Mizzou Basketball is BACK as Dive Cuts season 8 tips off!

and welcome everyone to rock m radio this is the beginning of a brand new episode of dive Cuts it's season8 already and we are here to talk about your Missouri basketball tigers as the only podcast strictly talking about the missou basketball Tigers how about that I am your host Sam Snelling if you're you're watching on YouTube you can see me on your left please take a moment to hit the like button below and if you haven't already please subscribe uh help us kind of grow the channel a little bit uh on your right from The Plains of Glendale Missouri down there in central County uh Central St Louis county is Matt Watkins at data missou on Twitter Mr Watkins how are you tonight I'm doing good I wouldn't really call it the PLS it's gent gentle Rolling Hills little wood I know yeah that was more like I've always kind of referred to uh where Matt Harris is from as the plains of Indiana yeah that's fair yeah so I was I was more making fun of myself for always kind of referring to it as planes um so it's season8 uh we told Harris don't bother showing up because uh you don't need to do anything other than than you know crunch more video on uh you know some some guys who are lined up with some visits uh in the meantime you and I are going to talk about everything that we've missed uh because there has not been a new episode of dive Cuts uh we basically took the entire month of August off um I didn't really plan that to be honest uh it was just one of those things where it's just like there was nothing to talk about uh then the non-conference schedule came out and it's just like ah you know what like that can wait um CU there was you know when it came down to it like what we learned from that you know sort of getting dropped was really not a whole lot you know like we we already kind of knew uh you know the the the big name so to speak we knew about you know Memphis we knew Kansas uh you know we we knew Illinois um you know we knew that they were already getting Cal uh in the the ACC challenge um I love that Missouri gets the Western most uh ACCC team in this uh in this new conference realignment it is a grudge match though Dennis Gates Alma moer yeah yeah and believe the last time Missouri played Cal was in uh it was in the was the Hall of Fame classic it was uh in 20as city I believe yeah in 2012 and they blew the door off them um ah good old days uh but yeah so there wasn't really I mean we kind of knew there wasn't really going to be a whole lot the big question was whether or not they were GNA work at a date with uh with Memphis or not Memphis sorry Minnesota they did not uh you have to excuse me I feel like I'm gonna cough here but uh um but yeah like obviously guy is coaching for his job up there he doesn't want a road trip to Missouri after Missouri was just up there and beat them let's see if we can p push that off for another year that's that's why I'm sure there was some struggles to find dates I don't know if you saw Minnesota's nonc Comfort schedule it similar to Missouri left something to be desired worse it's worse it is worse you know but like I always one thing like missou is fortunate to always have Illinois um the series with Kansas is back on that is that those are two Marquee games you're going to have on the schedule uh hopefully with KU from from here on out uh certainly with Illinois we know that that game has gotten too popular to not be played um you know so we you basically are starting from uh a standpoint of having you know like key fixtures and then for the most part like they've kind of had had these mtes um Dennis has kind of shied away a little bit from the mtes he's gone to uh he's gone to these you know bring in terrible you know low major programs and you know and have it rotate and call it an mte um so you know it it ends up loading the schedule and I think like I guess this we're we're getting into it since uh since that's where we are um but it it definitely sets the schedule up to be not great I mean I think that there are ways for this schedule to be better um and I certain like so I I like the Jacksonville State game um so I guess I'll run through it really quickly uh November 4th at Memphis and then they are home basically until they see Illinois home against Howard on uh November 8th on the 11th they play Eastern Washington on the 14th Mississippi Valley State on the 22nd Pacific on the 24th Arkansas Pine Bluff on the 27th Lindenwood uh then the after mentioned ACC challenge uh Cal comes in uh then you welcome KU uh to uh that's December 8th uh and then Long Island University um comes in on the 14th on the 17th you get Jacksonville State the 22nd is Illinois uh and then you wrap up the nonon with a a home game against Alabama State uh one two three four five six of those games are against teams that are inside the top 300 and I think that's where I have the most issue uh oh sorry Howard is 225 that would be seven uh yeah so Howard is 220 so this is these are Bart torvic um in fact with our our new uh with our our new features here I'm going to share the screen so we can just put it up on the screen uh te page sure um so anybody who isn't familiar you can go to Bart chic.com uh and you can you can look at like you know projects Missouri to be 63rd in the country here are his projected 10 contributors something could be taken with a greatest Sal there as uh I don't think anybody projects Jeremy Sanchez uh to be a contributor this year um but here's the schedule so if you see red here that's projected loss if you see green it's a projected