Welp.....that was pretty terrible

Posted on: December 4, 2019 at 08:34:06 CT

There is almost no doubt that was the worst loss in program history, surpassing the UMKC home debacle in 2014 that virtually no one thought was possible to surpass. You can say a lot of things about a loss like that, but one thing that can be said definitively is that doesn’t happen to a decently coached team whose staff know what they are doing.

I think its safe to say at this point that as was easily predictable ‘positionless’ basketball is a disaster at MU. In only slightly less predictable fashion it appears we are going to entirely waste the college career of Tilmon which is really a shame. Depending on how you look at it, our inability or our lack of prioritization towards finding adequate point guard play is a serious limitation. And whatever we did in the offseason to prepare an offensive approach is abysmal. Our reliance on 3 point shooting against such inferior competition shows serious fundamental flaws, and the pace of play and ability to generate decent looks or put players in positions to succeed is really really subpar.

That said, calls for Cuonzo’s job is not just premature but borderline asinine. He is probably not going to be ‘the guy’ at MU, but that was mostly known from the beginning. His job is to attempt to build MU back to mediocrity, so that we can ideally hire ‘the guy’. Mediocrity looks somewhat unattainable at this point and he may not get there. Its hard to see him coming back from this 3 game stretch in terms of the momentum shift and it may have closed his window of opportunity. But best case scenario this was always at a minimum a 3 year rebuild, due to injuries its been far from best case scenario, and we are only through 2 years. He wasn’t given an idiotic contract, he was given the stability needed to undertake such a task and every potential candidate would have been given the same. His stability was extended due to merit based accomplishments. He did actually make the tournament in year 1, which although was somewhat underachieving given the roster, was still a rather unthinkable achievement given what he inherited.

So he is going to be here the rest of this year, and all of next year. His assistants may not, and I would argue he really needs a massive upgrade across the board on his staff if he hopes to reach mediocrity. But the rest of this year is likely to have almost zero fan support and games in Mizzou Arena will be an embarrassment, which will make it increasingly hard to do an adequate job. And as last year’s disaster and the early season results this year sort of indicate, doing an adequate job may be beyond the capacity of this staff. MU sort of gave up on men’s basketball, and those of us who grew up knowing an basketball program that MU took pride in haven’t really come to terms with that shift. Patience is really the only option on the table at this point, and maybe a few years from now we will be mediocre again. But we appear to be in for a long ride of really hard to watch basketball.

Edited by FIJItiger at 08:37:20 on 12/04/19