry Smith had rejuvenated the Mizzou football program, improved Mizzou’s facilities, and softened the blow of a conference change. But recruiting had taken a step backwards recently, attendance was flagging, and new Athletic Director Mike Alden was probably looking to put his stamp on the football program.
So I say he fires Larry Smith, and in December 2000 Missouri is looking for a new coach. In the real 1999, here were the candidates Alden pursued:
Top Tier * Toledo coach Gary Pinkel * Florida State offensive coordinator Mark Richt * Oklahoma co-defensive coordinator Brent Venables * TCU coach Dennis Franchione
Others * Western Michigan coach Gary Darnell * Wisconsin defensive coordinator Kevin Cosgrove * Oregon offensive coordinator Jeff Tedford * USF coach Jim Leavitt * Florida assistant Jon Hoke * ECU coach Steve Logan * Purdue offensive coordinator Jim Chaney * Recently-fired Georgia coach Jim Donnan * Washington State coach Mike Price * Louisville coach John L. Smith * Clemson offensive coordinator Rich Rodriguez
Longshots * Houston coach Dana Dimel * Nebraska QB coach Turner Gill * South Carolina assistant Skip Holtz * Boise state coach Dirk Koetter * UTEP coach Gary Nord * Oklahoma co-defensive coordinator Mike Stoops * Former Auburn coach Terry Bowden * Oakland Raiders offensive coordinator Bill Callahan (HA!)
So if Missouri actually had a slightly higher profile in the alternate-2000, and they were in a bigger-money situation in the Big Ten, how would this list have taken shape?
Well, we can probably eliminate the names from the ‘Longshots’ list. From the ‘Others’ list, we can eliminate Price (From ’98 to ’00, Wazzu went 10-24), Donnan (we’re not hiring a coach who just got fired somewhere else), Logan (like Pinkel, only with no MW ties), Leavitt (hadn’t proven himself yet), Tedford (no MW ties), and probably Venables.
So that leaves...
Pinkel – coming off of a 10-1 season and thrashing of Penn State Richt – getting ready to interview for the Georgia job Franchione – considering Arizona State, Mizzou, or staying at TCU Darnell – apparently nothing distinguished him above Pinkel Cosgrove – his StL and Big Ten ties would probably have earned him a stronger look Hoke – nah Chaney – MO native with Big Ten ties and (thanks partly to Drew Brees) a major offensive pedigree Smith – I think he’s too Larry Smith-like to have drawn heavy consideration Rodriguez – his east coast ties would have probably drawn him to WV either way
So with some paring down, I’d say our list of finalists is Pinkel, Richt, Franchione, Cosgrove, and Chaney. Being that Chaney still hasn’t been a head coach anywhere, I’m thinking he probably doesn’t interview amazingly well...and not to be mean, but he doesn’t really look the part. Richt’s southeastern ties probably lead him to Georgia no matter what. Something just never really felt right with Franchione...am thinking he stays with TCU no matter what.
So that leaves Pinkel and Cosgrove. Proven coach versus proven St. Louis recruiter. This is a tough choice, but I’m going to go with what I said about Chaney: Cos still isn’t a head coach somewhere, and that tells me something. Plus, Pinkel’s MW ties and ever-growing success in a Big Ten-area school would have been a hefty draw.
So 500+ words later, Pinkel gets the job anyway. Convenient, eh?
Unless...
What if, with higher achievement in the 1997-98 period and fewer blowout losses in 1999-00, firing Larry weren’t as clear-cut, and it took Mike Alden a little while longer to come to a decision?
Why am I bringing this up? Because by mid-December, rumblings were very strong that John Cooper was going to be fired at Ohio State. After they got drubbed by Lou Holtz and South Carolina on January 1, 2001, Cooper was indeed fired, and later in January, Jim Tressel—coach of Youngstown State—was hired to replace Cooper.
If Gary Pinkel were still at Toledo in January 2001 (or maybe even in mid- to late-December 2000), you can bet that he’d have gotten considered for the job. Again, few MAC coaches ever had a higher profile (or seemingly brighter future) than Pinkel had when he left for Mizzou in 2000. Considering Tressel hadn’t ever achieved anything beyond the I-AA (sorry, Division I—Championship Subdivision) and Pinkel had just crushed Penn State in Happy Valley and gone 10-1 overall, you can even almost conclude that he’d have been heavily considered for the job...the favorite, even.
In other words, if Alden doesn’t immediately fire Larry Smith and get a search underway, Gary Pinkel might not be an option. In which case, Kevin Cosgrove is far and away the lead candidate. Sounds like a nice Part 3A of my “What If...Big Ten” series, doesn’t it (unless my Franchione curiosity gets the best of me)? But for now, let’s assume the firing does in fact take place quickly, and Gary Pinkel is the man for Mizzou.
So let’s walk through the Pinkel era, but first with a disclaimer: if Pinkel were coaching in the Big Ten, chances are he wouldn’t have strayed from the Ohio/Pennsylvania/Michigan recruiting corridor nearly as much, and he consequently wouldn’t have recruited Texas as heavily. But there’s absolutely no way I could predict with even 1% accuracy who he would and wouldn’t have gotten (I know, that hasn’t stopped me before), so I’m not going to go there.
2001
So the pseudo Gary Pinkel era starts in a pretty similar way to the actual Pinkel era—rougher, actually.
9/29: Minnesota 28, Missouri 23 – The KU game scheduled for 9/15 is postponed due to 9/11, and whereas the Tigers in real-life came back from 3 weeks off to get thumped by Nebraska, the Big Ten Tigers instead lose a tight one to Glen Mason’s Gophers and fall to 2-1.
10/6: Missouri 35, Wisconsin 28 – In the real 2001, October was the month where the team started to figure things out a bit, winning at Oklahoma State and at Kansas. In the Big Ten (which, I’m pretty sure, was better than the Big XII...well, definitely deeper...no really elite team this season), shining moments are a little harder to come by. A surprise win over Wisconsin is pretty much the highlight of the season.
10/13: Penn State 45, Missouri 22 – A slightly resurgent Nittany Lion team comes into Columbia and takes care of business. Mizzou falls to 2-3.
10/20: Ohio State 28, Missouri 13 – Pinkel’s 2001 Tigers played pretty well on the road, but not well enough to compete in Columbus.
10/27: Purdue 20, Missouri 13 – The Brees-less Boilers have enough at home to move Mizzou to 2-5.
11/3: Iowa 18, Missouri 17 – Remember how painful the Iowa State home loss (the one where Tay Jackson screwed up like 13 times, and the Tigers attempted 4th and goal at the end of the game with only 10 players on the field) was in ’01? We’ll say Iowa is the new Iowa State.
11/10: Northwestern 35, Missouri 29 – Speaking of painful losses...
11/17: Illinois 32, Missouri 28 – Mizzou wraps up Gary Pinkel’s first Big Ten season by losing its last four conference games by a total of only 18 points. Illinois wins the West Division for the first time.
11/24: Missouri 38, Kansas 34 –Missouri finishes the season on a winning note, though a 3-8 season leaves plenty to be desired.
East Division Penn State – 6-2 (7-4) Ohio State – 6-2 (8-3) Michigan – 5-3 (7-4) Purdue – 4-4 (6-5) Indiana – 4-4 (5-6) Michigan State – 2-6 (5-6)
West Conference Record: 21-27 East Conference Record: 27-21
Big Ten Championship: Illinois 37, Penn State 29. Ron Turner’s shining moment.
Big Ten Bowls Silicon Valley: Purdue 34, Fresno State 23 Sun: Michigan 24, Washington State 21 Alamo: Iowa 19, Texas Tech 16 Outback: South Carolina 31, Penn State 27 Citrus: Tennessee 31, Ohio State 21 Sugar: LSU 47, Illinois 34
2002
The Gary Pinkel Era really got started in 2002, only it was known with a different name: the Brad Smith Era. How would the results have differed in a Big Ten conference that consisted of Ohio State, Michigan, Iowa, and a bunch of dregs in ’02? Probably pretty decent, don’t you think?
8/31: Missouri 36, Kansas 9. Instead of shocking Illinois in St. Louis, Mizzou starts the season by whooping KU in Kansas City. The original score of this game was 34-12, but I added a few extra points to the margin because of the “Who the hell is this guy?” shock value. And of course, if the game’s in Kansas City, Mizzou players don’t help tear down the goalposts.
The original season opener—a 33-20 win over Illinois—had probably my all-time favorite John Kadlec moment. Brad Smith scores a TD, Mike Kelly says something to the effect of “Missouri fans, you’ve got yourself a quarterback.” John Kadlec, damn-near blubbering in the booth, responds with “We have a quarterback.”
9/14: Oklahoma 31, Missouri 24. Couldn’t resist adding this game as a non-conference matchup. Just too great a game to let pass by. (Unintended consequences of adding this as a non-conference game: no home-and-home with Troy. Oopsie.)
9/21: Bowling Green 51, Missouri 28. This makes sense. Coming off of an OU game in which the nation started paying attention to Missouri again, the Tigers roll to Bowling Green and get demolished to fall to 2-2.
I should also mention that this was quite easily the worst road trip The Beef and I have ever attempted. Between the game result, the fact that I’d been broken up with the week before, and the fact that we stayed in Chicago with a friend of mine Saturday night and heard some woman screaming “Help me!” on the street at 3 in the morning, this trip simply blew. Luckily there was the 5-minute respite of humor that was a Bowling Green cop telling us not to shit on the grass.
10/5: Missouri 38, Minnesota 30. Pinkel’s Tigers regroup after a week off and take care of business against a typical decent Glen Mason team.
10/12: Missouri 41, Michigan State 30. The Spartans were down in ’02, and Missouri takes advantage, moving to 2-0 in conference and 4-2 overall.
10/19: Missouri 34, Wisconsin 21. Wisconsin was actually pretty mediocre in ’02 as well, and you can see how Missouri benefits from a much weaker offensive league.
10/26: Michigan 30, Missouri 28. Really, there were only 3 strong teams in the Big Ten this season, but Michigan was one of them. Mizzou can’t quite spring the upset at home.
11/2: Missouri 33, Northwestern 20. Northwestern was terrible in ’02.