win um and you could see like this run here uh Howard Eastern Washington Mississippi Valley State Pacific Arkansas Pine buff lyndenwood uh none of those games are supposed to be close Howard is projected to be the closest it's 17 points uh Alabama state is 18 and a half points uh and then so this is what I was saying Jacksonville State uh there's a championship pedigree with their coach um Ray Turner I think is his name uh won championships at Kentucky Wesleyan division two Oklahoma City and ni um he's been to the an BL tournament Western Kentucky uh and now he's at Jacksonville State um and they've they've moved up from the Ohio Valley all the way up into Conference USA uh so that's that's a decent decent game outside of that you know like you we pointed you have Memphis you have Kansas you have Illinois uh and you have Cal which you know Cal's not really expected to be very good um it'll at least be a high major team but everybody else is um lacking I guess yeah it's uh it's not good um you know when you when you look at this there's kind of two ways ways two ways to analyze it um first you know what's it doing for your team and after last year when missou went 0 and9 against SEC competition there there is some virtue to the thought that hey we need to go out and win some games you know this schedule reflects that I don't really buy into that too much and the reason why and it's a bigger topic than what we're what we're discussing here is that missou has a whole lot of new guys on their team yes you want to get them integrated you want to have everyone getting on the same page all this that and the other Dennis Gates did that wonderfully in year one but last year doesn't really matter to me as far as how you schedule because turnover is so rapid now you know mou's got five transfers coming in they've got five freshmen coming in they've got five holdovers two of which Miss significant time year ago you know what happened last year doesn't really matter except to perception with the fan base and honestly if you're playing you know this slate of games at home you're looking at a pretty pretty tough sell and getting PE people on the door um against this level of competition now sure if you reel off what is it 10 wins straight and come home and can come home and play Kansas yeah it's going to be packed it would be packed if missou played them at the end of last year that's just the way it is um you know but this schedule I don't think is really going to give um you know the people who follow missou really any belief in what they are until the middle of December at best even if you knock off Memphis Memphis is a complete crap show right now they've got NCA allegations over their head they you know institutional control lack of institutional control they fired four coaches even be the head coach when uh when the season rolls around we don't know um but you beat them yeah you get a little bit of momentum but it's you know what does it do for your bottom line and more importantly to me what does it do for your postseason prospects and that's the second aspect of this this doesn't really do anything um for that unless you win Cal Kansas Illinois or Memphis none of these winds are going to move the needle one bit um the only way that it really matters is in very limited circumstances when you're right around the bubble the committee tends to kind of disregard a lot of the things that they follow and go for wins over over teams that have less wins so if missou let's say goes nine-9 in conference and they've got 20 21 wins they might be seen a little bit higher than a team with similar metrics that has 18 or 19 wins even though it came against Alabama State and uh Eastern Washington you know it it that to me isn't a big enough reason to schedule like this especially with the to get the fan interest back up you know there's just such limited circumstances where this works now having said that if Dennis Gates and his team go through and perform well in this and perform well in the conference season it doesn't really matter they'll be in the tournament but but my theory is that if you've got a good team and I think they have a pretty decent team this year you should be able to beat some at least decent teams um in the non-conference and you know it scheduling is hard now especially when you're not willing to play neutral site tournaments which is the mte the multi-team event um Dennis Gates doesn't seem to really want to do that which is his his prerogative but anymore that's how you're getting quality games in the non-conference no one wants to go visit other people's Arena anymore coaches are chickens it's not one coach is all of them they've gone so far out of their way to schedule multi-te events or neutral sight games and half empty Arenas so they get the bump up when it comes to quad rankings and the winds and now the instead of playing the secret scrimmages they do these charity exhibitions charity or just Flatout exhibitions where they play at each other's at each other's Arena but the games don't count it's a preseason game right why aren't we playing these games during the regular season the reason why coaches don't want to lose that's it they're scared to lose and it really is a detriment to the sport as a whole in my opinion that's an aside from missou that's not directed towards the missou program that's everyone look at conference non-conference schedules and point out to me the good home and home games that are played on campus they just don't exist one you know well yeah and you know I think that there are teams at the upper tiers