Know Your Enemy: Missouri Tigers

by:Aaron Flener02/22/13

AFlenerKSR

It's been a big week in KSR land. Wednesday, the Cats got a big victory over Vandy and Ernie used Matt's post game show to send out a top secret message. Thursday, we found out Doron Lamb and his socks of the day got traded to Orlando and the football funding was finalized.  Today The Truth let us know how we must conduct ourselves to gain entrance into a ball in Evansville: "If you ain't sassy and you ain't nasty they don't let you in."  Now we have the Gameday crew coming to town for our showdown with Missouri on Saturday. All I can say is "Don't Geek."   It's been a while since we've done this. We keep playing the same teams over and over and haven't had the need to get to know anyone. But we haven't played Missouri, yet. As you know, this is their first year in the conference. That makes it extremely important that we become thoroughly acquainted with the Tigers today. I'm ready to get to it. Let's Know Your Enemy: Missouri Tigers.   Location: The University of Missouri is located in Columbia, Missouri. The city of Columbia has the fifth most people in the state of Missouri. Columbia must know a bit about how Anthony Davis felt about his shots last year. Columbia is known as "College Town USA" and half of its residents own a Bachelor's degree. Considering the second fact, you'd think they could come up with a better nickname than "College Town USA," right?   Ridiculously Good Looking Alumni (in order): Mary Jo Perino- Though I do not know Mary Jo personally, I do know she is a friend of KSR and did a great job on the radio show last Friday with Drew and Ryan. Judging by her picture, I assume she is a very recent graduate of the University of Missouri. I'd say anywhere in the 2006 to 2008 range.  She is a sports anchor for LEX 18, the NBC affiliate in Lexington. I just followed her on twitter. You should too. Jon Hamm- Better known as Don Draper from the TV series "Mad Men," Hamm is a 1993 graduate of the University of Missouri. He began his collegiate studies at the University of Texas but returned back home to Missouri at age 20 when his Dad passed away. If you haven't seen Mad Men, you really should watch it. I got a late start on it but have since caught up. It starts kind of slow but you will be drawn to Don Draper. If you're a male, you'll want to be him and if you're a female you'll also want to be him. As Eric Bledsoe would say, "Don Draper gets s*** right." William Bradley Pitt- At the height of his prime, Brad Pitt was arguably the most famous person in Hollywood. Pitt, now 49, left the University of Missouri two weeks shy of earning his degree to move to Los Angeles where he took acting lessons and worked random jobs. More interestingly, the high school he went to was called Kickapoo High School. He competed on the golf, tennis, swimming, and wrestling teams. He has one Golden Globe award to his credit and has been involved with some of the hottest women on the planet. Gwenyth Paltrow, Jennifer Aniston, and Angelina Jolie, just to name a few. He is currently in a relationship with Angelina Jolie and they have six children. Four of them have names that aren't real names.     Dance Team Scouting Report: They have some really short girls (pictured in front), average height girls (middle row), and extremely tall girls (in the back). If you can say one thing about the Missouri dance team it's that they DO NOT discriminate based on height. They call themselves the "Golden Girls". While I admit they are attractive, they are far from as hot as the original Golden Girls. Shout out to my girls Dorothy, Rose, Blanche, and Sophia.   Basketball History: Missouri plays it's home games in Mizzou Arena which seats just over 15,000 fans. Over time, the Tigers have built a pretty impressive basketball history despite never making it to the Final Four. They have 25 all time tourney appearances including 7 Sweet 16's and 5 Elite 8's. However, the Elite Eight appearance in 1994 was vacated. Prior to joining the SEC, the Tigers were a member of the Big 12 where they won 2 conference tourney championships.   Coach: Frank Haith- When Frank Haith was hired by Missouri I asked myself "Self, what is a Frank Haith?" I honestly had never heard of him before. While researching him, I realized why. As the head coach at Miami from 2004-2011, he went to one NCAA Tournament. That's not a good formula for me to know you. Apparently he wasn't the problem, because since he left and Jim Larranaga and the Hurricanes have strugg... Oh wait. No they haven't. No they haven't at all. Actually, they are pretty damn good. Before Miami, Haith had assistant stints at Texas A&M, Texas, and Wake Forest. In his first year Haith led Missouri to a #2 seed in the NCAA tournament, a seed just good enough to get beat by Norfolk State. If anything ever comes of this Miami investigation, Frank could find himself in some hot water. I'm not going to pretend to know a lot about it, because I don't. But I've always enjoyed Frank's in hot water. I like to take them out of the hot water, put them on a bun and dip them in ketchup.   Players: Phil Pressey- A junior from Dallas, Pressey is averaging 11.8 points, 7 assists, and 3 rebounds. You know who isn't impressed? Archie Goodwin. Goodwin was quoted as saying he'd rather have Harrow running the point for him than Pressey. Shots fired. Laurence Bowers- A senior from Memphis, Bowers missed a few games in the middle of the season due to a knee injury. That hasn't stopped him from averaging 14.2 points, 6.1 rebounds, and getting new arm tattoos. He will be a challenging match up for Alex Poythress. Hopefully Alex will rise to the challenge.   Last Meeting: The last meeting between these two teams occured on December 30th, 1999 at the Sugar Bowl Classic in New Orleans. Kentucky, coached by Tubby Smith, won the game 70-53 and was led by Matt's favorite player Jamaal "I will run over a mascot" Magloire. Magloire had 21 points and 13 rebounds in the win.   Summary: It's impossible to stress the importance of this game enough. I know it's important. You know it's important. Even my Mom knows it's important. A win and we have a good shot at making the NCAA tournament. A loss and we probably have to win out (which would include winning at Arkansas and against Florida). I don't want it to come to that. If you're in Nashville I know there will be a contingent of fans watching at Corner Pub in Midtown. Come join us as we get our Saturday night started with some UK basketball.   @AFlenerKSR

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