11/9: Iowa 38, Missouri 37. Remember how painful the Iowa State road loss (the one where Seneca Wallace accounted for about 1,200 total yards and drove the length of the field in the final seconds) was in ’02? We’ll say Iowa is still the new Iowa State. Mizzou falls to 6-4 overall and Iowa clinches the West Division title.
11/16: Missouri 42, Indiana 27. Yeah, the bottom half of the Big Ten was really pretty bad this year.
11/23: Missouri 27, Illinois 24. This game’s in Champaign, and the Brad Smith shock value obviously doesn’t apply on November 23, but Illinois just didn’t have it this year, and I say Brad Smith comes through on the road. Mizzou finishes 6-2/8-4, and Brad Smith and Gary Pinkel are heroes in Columbia.
East Division Ohio State – 7-1 (12-1) (They don’t go undefeated due to a loss in Iowa City) Michigan – 7-1 (10-2) Purdue – 5-3 (7-5) Penn State – 4-4 (8-4) Michigan State – 2-6 (4-8) Indiana – 1-7 (3-9)
West Conference Record: 22-26 East Conference Record: 26-22
Big Ten Championship: Ohio State 17, Iowa 14
Big Ten Bowls Motor City: Minnesota 31, Toledo 25 Music City: Purdue 37, Arkansas 17 Alamo: Wisconsin 31, Colorado 28 Sun: Penn State 20, Washington 17
Outback: Florida 38, Missouri 30. The Tigers find more success in a relatively weak Big Ten, but they still don’t have enough defense to take down Ron Zook’s first Gator squad. Still...going from 3-8 to the Outback Bowl in one year is quite the achievement.
Capital One: Michigan 23, Auburn 21 Orange: USC 38, Iowa 17 Fiesta: Ohio State 31, Miami-FL 24. Ohio State’s loss to Iowa doesn’t keep them out of the National Title Game, where they still pull off the massive, pass-interference-aided upset of the Hurricanes.
2003
People were taking notice of Mizzou in ’03, even though they were coming off of a 5-7 season. Imagine what the difference would have been after 8 wins and a New Years Day bowl? I’d say Missouri is preseason Top 15-20. Which makes a season-starting KU loss pretty hard to swallow. How does Missouri recover?
8/30: Kansas 35, Missouri 17. Perhaps you remember this one? Zack Abron runs wild but barely touches the ball in the 4th quarter?
9/13: Oklahoma 34, Missouri 13. This game was basically even aside from a 5-minute span in the 2nd quarter. Unfortunately, all 60 minutes count, and Missouri falls to 1-2.
9/20: Missouri 41, Middle Tennessee 40. Missouri is down 34-26 and 90 seconds away from falling to a disastrous 1-3 when Brad Smith and J.D. McCoy (remember his unbelievable 4th down catch where he damn near dislocated both kneecaps?) save the day in regulation and the Middle Tennessee kicker falter on a PAT in overtime. The season is saved...for now.
10/4: Missouri 24, Michigan State 21. The season is saved again by this narrow home win over an improving Michigan State squad.
10/11: Michigan 35, Missouri 17. The ’03 Tigers were great at home and bad on the road. This game was on the road.
10/25: Missouri 34, Minnesota 21. A week off rejuvenates the Tigers and sets up a surprising road win. Missouri moves to 2-1 in conference and 4-3 overall.
11/1: Wisconsin 28, Missouri 24. A surprising road win is followed by a surprising home loss.
11/8: Northwestern 31, Missouri 21. We’ll just say Tigerboard erupts with naysayers as Mizzou moves to 4-5.
11/15: Missouri 31, Iowa 21. Mizzou saves its season for the third time, moving to 5-5 with a tough home win.
11/22: Missouri 31, Indiana 24. Lucky for Mizzou, one of their road games is in Bloomington. Mizzou clinches bowl eligibility at 6-5, and due to a super-weak West Division (and wins over Iowa and Minnesota), Mizzou can somehow clinch the West with a win over Illinois.
11/29: Missouri 24, Illinois 14. Illinois is 1-10 heading into Thanksgiving weekend. No way do they stand in the way of Mizzou clinching the West at home.
East Division Michigan – 7-1 (10-2) Ohio State – 6-2 (10-2) Purdue – 6-2 (9-3) Michigan State – 5-3 (8-4) Penn State – 2-6 (4-8) Indiana – 0-8 (1-11)
West Conference Record: 22-26 East Conference Record: 26-22
Big Ten Championship: Missouri 34, Michigan 31. I couldn’t resist. In 2003, Mizzou pulled off its single-best win in the last 20 years with a home win over Nebraska. There was no equivalent to that win during the regular season, so we’ll say it comes in St. Louis in the Big Ten Championship. I mean...why the hell not? It’s Mizzou’s first Big Ten title!
Big Ten Bowls Motor City: Bowling Green 28, Wisconsin 17 Music City: Auburn 23, Michigan State 7 Sun: Minnesota 31, Oregon 30 Alamo: Iowa 21, Nebraska 20 Outback: Purdue 31, Florida 26 Capital One: Michigan 27, Georgia 24 Fiesta: Ohio State 35, Kansas State 28
Rose: USC 28, Missouri 16. No matter how momentous an occasion it would be to see Brad Smith in the Rose Bowl, there’s nothing Missouri can do to beat USC in this game. So ends the greatest 8-6 season in Mizzou history.
2004
There’s no way Missouri could have avoided being overrated going into 2004. An 8-5 season and an Independence Bowl loss led to Preseason Top 15 predictions. So now add a Rose Bowl to the mix. Yikes.
9/4: Kansas 24, Missouri 14. This game was one yellow flag from becoming the greatest comeback in Missouri history. The Tigers had made up half of a 28-point 4th-quarter deficit when Damien Nash took a swing pass 58 yards for a touchdown. With Missouri within a touchdown and the crowd at a half-empty Memorial Stadium (the other half had left by the start of the 4th quarter), no way would they be losing this game.
Only, Martin Rucker got called for a hold that nobody could find on the video. And then KU won easily. Now, part of the reason KU got up 28-0 was because MU was spent after about 15 straight blown leads and losses. It wouldn’t have happened that way at the beginning of the season. But I think KU still would have won. Without Troy on the schedule, this becomes the new Troy. And Missouri once again starts a ‘high expectations’ season on a horrid note.
9/18: Missouri 45, Ball State 3. This one’s in Muncie instead of Columbia, but the result is basically the same.
10/2: Missouri 30, Minnesota 24. Missouri moves to 3-1 on the season and mid-teens in the polls.
10/9: Penn State 22, Missouri 21. Now the fun begins.
10/16: Ohio State 27, Missouri 24. Missouri loses back-to-back heartbreakers, but they looked okay doing it. Either way, though, they’re 3-3 and on their way to below-expectations season.
10/23: Northwestern 27, Missouri 20. We’ll call this the Big Ten version of the Oklahoma State loss.
10/30: Wisconsin 31, Missouri 19. Judging by how this season actually went, we’ll say Mizzou was up 16-0 before falling apart. At 3-5, Mizzou’s bowl hopes are on life support.
11/6: Purdue 31, Missouri 28. And here’s the death blow. Another blown lead on Senior Day leads to a 2-4 home record for ’04.
11/13: Iowa 15, Missouri 14. Tigers put up a fight, but lose to the eventual West champions.
11/27: Missouri 21, Illinois 16. A six-game losing streak is snapped in what basically amounts to Mizzou’s bowl game.
East Division Ohio State – 7-1 (10-1) Michigan – 7-1 (9-2) Michigan State – 5-3 (6-5) Purdue – 4-4 (7-4) Penn State – 4-4 (6-5) Indiana – 2-6 (4-7)
West Conference Record: 19-29 East Conference Record: 29-19
Big Ten Championship: Iowa 30, Ohio State 7
Big Ten Bowls Music City: Michigan State 27, Alabama 9 Sun: Arizona State 27, Purdue 23 Alamo: Wisconsin 28, Oklahoma 7 Outback: Michigan 31, Georgia 26 Capital One: Ohio State 20, LSU 16 Rose: Texas 31, Iowa 28
2005
So begins Gary Pinkel’s restoration project. Just like with Larry Smith, Mizzou followed up a crowning achievement with a hugely disappointing season. To avoid Larry’s fate, he needed a strong rebound in ’05.
10/1: Missouri 27, Iowa 16. Back to .500 with a solid home win.
10/8: Ohio State 34, Missouri 23. And back under .500 we go.
10/15: Northwestern 30, Missouri 24. Missouri need to win 4 of 5 to qualify for a bowl.
10/22: Penn State 28, Missouri 27. Really, the Rose Bowl bid is about the only thing saving Gary Pinkel’s job at this point.
11/5: Missouri 38, Wisconsin 35. We’ll say Chase Daniel throws a late TD pass and saves the season for now. However, 3-5 is still the record.
11/12: Missouri 31, Purdue 20. Purdue really wasn’t very good this year, and Mizzou’s offense is rolling. 4-5.
11/19: Missouri 35, Minnesota 33. Back to back road wins, and the season comeback is almost complete.
11/26: Missouri 31, Illinois 12. Ron Zook’s first Big Ten season ends without a conference win, and Mizzou’s never been so happy to qualify for a minor bowl.
East Division Penn State – 8-0 (11-0) Ohio State – 6-2 (8-3) Michigan – 6-2 (8-3) Michigan State – 2-6 (5-6) Purdue – 2-6 (4-7) Indiana – 1-7 (4-7)
West Conference Record: 23-25 East Conference Record: 25-23
Big Ten Championship: Penn State 27, Iowa 21. Penn State moves to 12-0, but as always seems to be the case, they choose the wrong year to go undefeated. The national title game is still USC vs Texas, and Penn State is playing for #2.
Big Ten Bowls Motor City: Northwestern 42, Akron 40
Music City: Missouri 38, Virginia 34. Completing the “comeback” theme of 2005, Missouri falls down 28-7 before raging back in the second half. Sound familiar?
