I don't know about that. Anytime that we get to knock off the Beakers is pretty satisfying. I think that they would have to make the final four to top that .......for me anyway.

If they can avoid stepping on their dicks vs. Arkansas, they'll be ranked. I think they'll jump clear into the top 20, in fact.

But the "BecauseMizzou" is strong. I expect them to somehow lose to the Hogs.

"In terms of the actual game"

The best argument Mizzou had for being ranked was the quality of their losses.

"Well all of our losses were against ranked teams..." carries weight in the margins, but won't get you far stand-alone.

And the win against KU isn't a conventional 'Beat the #1 team in the country' win in that KU had already lost that week AND it's a rivalry game so voters won't give it quite as much weight.

That said, with 2 wins against top 5 opponents INCLUDING a true road win, that does carry a fair bit of weight. And should be enough, when paired with the quality of the losses, to get them a ranking.

They needed to strengthen their baseline argument (the quality of their WINS) before the corroborating arguments (the strength of their losses) mattered much.

The Florida win does that.

That’s one thing the very deep team gives them … if they come off a win super high and starters are not playing well, there are hungry guys you can pop in.

I love what TO Barrett gave them in crunch time against Florida.

If Perkins or Ant don’t have it, you should feel comfortable subbing Barrett.

The funny thing is that if you'd have told me that this is where the '24/'25 team got to in the summer of '23, I'd have believed you.

I also fully expected last year to be something of a step back season.

I just think I let that year get me TOO down on this year's team. Because we knew that the roster this year had talent as far back as last summer, we just knew it needed time to come together. And that most of last year's team weren't going to be a part of it -- so why should I have allowed the failure of last year's squad influence where I thought this one could get?

{shrug}

Recency bias, I guess.

But man, Ant is my favorite Tiger of either sport in quite awhile. Well, no, that's not right. That's Kobe Brown. But apart from Kobe, Ant is up there with anybody. I'd love to see that kid play out 4 years here because I really don't think he has a game that's going to translate as well to the NBA as he would hope.

I'd rather see him build a legacy here than go pro early, get drafted in the mid-late 2nd and then vanish into the damn G-League.

To see a freshman who hadn't been getting any playing time come into a game of that magnitude during the peak of crunch time in a hostile environment and perform like that was extremely impressive. Brass balls.

That first half against the Gators was as good as I've seen a Mizzou team look in years. If not a decade or two.

Grill is so important to this team, we seem to go as he goes. Think we got it in us to beat the piggies today? I don’t know much about them this year.

Arkansas isn't bad at all. They only lost 2 non con games and they were against Baylor (#25) and Illinois (#19). They beat #20 Michigan. They've lost all 4 conference games, but they've played good teams. We should beat the shit out of them, though.

Arky gonna be more deranged after being waxed all around.

What an ass stomping. You’ve gotta love it. This team looks really good, really deep, can shoot and guard. It could be a fun year

****ing Grill ripping the ball from that bitch Brazile while he was on the floor and slamming it was peak awesomeness. **** him and those sister ****ers.

Just barely ranked. #22 seems way too low. This team gets no respect.

Alabama was 111th KenPom D and made the final 4 last year, dumb shit. Miami was 99th in 2023. Duke was 63rd in 2022.

Yeah - I hated losing Brazile. The one guy that's transferred out that I really really wanted to keep (well him and Pinson).

But it's pretty satisfying seeing a guy go to a rivalry team only to get fisted in his breakthrough year. And it doesn't seem like he's thriving under Coach Cal either. He's clearly not getting the minutes he got last year.

Obviously I don't want to see a kid I liked fail...but it sure doesn't hurt to be able to point to stuff like that in the spring and say "Hey, the grass ain't always greener..."

And to be fair to him, I guess, he wouldn't be playing ahead of Mitchell here and probably not Pierce either. SO maybe he did the right thing for him afterall. He'd probably be out there battling with Shaw for the same backup minutes he's getting in Arkansas. And while that would be an upgrade for us, it wouldn't REALLY matter much.