Sun: UCLA 41, Iowa 34 Alamo: Nebraska 32, Michigan 28 Outback: Ohio State 28, Florida 27 Capital One: Wisconsin 24, Auburn 10 Orange: Penn State 26, Florida State 23. (PSU completes an undefeated, non-national title season)
2006
The Chase Daniel Era, which sort of began with his dramatic season saver versus Wisconsin, comes in full-force in 2006. Most prognosticators pick Mizzou fifth, ahead of just Illinois, but after a few years of expectations built for disappointment, the opportunity to surprise people comes as a nice change.
9/2: Missouri 42, Kansas 17. Daniel starts off with something Brad Smith could only do once.
9/9: Missouri 34, Ole Miss 7. I’m sure that, Big Ten or Big 12, The Sporting News decides that Brent Schaeffer’s incoming presence is enough to take out little old Missouri in Columbia.
9/16: Missouri 27, New Mexico 17. A 2-0 start is not something Mizzou is used to.
9/23: Missouri 31, Ohio 6. With Mizzou in the Big Ten, they have no history with Frank Solich...but they still win this one pretty easy.
9/30: Missouri 26, Wisconsin 23. The Big Ten version of the Texas Tech win. And quietly, Missouri has an uneblievable 10-game winning streak dating back to the 2005 Wisconsin win.
10/14: Missouri 37, Minnesota 14. Eleven straight wins, Chase Daniel is God, and Pinkel moves to 5-1 versus Glen Mason. At 6-0, Missouri makes its way into the Top 10...
10/21: Michigan State 24, Missouri 22. ...and falls right back out with a stunning road loss. Michigan State threatened to be a good team a couple times last year before imploding...we’ll call this the Big Ten version of the Iowa State loss.
10/28: Missouri 24, Northwestern 17. An underwhelming performance, but Missouri moves to 7-1 nonetheless.
11/4: Michigan 31, Missouri 27. Chase Daniel’s first home loss.
11/11: Iowa 24, Missouri 17. Missouri’s lost three of four, and the season is ending the exact opposity as the one before.
11/25: Missouri 31, Illinois 12. So is Illinois. Yeah yeah, no worse than Iowa State, but...bite me. We already had our ‘loss to an outgoing coach’ against Michigan State. Mizzou finishes 9-3, though the loss to the Spartans costs them the West Division title.
East Division Ohio State – 8-0 (12-0) Michigan – 7-1 (11-1) Penn State – 5-3 (8-4) Purdue – 4-4 (7-6) Michigan State – 2-6 (5-7) Indiana – 1-7 (3-9)
West Conference Record: 21-27 East Conference Record: 27-21
Big Ten Championship: Ohio State 31, Wisconsin 28
Big Ten Bowls Motor City: Purdue 24, Central Michigan 23 Insight: Texas Tech 44, Minnesota 41 Alamo: Texas 26, Iowa 24 Champs Sports: Penn State 20, Maryland 17
Outback: Missouri 27, Tennessee 24. While Missouri fought Oregon State to a stalemate in their bowl game, Tennessee was underwhelming against Penn State in theirs. Missouri hops out to a lead in the fourth quarter, and UT doesn’t have the offensive firepower to come back like Oregon State did. Missouri wins 10 games for the first time since 1998.
Capital One: Wisconsin 17, Arkansas 14 Rose: USC 32, Michigan 18 BCS Championship: Florida 41, Ohio State 14
2007
So that brings us to the present day. Missouri returns its entire offense, and the Wisconsin-Missouri matchup is a big one. Using Phil Steele’s rankings, the Big Ten preseason rankings would shake down like this:
West Division #16 Wisconsin #19 Missouri (though with a New Years win, they’d probably be closer to #10-13) #29 Iowa #43 Illinois Northwestern Minnesota
East Division #5 Michigan #10 Penn State #15 Ohio State #35 Purdue Michigan State Indiana
While the bottom four teams are likely to be pretty horrid, the top 2/3 of the conference are pretty loaded. However, with home games against Wisconsin and Iowa, Missouri is likely the West favorite.
Heading into its 12th season in the Big Ten in alternate-2007, Missouri has experienced higher highs (1998, 2003) and lower lows (2004) than they did in the Big 12. Their annual matchup with Illinois has taken the feel of a significant rivalry game--complete with suprise upsets and strange happenings--while the rivalry with Kansas is as intense and strange as ever.
At this point I should repeat my note from Part Two:
My aim with these posts is not to say we should or shouldn't have joined the conference. Again, I grew up with Big 8 rivalries, and getting caught up in battles with Minnesota and Northwestern instead of Oklahoma State and Kansas State would have taken a lot of getting used to. Until I found out about the emerging Big Ten Network, I never even gave the conference switch idea a second thought. The fact that the Big Ten does indeed have its own cable network in the works got me starry-eyed a bit (that seems like quite the unfair advantage right there), but I'll get over it.
That still stands. I love the Big 12...okay, let me clarify: I love playing the teams we play in the Big 12. It's what I'm used to. I'm a lot more interested in the goings on of Oklahoma State and Colorado than I am Iowa and Indiana. But it's interesting to think about, isn't it?
For years, there's been an ongoing debate about Mizzou joining the Big Ten...but nobody's ever really discussed how Mizzou would do in the Big Ten. So we're taking a look at how the Big Ten would have shaken down in football.
NOTE: My aim with these posts is not to say we should or shouldn't have joined the conference. Again, I grew up with Big 8 rivalries, and getting caught up in battles with Minnesota and Northwestern instead of Oklahoma State and Kansas State would have taken a lot of getting used to. Until I found out about the emerging Big Ten Network, I never even gave the conference switch idea a second thought. The fact that the Big Ten does indeed have its own cable network in the works got me starry-eyed a bit (that seems like quite the unfair advantage right there), but I'll get over it. Anyway...
In Part One, we discussed the background of the 1996 formation of the (alternate reality) 12-team Big Ten Conference. From feedback I got (on other sites...since nobody leaves any damn comments here!), it was established that the only way to form two six-team divisions would be the following:
West Division: Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Northwestern, Wisconsin East Division: Indiana, Michigan, Michigan State, Ohio State, Penn State, Purdue
In the mid-‘90s, the East Division had the advantage in both football and men’s basketball, but there was just no other way. So we’re going with that.
So let’s get started!
Actually, one more note. I should probably explain the primitive method with which I’m determining results. It’s all about the flawed-but-easy Transitive Property. Taking into account the fact that home field is worth roughly 7 points, I combine common results (if two teams have more than one common result, the one I use is determined at random) and go from there. With the number of results I had to determine, this was really the only timely way to go about things. If you have a better, more scientific (and still relatively easy) method, I’d love to hear it.
1996
In 1996, Larry Smith was entering his third year at the helm of the Mizzou football team. His first two seasons (in the Big 8) resulted in two 3-win campaigns. However, in late-1995, Smith had found himself a quarterback. And a running game. Corby Jones had his redshirt torn off halfway through the season, and while it took him and the Mizzou offense a while to get rolling, things started to click late in the year. In their now-final Big 8 game, Missouri beat Iowa State (admittedly a horrid defensive team), 45-31, behind 473 rushing yards—201 from then-sophomore RB Brock Olivo and 136 from Jones. It gave Missouri fans a reason for optimism. Not only did they have the components of a young, exciting team, but in the Big Ten, Missouri also wouldn’t have to face then-powers Nebraska and Colorado (or Kansas State, or Oklahoma) anymore. The West Division of the Big Ten was a division in transition—with a lot of decent teams (Iowa, Wisconsin, sometimes Northwestern) and no powers. The best teams were in the East, and Missouri would only have to face half of them on any given season. Despite 6 wins in two seasons under Larry Smith (and five straight 3-win seasons overall), hope was in the air.
The 1996 schedule looks something like this:
8/31 – at Penn State 9/14 – Memphis 9/21 – Clemson 9/28 – Ohio State 10/5 – at Wisconsin 10/12 – Minnesota 10/19 – Purdue 11/2 – at Iowa 11/9 – Northwestern 11/16 – at Illinois 11/23 – Kansas
To tamp down some of the inevitable unease among Mizzou faithful (fans fear change in general, and this is a huge one), the season would see seven home games and a season-ender against Kansas. So mixing some real results with the transitive property, let’s see how the season goes.
Penn State 42, Missouri 28 – in the real 1996 opener, Missouri played relatively well in a monsoon down in Austin. Take away the monsoon, and Vince Sebo doesn’t have like a -40 yard punt or whatever. You figure Mizzou plays pretty well here (in their nationally televised conference opener), but Penn State was really good in 1996.
Ohio State 24, Missouri 20 – Missouri’s flying high after the Clemson win, and the fans at Faurot are boisterous, but it ain’t happening.
Wisconsin 40, Missouri 17 – Freshman Ron Dayne rushes for about 455 yards, and Missouri’s first trip to Camp Randall since 1983 does not end well. Missouri slips to 2-4.
Missouri 28, Minnesota 20 – In the Gophers’ last year before Glen Mason took the reins, Missouri played its first Big Ten game in which it had more talent than its opponent. They weren’t good enough to run away with the game, but they were good enough to secure their first ever Big Ten win and move to 3-4.
Missouri 31, Purdue 23 – The first conference win is quickly followed by the second. Drew Brees wouldn’t come to save the day till 1997.
Iowa 44, Missouri 17 – At 3-4, the Tigers needed to win 3 of 4 down the stretch, meaning they’d have to steal a road win against Iowa or Illinois while taking care of business versus Northwestern and Kansas. Well...Mizzou wasn’t ready for that level of prosperity just yet. Iowa was the class of the first Big Ten West Division, and they take care of business here pretty easily.
Missouri 30, Northwestern 23 – In the first meeting between Larry Smith and the coach who was passed over for the Mizzou job, Gary Barnett, Missouri scores a slight upset and keeps their slim bowl hopes alive, moving to 4-5.
Illinois 37, Missouri 31 – This young Mizzou team can’t quite put it together, and a bad Illinois team steals the first game between new division rivals. Mizzou’s bowl hopes die, but...
East Ohio State – 7-1 (10-1) Penn State – 7-1 (10-1) Michigan State – 5-3 (6-5) Michigan – 4-4 (7-4) Purdue – 3-5 (4-7) Indiana – 2-6 (4-7)
West Conference Record: 20-28 East Conference Record: 28-20
Big Ten Championship: Ohio State 38, Iowa 23
Big Ten Bowls Copper: Michigan State 24, Utah 20 Sun: Stanford 34, Wisconsin 6 Alamo: Michigan 20, Texas Tech 13 Outback: Alabama 17, Northwestern 16 Citrus: Tennessee 48, Iowa 17 Fiesta: Penn State 38, Texas 15 Rose: Ohio State 20, Arizona State 17
1997
In the real 1997, Mizzou fans finally saw the Tigers take the leap. Not a huge leap, mind you, but after the futility of the previous 13 years, it was huge enough. Led by a sickening running attack of Corby Jones, Brock Olivo, Devin West, Ernest Blackwell (RIP), and Rhino Janes, Missouri would have been a strong team in any conference.
9/27: Ohio State 35, Missouri 7 – Take what actually happened, and adjust it about 7 points for the change in home field (this one was in Columbus).
While we’re talking about this game, though, I have to talk about probably the most memorable hit I’ve ever seen in person. From one of Joe Walljasper’s postgame write-ups:
On the Tigers' next series, a scrambling Jones was leveled by OSU linebacker Andy Katzenmoyer 1 yard from a first down on a third-and-10 play. Jones suffered a severely bruised wrist on his throwing hand, and he said that injury bothered him for the rest of the game.
Jones wasn't very effective afterwards, and Missouri was never able to overcome terrible field position.
Yeah, “leveled” doesn’t quite describe it, but I’m not sure of a words that does. Every Missouri fan thought Corby was about to get a first down, and Missouri was about to get a late-first-half score and stay in the game. Katzenmoyer closed about 30 yards in two steps, and...yeah, Corby still probably has a face-mask print on his arm. Just an unbelievable hit.
10/4: Missouri 31, Wisconsin 24 – Missouri shows signs of life after getting brutalized in Columbus.
10/11: Minnesota 37, Missouri 30 – The Tigers just aren’t ready to win a conference road game yet, and Glen Mason continues to own Mizzou.
10/18: Purdue 38, Missouri 23 – The Tigers just aren’t ready to win a conference road game yet, and Missouri moves to just 3-3 on what was supposed to be a surprising season.
10/25: Missouri 31, Penn State 20 – It was around this time when Mizzou faced Nebraska at Faurot. We know what happened in that game, and I’m figuring that, against a slightly lesser team (Penn State was damn good, but not ’97 Nebraska good), the result would be different. This is by far Mizzou’s biggest win in two Big Ten seasons, and it gives them the kickstart they needed.
11/1: Missouri 31, Iowa 22 – This game ends up meaning much more than simply giving Missouri a 5-3 record.
11/8: Missouri 26, Northwestern 25 – Larry Smith moves to 2-0 versus Gary Barnett, and Missouri finally wins a Big Ten road game.
11/15: Missouri 41, Illinois 19 – For the first time under Larry Smith, Missouri wins its fourth game in a row. The win moves Missouri to 5-3 in the Big Ten and clinches a tie with Iowa for first place in the West Division. They will play undefeated Michigan in the second-ever Big Ten Championship, at Soldier Field. But first...
11/29: Kansas 15, Missouri 13 – I was very torn about this one. I’m firmly convinced that, if Missouri and Kansas had played in Lawrence at the end of the ’97 season instead of the beginning (when Mizzou blew about 38 chances and lost 15-7), Mizzou would have won. However...this is Missouri-Kansas, and stupid things happen. So we’ll say Corby doesn’t fumble in the red zone with less than a minute left, and Missouri scores. And misses the 2-point conversion. Sounds realistic.
East Division Michigan – 8-0 (11-0) Ohio State – 6-2 (9-2) Penn State – 5-3 (8-3) Michigan State – 5-3 (8-3) Purdue – 4-4 (6-5) Indiana – 1-7 (2-9)
West Conference Record: 19-29 East Conference Record: 29-19
Big Ten Championship: Michigan 21, Missouri 17 – Missouri bounces back from the crushing disappointment of the Kansas game and plays well against #2 Michigan in the conference championship, but like Michigan did most of the season, they make just enough plays to win the game. Missouri has to settle for the Outback Bowl, their first New Years Day bowl since the 1969 season.
Big Ten Bowls Aloha: Washington 44, Purdue 33 Sun: Arizona State 24, Michigan State 10 Alamo: Penn State 45, Oklahoma State 20 Outback: Georgia 33, Missouri 14
Mizzou runs into a buzzsaw. Robert Edwards, Hines Ward, etc., overpower a slightly starstruck Tiger squad, and the season ends with both a) the most Mizzou wins in 14 years (final record: 7-6), and b) a 3-game losing streak.
Citrus: Florida 21, Iowa 6 Sugar: Florida State 31, Ohio State 14 Rose: Michigan 21, Washington 16
1998
Coming off of a West Division Championship and a New Year’s Day bowl game, and returning a sickening amount of experienced, valuable players, Mizzou is primed to make a move in 1998. Of course, you remember how the real 1998 season went...Mizzou was about 3 plays from a 10-1 record but instead had to settle for being one of the better 8-4 teams in recent memory. Against a West Division schedule, would things have turned out any differently?
9/5: Missouri 37, Bowling Green 0 – This game was only notable for how wide open Kent Layman was on his first quarter TD reception. A simple play-action fooled all 11 Falcon defenders, and there was literally nobody within 40 yards of Layman when the ball was thrown.
9/12: Missouri 41, Kansas 23 – Big 12 or no Big 12, Devin West still rushes for a bazillion yards in this game, and Mizzou avenges the ’97 late-season loss.
9/19: Missouri 17, Michigan 13 – Mizzou was coming off of a rousing win over their arch-rival; Michigan was coming off of season-opening losses to Notre Dame and Syracuse. The table was set for a Mizzou victory at Faurot, and that’s what would have happened.
9/26: Missouri 21, Indiana 13 – Well...if they beat Michigan...
10/3: Missouri 35, Northwestern State 14 – The game where Corby got turf toe.
10/10: Michigan State 24, Missouri 18 – First road game after five straight at home. That, combined with Corby’s injured foot, spells doom.
10/24: Missouri 21, Minnesota 8 – Corby gets a week to rest, and the friendly Faurot confines get Mizzou past a decent Gopher squad.
10/31: Missouri 27, Wisconsin 24 – I came up with this result, then immediately questioned it. Wisconsin was quite good in ’98, and this was exactly the kind of game definitely fell into the category of the Nebraska and ATM games from that season...and we lost both of those games in the last seconds. But hey, who am I to argue with the transitive property? This win would move Mizzou to an impressive 7-1 on the season and a ranking of probably around #9-12.
11/7: Missouri 33, Northwestern 13 – Barnett’s last NW’ern team was one of his worst, and Senior Night at Faurot goes off without a hitch.
11/14: Missouri 28, Iowa 17 – This was a bad Iowa team.
11/21: Missouri 31, Illinois 17 – This was a bad Illinois team. An easy two road wins to finish the season.
East Division Ohio State – 7-1 (10-1) Michigan – 6-2 (8-4) Penn State – 5-3 (8-3) Michigan State – 4-4 (6-6) Purdue – 4-4 (6-6) Indiana – 1-7 (3-8)
West Division Record: 21-27 East Division Record: 27-21
Big Ten Championship: Ohio State 31, Missouri 14. We know what happened when these two teams met in September in Columbus. Missouri held on as long as possible before caving down the stretch...passing for all of 20 yards in the process. Well, Mizzou’s passing game and defense improved as the season progressed, but Ohio State was really good in 1998. Only a stupid loss to Michigan State kept them from the national title game.
So here’s where I almost got carried away. (Here’s also where my dislike of K-State comes through despite my best efforts.) If you’ll recall, Kansas State got delightfully screwed by the BCS in 1998. They were in line for a bid in the national title game until they choked against ATM in the Big 12 Championship Game, but they were passed over for an at-large BCS berth by Ohio State and Florida. And since the Cotton and Holiday Bowls had already claimed their bids, with one loss KSU fell from the national title game to the Alamo Bowl. And then they laid a giant egg and lost to Purdue.
Well, what would happen in this alternate reality? The reason Ohio State had to claim an at-large BCS bid was because Wisconsin made the Rose Bowl after OSU’s loss to Michigan State. So if Ohio State now makes the Rose Bowl and a 9-2 Wisconsin team doesn’t go to a BCS bowl, there’s an extra slot available. The vindictive side in me wanted to give that extra bid to a 10-2 Mizzou team ranked probably somewhere around #8-10 in the country after a loss to Ohio State...and I almost did it...but I guess I have to face up to the fact that Mizzou’s presence in the Big Ten (and the presence of a Big Ten title game) would have prevented K-State from getting screwed. So...
BCS Bowl Bids Fiesta: Tennessee vs Florida State (national title game) Orange: Kansas State vs Florida Sugar: Texas A&M vs Syracuse Rose: Ohio State vs UCLA
Big Ten Bowls Motor City: Minnesota 38, Marshall 34 Sun: Michigan 31, USC 19 Alamo: Penn State 45, Texas Tech 14 Outback: Wisconsin 40, Kentucky 14 Citrus: Missouri 38, Arkansas 24
Pretty sure West Virginia was actually better than Arkansas in ’98, so Missouri probably would have won this one. A January 1 win and an 11-2 record would have been a pretty nice way for Corby, Devin, etc., to go out, don’t you think?
Rose: Ohio State 31, UCLA 22
1999
No matter how much success Mizzou had in 1998, nothing was going to make 1999 a good year. We’ll say that karma would have broken Kirk Farmer’s leg whether they played Iowa State or not.
8/28: Missouri 20, Arizona 14 – The Big Ten was always getting the kickoff classic-types of games, and being that Missouri was coming off an 11-win season, we’ll say they got one of them. In the real 1999, this game was Penn State vs Arizona. Penn State won 41-7.
9/11: Missouri 48, Western Michigan 34 – Yup. Mizzou moves to 3-0.
9/18: Kansas 21, Missouri 14 – Have to figure Kirk Farmer would have been worth two touchdowns, but not much more than that.
10/9: Missouri 17, Iowa 16 – We’ll call this Farmer’s Last Stand. With a healthy Farmer, Missouri had the advantage here, and they moved to 4-1 on the season.
10/16: Wisconsin 28, Missouri 13 – And this is where Dougherty becomes full-time starter. We’ll say this is where Farmer gets pushed out of bounds, screams, vomits, and passes out, leaving the entire student section in shock.
And yes, I’m referring to what happened against Iowa State that season. Seriously, that was a scarring experience for anybody around. No way was Missouri recovering from that and winning that game. They almost did (and would have had Rob West not dropped a 4th down TD pass), but...yeah, scarring.
10/23: Minnesota 28, Missouri 7 – And the downturn begins. Mizzou falls to 4-3.
10/30: Northwestern 19, Missouri 14 – Mizzou falls to 4-4 as the offense can’t muster much against a really bad Northwestern team.
11/6: Missouri 43, Indiana 10 – The real ’99 Tigers bounced back with an unexpected home thumping of Texas Tech...this is basically the same thing...
11/13: Michigan 35, Missouri 7 – The 5-4 Tigers still had hope for a bowl game, but winning in the Big House with no offense whatsoever was a bit too much to ask.
11/20: Illinois 38, Missouri 7 – Illinois bounced back this season after a couple of down years, and by this point in the season, they would have laid the wood to Mizzou.
11/27: Michigan State 47, Missouri 0 – This late-season collapse doesn’t come with a 66-0 thrashing, but a damn good Michigan State team still would have put quite a hurting on this team.
West Division Wisconsin – 8-0 (10-1) Minnesota – 7-1 (10-1) (Only a 20-17 home loss to Wisconsin keeps them from a perfect record) Illinois – 6-2 (8-3) Northwestern – 2-6 (4-7) Missouri – 2-6 (5-7) Iowa – 0-8 (1-10)
East Division Michigan State – 7-1 (10-1) Michigan – 5-3 (8-3) Penn State – 4-4 (7-4) Purdue – 4-4 (7-4) Ohio State – 2-6 (5-7) Indiana – 1-7 (2-9)
West Division Record: 25-23 East Division Record: 23-25 (The West wins for once!)
Big Ten Championship: Wisconsin 37, Michigan State 10
Big Ten Bowls Micron PC: Purdue 63, Virginia 20 Sun: Penn State 28, Oregon 6 Alamo: Illinois 28, Texas A&M 3 Outback: Georgia 28, Michigan 24 Citrus: Michigan State 37, Florida 34 Orange: Minnesota 38, Alabama 34 Rose: Wisconsin 17, Stanford 9
This is an interesting season for the Big Ten...three teams had double-digit win seasons, and they weren’t Michigan, Ohio State, and Penn State—they were Wisconsin, Michigan State, and Minnesota. This power shift was obviously only temporary, but it made for a pretty strong conference, top-to-bottom. A year after going 6-0 in bowls, the Big Ten would go 6-1 in 1999.
Meanwhile, Mizzou’s collapse was sudden and strong, but it wasn’t as strong as was the case in the Big 12. Mizzou reached higher heights in ’97 and ’98 in the Big Ten, and their fall wasn’t quite as steep, so following the ’99 season, Larry Smith wouldn’t have been in as much trouble. I’m going to say that he would have changed offensive coordinators nonetheless, though. So Bill Cubit jumps on board for the 2000 season, not necessarily to save Larry’s job so much as just right the ship.
2000
Need a quick 2000 refresher? 62-9 loss to Clemson. 13-10 loss to Michigan State, where Mizzou punts instead of going for it on 4th down late in the game. Kirk Farmer has an insanely good game against Nebraska...then breaks his collarbone. 38-17 home loss to Kansas on Homecoming. Darius Outlaw gets sacked 11 times in a 28-18 loss to Colorado. Mizzou puts up tremendous fight for Larry Smith’s job against K-State, gets jobbed and loses, 28-24.
Good times.
So what would have happened to this bad team in a different conference?
9/2: Missouri 50, Western Illinois 20 – Like this.
9/9: Clemson 55, Missouri 9 – I’m subtracting a TD from the real result because the “here we go again” vibe wouldn’t have been quite as strong.
And while we’re here, a comment about this game. I’ve never seen a game spiral out of control faster than this one. The Beef and I (and two others) were dumb enough to make the Columbia-to-Clemson drive for this game (we sat about 8 rows from god...good lord is that stadium tall), and late in the first half, we actually thought we had a chance. Think about that. We were down 14-9 with 2:30 left, and Clemson had a fourth down at the Missouri 40. Stop that play, and Missouri might take the lead into halftime. Instead, Clarence Jones and Julian Jones run into each other (actually, Clarence ran into Juian), and Ron Gardner scores untouched from 38 yards out, Missouri turns the ball over, Clemson scores again a minute later, and suddenly it’s 28-9 at halftime. Six minutes into the second half, it’s 48-9. Five TD’s in 8 minutes. We drove 15 hours for a football game, only to leave halfway through the fourth quarter.
Did I mention that my birthday was that weekend?
But we only ran into one member of the Georgia Militia on the trip, so I considered it a success.
Anyway.
9/16: Kansas 38, Missouri 17 – Same result, only a month earlier.
9/30: Missouri 28, Minnesota 24 – Missouri moves to 2-2 with a win over a decent Minnesota team. We’ll say Kirk Farmer went off or something.
10/7: Penn State 42, Missouri 33 – Since I substituted Penn State for Nebraska in 1997, I’ll do the same here. Farmer has a great game, then breaks his collarbone, and bad things happen after that...
10/14: Wisconsin 38, Missouri 17 – The Outlaw-led Tigers fall to 2-4.
10/21: Northwestern 43, Missouri 24 – Homecoming’s no more successful against Northwestern as it was in real-life against Kansas.
10/28: Purdue 31, Missouri 16 – Drew Brees’ Boilermakers don’t win the Big Ten like they did in real-life (they end up tying for the division lead with OSU, who wins the tie-breaker), but they’ve got more than enough to send Mizzou to 2-6.
11/4: Missouri 26, Iowa 21 – For a couple years here, Iowa was almost as bad as Baylor...and since Missouri managed to beat Baylor...
11/11: Ohio State 30, Missouri 28 – Larry’s last homestand? Outlaw and the Tigers pull out all the stops and almost beat the eventual Big Ten Champion. Almost, but not quite.
11/18: Illinois 27, Missouri 14 – The Tigers have nothing left in the tank, finish 3-8.
East Division Ohio State – 6-2 (8-3) Purdue – 6-2 (8-3) Michigan – 5-3 (7-4) Penn State – 4-4 (5-7) Michigan State – 2-6 (5-6) Indiana (2-9)
West Division Record: 24-24 East Division Record: 24-24
Big Ten Championship: Ohio State 38, Northwestern 23
Big Ten Bowls Las Vegas: UNLV 24, Minnesota 21 Micron PC: Michigan 38, NC State 28 Alamo: Nebraska 59, Illinois 10 Sun: Wisconsin 21, UCLA 20 Outback: South Carolina 30, Purdue 17 Citrus: Auburn 40, Northwestern 28 Rose: Washington 28, Ohio State 14
The Big Ten is down this year, going 2-5 in bowls, but Missouri just about brings up the rear anyway.
In five seasons, already four different teams (Iowa, Missouri, Wisconsin, Northwestern) have won the West Division and three (Ohio State, Michigan, Michigan State) have won the East. The the parity-addled Big Ten, that sounds about right.
So here’s the question. In the real 1999-00, Missouri went 7-15 with six losses of 30+ points. In the alternate 1999-00, Missouri went 8-15, but with only two losses of 30+ points. Without the blowouts, does Larry Smith still get fired? Mike Alden has a notoriously patient trigger finger, but is that only with the coaches he hired? Does the fact that Missouri went 3-8 in an absolutely putrid Big Ten in ’00 hurt him significantly?
So here’s where I need some feedback: I’m almost tempted to say that Larry would have gotten another season in this scenario...talk me out of it. Convince me otherwise.
In late-February 1994, the Big 8 as it had existed for decades was about to change significantly. The Southwest Conference was falling apart, and there was a huge Texas TV market for the taking. The conference invited four SWC schools—Texas, Texas A&M, Baylor, and Texas Tech—to join. MU Chancellor Charles Kiesler was skeptical:
The Big Eight needs to do more homework before finalizing a deal to bring four Southwest Conference schools into the league, and the union doesn't mean Missouri is in for the long haul, MU chancellor Charles Kiesler says.
“I want to emphasize I'm not badmouthing this deal,” Kiesler said last night. “It may well be the best thing that ever happened to the Big Eight and those four other schools. But it's a complicated deal, and we haven't treated it in a complicated way.
“If I went to the curators with a deal as complicated as this, with as many millions of dollars involved and said, `Trust me,' they'd give me my lunch pail and send me home.”
No pussy-footing around. I'm starting out against the proposed merger of the Big Eight athletic conference with four teams from the Southwest Conference.
If MU is going to join with teams from another conference, my first instinct tells me, let it be the Big Ten. Athletic implications are not all. Television revenue is not everything. Missouri's flagship campus would be in better academic company hobnobbing with the likes of Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa and Illinois than with Texas Tech, Texas A&M and Baylor. We have more geographic affinity with the Big Ten. Missourians tend to look east instead of west.
...
I'm pleased to see that MU chancellor Charles Kiesler at least is skeptical. His stated concern is that it's a complicated deal, and he has not yet given it the complicated consideration he must before recommending it. The governing bodies of all the schools involved will have to sign off. If it comes to a conflict between a majority vote among Big Eight schools and dissidence from individual institutions, the dissidents no doubt would fall in line.
Kiesler made one intriguing comment. Even if the Southwest Conference deal goes through, that doesn't mean Missouri is in it for the long haul. Later, if the Big Ten comes knocking, MU might go that way. However, having made his caveats, Kiesler said he is happy with the Big Eight, has no intention of leaving the Big Eight, would no doubt vote with a majority that wanted the Southwest merger and that, superficially, the merger looks like a good deal.
So let’s say for a minute that Mizzou resisted the call of the soon-to-be Big 12, and let’s say for a minute that the Big Ten gave up on Notre Dame and invited Missouri to be its 12th member.
Now, before we go any further, I should acknowledge that the “Should Mizzou go to the Big Ten?” topic comes up about every 2-3 months on Missouri message boards, and it drives me absolutely crazy. I grew up in Western Oklahoma, following Missouri, OU, OSU, and Nebraska, not Illinois, Iowa, and Ohio State. I would have been a very hard sell. However, this is “What If...” Land, so it’s not really up to me.
This post will focus on football. It is, of course, tempting to go down the “St. Louis is basically Big Ten country, and if we were in the Big Ten, we might have ended up with some of those StL recruits we missed out on over the years” path, but I won’t. Nor will I think about Texas recruits we might not have gotten without as much Texas exposure. Instead, I will only aim—with the foolproof transitive property—to lay out about what would have happened if a 12-team Big Ten had begun play in 1996, and Mizzou had been involved with the exact teams they ended up with. I have to work through 11 seasons here, and if I started changing who was or wasn’t on the team, this post would end up 15,000 words long.
(Here are some more questions: what would this have meant for the Big 12? Would the deal have broken down if one team had backed out? Would someone like Iowa State have decided not to jump in either? Would everything have gone down exactly the same, only with TCU or Colorado State in Missouri’s place? And how the hell would divisions have been divided if TCU took MU’s place? They’d have almost had to split up OU and OSU! Anyway, it’s very interesting to think about the domino effect that might or might not have followed MU jumping from the train.)
Divisions
The first issue on the table is, how would a 12-team Big Ten be divided? Geographically, there’s really only one answer:
West Division – Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Northwestern, Wisconsin East Division – Indiana, Michigan, Michigan State, Ohio State, Penn State, Purdue
This keeps all the major rivalries—Michigan/OSU, Michigan/MSU, Indiana/Purdue, Iowa/Minnesota, Illinois/Missouri?, Iowa/Missouri?—intact, and it really does perfectly divide the conference up, east and west. Question is, would that be even remotely competitively even? Looking at the current state of those programs (in football), the answer is obviously no. However, divisions would have been formed in the 1994-95 range. What did the landscape look like then?
Here are the conference records for these teams between 1991-1995, the five seasons before division play would have started (brought to you by the always fantastically useful jhowell.net):
West Division Illinois: 21-17-2 (.550 win %) Iowa: 21-18-1 (.538) Wisconsin: 18-19-3 (.488) Northwestern: 15-25 (.375) Missouri (Big 8 record + record vs Big 10 teams): 12-28-1 (.305) Minnesota: 8-32 (.200)
Total Record: 95-139-7 (.409) (Take out NW’ern’s 8-0 record in ’95, and this gets significantly worse.)
East Division Ohio State: 32-6-2 (.825) Penn State (Big Ten 1993-95): 19-5 (.792) Michigan: 29-9-2 (.750) Michigan State: 20-19-1 (.513) Indiana: 16-24 (.400) Purdue: 10-17-3 (.288)
Total Record: 126-80-8 (.607)
Okay, so it wasn’t balanced then either. Is there anything that could have been done about it, though?
- You have to have Michigan-MSU-OSU in the same division. - You have to have Illinois-Iowa-Minnesota-Missouri in the same division. - You have to have Indiana-Purdue in the same division, and those two teams have to be in the same division as UM-MSU-OSU to balance out the quality with their own lack thereof.
So that leaves Northwestern, Penn State, and Wisconsin without a division, and I think it just makes too much geographic sense not to stick NW’ern and Wisconsin with Illinois-Iowa-Minnesota-Missouri, right? Having an intra-division rivalry between Minnesota and Penn State (991 miles apart according to Google maps) instead of Ohio State and Penn State?
Let’s look at the other major revenue sport—men’s basketball—and see how these divisions would stack up there. Of course, I can only dig up records for 1993-94 and 1994-95—and since CollegeRPI.com is flaky at the moment, I can only find overall records, not conference records—so we’ll work with that.
Oops. Okay, so let’s try something different here. Before I dive into 11 years’ worth of results, I’ll solicit some feedback from you, the loyal Sanity readers. Even though it would result in relative imbalance, would the Big Ten have set up divisions in this East/West manner? Or would they have created more parity by sticking Penn State in the same division with Minnesota/Iowa/Illinois/Missouri?
Basketball season is winding down (though, thanks to K-State, talk of basketball is still abound), so this will be my last official basketball-only “What If” of the season. Since we’re in the time of year where coaches change hands like baseball cards, I thought I’d look at a Mizzou-related coaching change. No, not that one. Been there, done that. I’m talking about the one in 1999: Norm’s resignation and replacement. Needless to say, I had some fun with this one.
As I mentioned recently, Norm resigned on April Fool’s Day. By Kent Heitholt’s April 5, 1999, summary of the coaching search and interview process, the following individuals had been interviewed: John Calipari, Quin Snyder, Bill Self, and Kim Anderson. Other possible names on the list included Larry Drew, Buzz Peterson, Skip Prosser, and SEMO’s Gary Garner (yikes). If you ask just about anybody, however, it came down to Quin vs Self. At the time, not too many people had problems with hiring Quin, other than a) he was a Dookie, b) he might bring Wojo as an assistant, and c) his hair was long and wavy.
Quin was certainly the #1 assistant in the country, he was young, and he was known as a phenomenal recruiter, a reputation he quickly cemented by locking down the commitment of Kareem Rush. Through the years, lots have people have begun to say they favored Self all along, and maybe they did...but a lot of that is hindsight. I hated Duke then like I hate Duke now, but I still didn’t have much of a problem with hiring Quin...other than his hair, anyway.
However...what would have happened if we’d hired Bill Self? First of all, I’m about 90% sure he’d have left for the Kansas job in 2003, but unlike others, I don’t see that as a bad thing at all. If nothing else, that would have vaulted Mizzou/Kansas to the #2 rivalry in the country (behind only UNC-Duke, of course). I mean, think about it—Self would have turned Mizzou into a consistently ranked team, and his leaving for MU’s bitter rival would have made for an amazing amount of bad blood and intensity. It would have been fantastic. The next question is, of course, who would Mizzou have hired to replace him in 2003?
But we’ll get to that. Let’s start from the top.
Background
Every Mizzou fan is beyond well-versed on how this all played out, so I won’t spend a lot of time on this. Quin Snyder was hired in 1999 and quickly proved himself to be a strong (but not amazing) recruiter, attracting the likes of highy-rated recruits like Kareem Rush, Rickey Paulding, Travon Bryant, and Najeeb Echols to Mizzou in his first couple of seasons. However, while he was able to get the attention of best-of-the-best recruits like Luol Deng, he was never able to land one of those guys. He was also never able to land an elite point guard, and considering he was trying to institute the Duke system—which requires not only a good point guard, but the best point guard in the country to succeed—this proved to be his biggest downfall.
As for his exploits on the sidelines, in Snyder’s first four seasons, he had Mizzou a) underachieving in January and b) peaking in March. It was a tightrope act, but it was a successful one at first. After reaching the first round of the NCAA’s in 2000 with a horrifically undersized team, his team made the second round in 2001 and the Elite Eight in 2002. In 2003, his team peaked the week before the NCAA’s, winning three in a row to make the Big XII Tourney Finals, coming up just short against OU in the finals, then coming up just short again to eventual Regional Champ Marquette in OT in the second round of the NCAA’s.
This tightrope act ended like a lot of tightrope acts end—with a dramatic crash. MU’s lack of strong point guard play led Snyder to recruit the troubled Ricky Clemons in 2002, and after his “We’re going to watch Roots, dammit” exploits in January 2003, and the months—okay, years—of drama that followed (the “Crackas be shaking” incident was my personal favorite moment), the program was never the same.
In the shadow of the Clemons fiasco, Quin’s most experienced, highly-touted team faltered horribly in December 2003 and January 2004 before catching fire too late in February and running out of gas in the stretch run. Probation followed, and 2005 and 2006 were completely lost causes. Early recruiting misses—particularly at the guard position—had led to reaches and shady recruiting tactics, and the Quin Snyder Era ended mercifully in February 2006.
Meanwhile, in 1999-00 Bill Self took an experienced Tulsa team to the Elite Eight, then jumped to Illinois to replace Lon Kruger. He took over a better, more well-rounded team in Illinois (players like Frank Williams and Brian Cook were waiting for him in Champaign) than the one Quin inherited at Mizzou, and success immediately followed. He established strong AAU ties and used some shady recruiting tactics of his own to lock up a couple of wonderful recruiting classes at Illinois before bolting to Kansas, his own ‘dream job,’ to replace Roy Williams in 2003. What happened to Self at Kansas has no bearing on this “What If” game since I’m working off of the assumption that he would have left for Kansas even if he were coaching their biggest rival...but I’d be remiss as a Mizzou fan if I didn’t mention a) Bucknell and Bradley or b) no Final Fours. Now that that formality is out of the way...
Being that we’re dealing with a lot of seasons and statistics here (eight seasons between then and now), I won’t spend a lot of time ‘showing my work’ on this one. I basically used the same statistics for the below projections (mostly Net Equivalent Points and ‘per minute’ stats) as I did for previous What If posts. The only thing I did differently for this one was take a close look at what Self and his 2003 replacement (who I won’t reveal just yet) were able to achieve statistically at their own schools and combine that with the stats of the actual players who were on the roster. For tourney results, I did what I usually do—combine actual results and play use the ‘transitive property’ to create new results—except I also threw into the mix what Self (and his successor) actually did in the tourney that same year.
What follows is my best estimate at what the roster and results would have been for each proceeding season. So let’s start from the top.
1999-00 Season
Bill Self was obviously no slouch as a recruiter, so I’m pretty sure the first thing he’d have done as Mizzou’s second head coach in 30 years would have been to secure commitments from Kareem Rush and Josh Kroenke, just like Quin Snyder did. I’m also going to work off the assumptions that T.J. Soyoye would have still stayed committed to Mizzou, and Nyah Jones would have still decommitted.
The main differences between Quin’s first team at Mizzou and Self’s first team at Illinois were a) fewer possessions per game at Illinois, and b) more rebounds. In other words, there was a slower pace for Illinois games than Mizzou games because more guys stayed back to rebound, meaning less second-chance opportunities for opponents and less fast-break opportunities for Mizzou. Part of that can be explained by the fact that Illinois plays in a more plodding, rebound-oriented conference, but a lot of that seems to be Self’s personal coaching style as well. Plus, considering how small this ’99-’00 team would have been, the odds are good that Self would have focused extensively on team rebounding.
Also, Self as a whole seemed to use his bench a bit less than Quin did. Part of that could be explained by what Self’s roster at Illinois actually consisted of, but as these seasons progress, I’ll make a slight adjustment in that way through these seasons by upping the Minutes Per Game (MPG) for starters and lowering them slightly for backups. But you won’t see a lot of that for ’99-’00.
So the 1999-00 roster/stats would have looked like this:
G – Keyon Dooling, So. (31.7 MPG, 15.2 PPG, 3.0 RPG, 3.7 APG) G – Clarence Gilbert, So. (31.3 MPG, 13.6 / 4.1 / 2.3) G – Brian Grawer, Jr. (28.2 MPG, 7.3 / 3.2 / 2.9) G/F – Kareem Rush, Fr. (25.9 MPG, 14.1 / 4.6 / 1.5) F/C – T.J. Soyoye, Jr. (25.1 MPG, 8.8 / 6.9 / 0.8) F – Jeff Hafer, Sr. (22.8 MPG, 7.0 / 4.0 / 1.9) F – Johnnie Parker, Jr. (17.6 MPG, 6.1 / 4.9 / 0.8) F – Justin Gage, Fr. (12.3 MPG, 2.3 / 2.7 / 0.2) G – Josh Kroenke, Fr. (9.4 MPG, 2.7 / 0.9 / 0.3) C – Pat Schumacher, So. (6.1 MPG, 1.5 / 1.4 / 0.0) F – Kenge Stevenson, So. (4.1 MPG, 0.5 / 1.2 / 0.0) G – Mark Wampler, Sr. (minimal) G – Steve Weaver (minimal)
I figure there’s a decent chance that Pat Schumacher would have played a lot more under Self, but I wasn’t convinced enough of that to actually make a major adjustment there.
(Plus, maybe Self would have started Wampler on senior night. Not that I’m still bitter about that or anything.)
Fewer possessions per game means 0.6 fewer PPG for Mizzou and 2.6 fewer PPG for opponents. In other words, a better point differential of, depending on how we distribute the points, 2-3 PPG. What do those extra couple of points do in the results category? Not much. The Texas game (originally a 66-63 loss) becomes a tossup, and the Kansas game (the famous “Keyon’s Dunk/Charge” game, originally an 83-82 loss) becomes a win. So in his first season, Bill self sweeps Kansas and goes 18-10 or 19-9 in the regular season (Quin went 17-11). We’ll say 19-9 with a win over Texas (why? Because it’s my blog). Their 12-4 conference finish is good for a 4-way tie for 2nd (with Texas, OU, and OSU), and if I understand the tie-breaking procedure correctly (I probably don’t), they would get the #3 seed behind Oklahoma. They beat #6 seed Kansas (78-69...a 3-game sweep!) on Friday before bowing out to Oklahoma in OT (80-79) on Saturday.
Okay, okay...since I mentioned it, I guess I have to show it...these are the rules...
Anyway.
At this point, Missouri is 20-10 instead of 18-12, and instead of a #9 seed in the South, we’ll say they get a #6 seed. They defeat #11 seed Arkansas, 78-70, in the opening round, then follow with a 69-63 upset of #3 Ohio State in the second round. In the Sweet Sixteen, they face #7 Miami-FL, who upset #2 Cincy in the second round. Based mostly off of Tulsa’s defeat of Miami-FL in that same round (Self coached Tulsa that year, after all), I have Mizzou winning, 76-70. That leads to an Elite Eight showdown against #9 North Carolina...and a 69-63 defeat.
So Bill Self’s first season results in a 23-11 record (12-4 in conference), an Elite Eight appearance, and a 3-game sweep of Kansas. Not bad at all.
2000-01 Season
Bill Self’s first recruiting class (according to me) results in five signees: G/F Darius Miles (from East St. Louis, IL / went to NBA), F Terrence Crawford (Oklahoma City / went to OSU), G Jason Parker (Tulsa / Tulsa), C Jack Ingram (Tulsa / Tulsa-Illinois), and G/F Chris Sloan (St. Charles / SLU).
Yes, Miles. Again, it’s my blog, and I can do what I want to. Miles, of course, bolts for the pros, however...resulting in a pretty mediocre class overall.
How much would the loss of Miles (and Keyon Dooling, who obviously still would have gone pro as well) affect Self’s second Mizzou team? Let’s see...
G – Clarence Gilbert, Jr. (33.5 MPG, 17.8 / 3.6 / 3.5) G/F – Kareem Rush, So. (32.7 MPG, 24.1 / 8.1 / 2.1) F/C – T.J. Soyoye, Sr. (28.7 MPG, 10.3 / 7.9 / 0.7) G – Brian Grawer, Sr. (28.4 MPG, 9.8 / 3.3 / 2.6) F – Terrence Crawford, Fr. (23.3 MPG, 5.9 / 3.5 / 1.5) F – Johnnie Parker, Sr. (21.5 MPG, 4.1 / 4.2 / 0.3) C – Jack Ingram, Fr. (19.5 MPG, 5.3 / 4.3 / 0.4) F – Justin Gage, So. (15.9 MPG, 2.7 / 2.8 / 0.4) G – Josh Kroenke, So. (1 game before redshirting due to Soyoye’s elbow) G – Jason Parker, Fr. (11.7 MPG, 4.0 / 2.0 / 1.1) F – Chris Sloan, Fr. (9.8 MPG, 1.7 / 1.0 / 1.0) F – Kenge Stevenson, Jr. (8.1 MPG, 1.1 / 2.0 / 0.2) G – Michael Griffin, Fr. (minimal) G – Ryan Kiernan, So. (minimal)
No coach was going to be able to severely limit the free-shooting ways of a team led by Clarence Gilbert and Kareem Rush. And combined with the fact that a) Gilbert & Rush probably would have seen more minutes under Self due to his conservative bench use, and b) the pace of Self’s second Illinois team was increased a considerable amount, this team might have actually averaged more points than Quin’s ’00-’01 team did.
In all, this team’s point differential would have been +4.7, as compared to Quin’s +4.4. Not a huge difference no matter what the style of play. In fact, the regular season probably wouldn’t have seen any different result. The first altered result would have come in the Big XII tourney’s second round, where this time Mizzou actually defeats Oklahoma, 67-66. We’re now going to use the following infallible logic: being that Oklahoma went on to win the Big XII tourney, that means Mizzou would have instead, defeating Kansas (63-57, Self’s fifth win over KU in six opportunities) and Texas (57-55).
Being that the NCAA committee always overdoes it when it comes to teams’ success in their conference tournament, I’ll say the Big XII Conference Tourney Title is enough to once again earn Mizzou a 6-seed, this time in the East Region. They defeat #11 Utah State, 72-58, in the first round, and upset #3 Boston College, 77-75, in the second. The run ends there, however, as USC defeats Mizzou, 73-68, in the Sweet Sixteen before losing to Duke in the Elite Eight.
So Self’s second squad goes on a late run, ending with a 23-14 record (9-7 in conference) and a second straight Sweet Sixteen bid.
2001-02 Season
Two things hurt Mizzou in 2001-02. First, Mizzou’s extra success in the postseason, combined with the fact that Kareem Rush averaged 24 PPG, means that Rush almost certainly goes pro in 2001, a year earlier than he did under Quin. Second, a bigs-heavy recruiting class backfires badly. Bill Self signs two JUCO bigmen—Uche Okafor and Ermal Kuqo—neither of whom ever play a minute for Mizzou due to ineligibility. The rest of the recruiting class consists of just F Roger Powell (Joliet, IL / Illinois) and G/F Blandon Ferguson (JUCO / Illinois), and Mizzou plays 2001-02 with just eight scholarship players (and Justin Gage), only one of whom (foul-prone Jack Ingram) is over 6’6. The bench consists of Gage, Chris Sloan, Josh Kroenke, and Blandon Ferguson. This team’s lack of height, lack of scoring punch, tighter defense, and significantly more physical play, means it has a completely different identity to that of Quin’s ’01-’02 team. Let’s go to the numbers.
G – Clarence Gilbert, Sr. (35.9 MPG, 20.5 / 3.7 / 3.9) G – Jason Parker, So. (33.1 MPG, 13.1 / 3.4 / 4.2) F – Roger Powell, Fr. (26.0 MPG, 12.6 / 7.8 / 0.3) F – Terrence Crawford, So. (28.9 MPG, 7.8 / 5.3 / 1.6) C – Jack Ingram, So. (21.1 MPG, 8.7 / 5.6 / 0.7) F – Chris Sloan, So. (20.2 MPG, 3.5 / 3.2 / 1.1) G – Josh Kroenke, So. (19.3 MPG, 3.2 / 2.4 / 1.6) F – Justin Gage, Jr. (18.6 MPG, 2.7 / 4.6 / 0.8) G – Blandon Ferguson, Jr. (16.6 MPG, 4.9 / 3.3 / 1.3) G – Michael Griffin (minimal) G – Ryan Kiernan (minimal)
This team has a significantly slower pace than the actual Mizzou team did, and that’s mostly by necessity. SF/PF tweeners like Powell, Crawford, and Gage (and to a lesser extent, Ferguson) eat up a lot of minutes at both positions, resulting in fewer points and much more physical defense. In fact, Mizzou is the most physical team in the Big XII by a decent margin. Clarence is obviously the main scoring threat (for better or worse), though Jason Parker (who developed into a very strong player at Tulsa starting his sophomore season) and Roger Powell do their part. In comparison to Quin’s team, this team averages about 8.5 fewer PPG and gives up about 7 fewer PPG.
The other difference for this team was that Bill Self put together a quite ambitious schedule for this season. Some of those games had extenuating circumstances (they played at Maryland as part of the ACC-Big Ten Challenge), but I’m adding to the ’01-’02 schedule the following games: Gonzaga at home (a win), Arizona in Phoenix (a loss), and at Seton Hall (a win).
When I adjust the other results according to the point differential above, I don’t actually get any different results. So we’ll say that, thanks to the added Arizona loss, Missouri’s final record after a 9-7 Big XII record and second round loss in the Big XII tournament, is 20-12. This is actually worse than the 21-11 record Mizzou parlayed into a 12-seed in the ’02 NCAA tournament, but Mizzou’s Strength of Schedule and RPI are much stronger (the non-conference slate now includes Arizona, Iowa—twice, Illinois, Gonzaga, Alabama, and Xavier and dumps at least 1-2 SWAC teams), and they make the tournament easily. We’ll even say they get a 9-seed in the West instead of a 12-seed.
So here’s how the tourney shakes down: #9 Mizzou defeats #8 UCLA in the First Round, 74-66, then defeats #1 Cincinnati (how in the world they got the #1 seed over OU that year, I’ll never know) in OT. This leads to a matchup against either #12 Wyoming or #4 Ohio State in the Sweet Sixteen...we’ll say Wyoming (they performed better in the 2nd round than Ohio State did). A drubbing of the Cowboys follows (we’ll say 75-60), and the season once again ends in the Elite Eight, as Mizzou falls to Oklahoma, 74-67.
Bill Self inevitably would have taken some heat for losing both JUCO centers in the offseason, and combined with the loss of Kareem Rush, Self would have had his work cut out for him. But physicality and tough shooting, combined with a really weak West Region, would have quite possibly led Mizzou just as far in ’01-02 as they actually went with Quin’s deeper, more talented roster. Final numbers: 23-13 (9-7), Elite Eight, third straight Sweet Sixteen.
2002-03 Season
Here’s where Bill Self’s recruiting picked up considerably. Self would have been able to give six scholarships in this class, and here’s where they go: G Dee Brown (yes, he’s from Illinois and might have gone to UI even without Self, but with the AAU ties Self was building in Chicago, I say he would have followed Self a couple hundred miles further west), G Deron Williams, G Jimmy McKinney, C James Augustine, and JUCO PF’s Jeff Graves (hee hee hee...sorry...couldn’t resist) and Seth Scott (who Self was recruiting as a backup plan before he committed to Portland State). The experienced, crafty team of ’01-’02 (minus Clarence Gilbert, who graduated, and Terrence Crawford, who tore his achilles in the offseason) is fortified with a double-shot of youth and talent.
Here are the stats:
G – Dee Brown, Fr. (31.0 MPG, 12.4 / 3.7 / 4.4) G – Deron Williams, Fr. (27.1 MPG, 7.6 / 3.2 / 4.4) G – Jason Parker, Jr. (23.3 MPG, 12.1 / 2.5 / 2.1) F/C – Jeff Graves, Jr. (21.9 MPG, 6.9 / 7.7 / 0.9) F – Roger Powell, So. (20.6 MPG, 10.7 / 3.9 / 0.3) C – James Augustine, Fr. (19.3 MPG, 7.3 / 5.3 / 0.6) G – Jimmy McKinney, Fr. (18.3 MPG, 5.9 / 2.3 / 1.8) C – Jack Ingram, Jr. (15.8 MPG, 4.6 / 4.1 / 0.6) F – Chris Sloan, Jr. (8.1 MPG, 2.9 / 1.3 / 0.3) G – Josh Kroenke, Jr. (8.0 MPG, 2.1 / 1.1 / 0.7) G – Blandon Ferguson, Sr. (7.4 MPG, 1.7 / 1.2 / 0.6) F – Seth Scott, Jr. (5.5 MPG, 2.6 / 1.2 / 0.2) G – Ryan Kiernan (minimal) G – Jake Jackson (minimal) G – Rob Stewart (minimal)
This is a team with size, strength, shooting (somewhat) and really quick guards. And their point differential is about +4.5 higher than Quin’s ’02-’03 team. There are no major scheduling adjustments to make this season. Adjusting each score by 4-5 points results in the following changes: the home loss to Kansas is now a win, and the road loss to ATM is now a win. Instead of 18-9/9-7, Missouri finishes the season at 20-7/11-5. This leads to a 4-seed in the Big XII tourney. #4 Missouri defeats #5 Oklahoma State, 63-56, #1 Kansas, 71-61, and #2 Oklahoma, 50-47, to take their second Big XII Tourney Title in three seasons.
The 23-7 Tigers earn a #5 seed in the Midwest Region and defeat #12 Weber State, 78-71, in the first round. The second round pits Self against his old team, #11 Tulsa, and Missouri escapes with a 71-69 win, marking their fourth Sweet Sixteen trip in a row. The run ends there, however, as Kentucky knocks off Mizzou, 76-74 in OT.
Mizzou finishes the season with a 25-8 record, and considering the fact that Blandon Ferguson is the only senior, hopes are high for 2003-04. Then Roy Williams takes the North Carolina job. And Bill Self takes the Kansas job.
So here’s the fun part. In mid-April 2003, Mizzou undergoes its second men’s basketball coaching search in about four years. Looking at the list of coaches who found new jobs in 2003 and 2004, here’s the list from which I’d say Mike Alden would would be working:
Bruce Weber (SIU) Thad Matta (Xavier) Oliver Purnell (Dayton) Billy Gillispie (UTEP) Kim Anderson (token)
You can probably eliminate Purnell because the pull from an ACC team (Clemson) would be too strong considering all of his ties before the Dayton job were from the ACC/Colonial region. Gillispie would be interesting because he was Self’s #1 assistant, but in 2003, he’d only been in charge of UTEP for one season, and they went 6-22. So cross him off. Anderson wouldn’t get a serious look either (well, no more serious a look than he got in 1999), so cross him off.
Now you’re down to Bruce Weber or Thad Matta. Hmm.
I asked The Beef about this, and he says we’d have been more likely to pick Weber over Matta, but I’m extremely biased in Matta’s favor. He was one of my favorite coaches when he was at Xavier, and amid all the rumors of Quin leaving for this job or that job, Matta was the #1 guy I wanted to take the job if Quin ever left. So out of sheer sentimentality, I say we pick Thad Matta.
And since I’m approaching 4,000 words, I’ll speed up now.
2003-04 Season
Bill Self’s final recruiting class consists of only one guy, F Warren Carter. Thad Matta inherits a tremendously experienced team (starting five: Dee Brown, Deron Williams, Jason Parker, Roger Powell, James Augustine) and, judging by what he did in his first seasons at Xavier and Ohio State, takes them pretty dang far. They outscore opponents by about 10 PPG, leading to a 23-4 regular season record, 13-3 in conference play (including a sweep of Kansas...no way would Bill Self beat MU his first season after leaving)—good for the #2 seed in the Big XII Tourney, behind only Oklahoma State. They are upset by Oklahoma in the first round of the conference tourney, however, and fall to a 3-seed in the NCAA tourney, we’ll say in the South region.
They defeat #14 Princeton (73-55), #6 North Carolina (86-72 over Roy Williams...how satisfying would that be?), and #7 Xavier (71-69 over Thad Matta’s old team), before falling to #1 Duke in the Elite Eight (66-63). A 26-6 season ends in yet another trip to the Elite Eight (and no Final Four).
2004-05 Season
Thad Matta’s first recruiting class is a highly-rated one: centers Steven Hill (Branson) and Kalen Grimes (St. Louis), SF Josh Duncan (a Matta recruit at Xavier), PG Stanley Burrell (ditto), JUCO PG Dupree Lucas, and...Taj Gray, who gave Xavier a strong look before heading to OU.
The ’04-’05 squad has a starting five of juniors Brown, Williams, Gray, and Augustine, and senior Roger Powell. They can go big or small (McKinney and Burrell are the first two off the bench), and they outscore opponents 78.3-64.5, going 25-5 in the regular season and winning their first Big XII regular season title since 1994 with a 12-4 record. Matta moves to 5-0 versus Kansas with a 77-70 win in the Big XII tourney finals, and the 28-5 Tigers get the #1 seed in the Chicago Regional.
They defeat #16 Fairleigh Dickinson (66-56), #9 Nevada (70-60), and #12 UW-Milwaukee (76-64) to move to their fourth Elite Eight in six seasons. Do they get to their first ever Final Four? No. They lose to Arizona in OT (90-89), a disappointing ending to a 31-6 season.
2005-06 Season
I don’t know if Thad Matta could have gotten Mike Conley, Jr., and Greg Oden to come to Mizzou to play for him, in fact I doubt it. But I don’t doubt that, coming off of 6 straight Sweet Sixteen’s and 4 Elite Eights, the Class of 2005 would have been his version of 2006’s Thad Five at Ohio State. In other words, I think the odds of him getting both Tyler Hansbrough and Brandon Rush to sign at MU are pretty high.
The ’05-’06 team would have had a starting five of Dee Brown, Brandon Rush, Taj Gray, Tyler Hansbrough, and James Augustine. Yikes. They go 25-5 (13-3) in the regular season and finish tied for 1st with Kansas. They defeat #8 Oklahoma State (82-66) and #5 Texas A&M (85-73) before losing, 84-80, to #2 Kansas in the finals. The 27-6 Tigers get the #2 seed in the Atlanta Regional.
In the Atlanta Region, Mizzou defeats #15 Penn (63-52), #10 N.C. State (78-54), and #6 West Virginia (77-71) before once again losing in the Elite Eight, this time to LSU in OT.
I’ll stop there and let you dream of an ’06-’07 starting five of Mike Conley Jr., Stanley Burrell, Brandon Rush, Tyler Hansbrough, and Greg Oden. I won’t actually go there, though.
Summary
So do you like what I did there? If we’d hired Bill Self (and then Thad Matta), we’d have experienced unprecedented success, both in recruiting and on the court...and being Mizzou, we still wouldn’t make a Final Four.
Bill Self 1999-00: 23-11 (12-4), Big XII Tourney Semis, Elite Eight 2000-01: 23-14 (9-7), Big XII Tourney Champs, Sweet Sixteen 2001-02: 23-13 (9-7), Big XII Tourney Quarterfinals, Elite Eight 2002-03: 25-8 (11-5), Big XII Tourney Champs, Elite Eight
Thad Matta 2003-04: 26-6 (13-3), Big XII Tourney Quarters, Elite Eight 2004-05: 31-6 (12-4), Big XII Tourney Champs, Elite Eight 2005-06: 30-7 (13-3), Big XII Tourney Finals, Elite Eight