of the sport um you know Kansas being an example uh North Carolina has a good history of you know not being afraid to sort of just you know travel uh you know Arizona um has has recently kind of taken up the mantle of being willing to schedule um but I think what you see is you see these programs like Missouri and you know one of the things that I I put on the forums recently was you know like as part of my preview series I go back and I sort of uh you know I take the average kmom rating um over like the last 10 years and then every year I you know I grow it up so it's it's still the last within the last 10 years and the last 10 years still includes the last three years of the commanders era so obviously there's a bit of an anchor there um but you know Missouri is last in the SEC and that includes all 16 teams for their kenpom rating over the last 10 years so we're not talking about a you know a team and a program that has you know been consistently good um we're talking about a program that has you know in their best years slipped into the N tournament and their worst year has been like embarrassingly at the bottom of the league and so when I I kind of understand like why coaches are a little hes they want to rack up wins but at the same time like and this is why like as much as I didn't like Eric muscleman I did like the way he scheduled because he would go out and he would you know he would play more Jacksonville States and like fewer Mississippi Valley States like quality mid Majors yeah like like teams that can help you a little bit and yeah you're not going to beat them by 30 uh and maybe you don't get to go as deep into your bench as as you want but you know it's going to be a more competitive game and it's a game that if you even if you play like your your B or C game you're still probably going to win right and and so I like that's why like I kind of highlighted that game and it's it's actually still highlighted on the screen but Jacksonville State you know they're not they're not going to be great they're they're probably going to be pretty good it's it's a top 200 team that's not you know a world beater they're Conference USA it's a team that's going to uh be lucky if they're in postseason conversation but you know 193 in the country versus you know all these teams 312 363 322 360 323 like that run from Eastern Washington to Lenwood is horrific and like I don't I don't understand the benefit to your team of play playing that string of games without anybody throwing in to sort of mix it up they really needed to like remove Mississippi Valley State and put in you know another quality is you know mid major team uh and I you know I understand there's a lot of teams out there and everybody's trying to kind of find games and and you you know you're you're having to create these contracts and it does get it does get complicated um that's why you know like I I told told Rocco like one of the things I'd really like to see is I'd like to just see like a conference uh not you know an NCAA basketball like scheduling Zar like somebody that like really Forces teams to go out and play you know better uh non-conference schedules and not just like not just like you know everyone across the board but actually like setting up you know more Regional matchups uh you know getting you know getting Missouri to play like Missouri State more often getting uh you know Kansas and wit state to play getting Illinois and Illinois state to play um you know making sure that we're seeing you know those kinds of more Regional matchups and a lot less of you know flying in Eastern Washington uh you know into Missouri and you know I'm sure if I pulled up Eastern Washington's you know schedule um you know there would probably be some games that are even further away from uh you know from Missouri um yeah it's actually I just did and uh no Missouri is the farthest away so everything else is on the west coast scheduling now is just the problem is endemic I mean you've got part of the problem is that you've got the power rankings that feed into your NCA selection criteria and Power Rankings don't really cap margin of Victory so if you go out and play Mississippi Valley State win by 30 it doesn't really help you if you win by 40 it helps a little bit more if you win by 50 it helps even more but guess what if you're good enough to beat those teams by that amount of points versus a team who can beat him by 30 points you're probably good enough to go play teams better than Mississippi Valley State not worry about losing you know it it's just yeah let's run up the margins against Bad teams well you still have to be pretty good to do that that you know it's not just like oh well we're going to try harder you know that's not how it works there's 40 minutes in a game and 70 plus 70 round 70 possessions in a game you have to execute so why are we just trying to run up the margins on bad teams when hey here's an idea why don't we play some quality teams and this again isn't missou this is all college basketball and it aggravates me to no end mou's run of bad teams is an example of that there are many many examples M Minnesota's schedule which we talked a little bit about earlier I looked at that and I think since Ben Johnson has been there this is his fourth year he's played three true Road games and non-conference two of them which were in the ACC Big 10 challenge when that was still a thing he's had one scheduled non-conference Road game and that was a hold over from the prior coaching staff you know you you simply are refusing to play Road games yes you're building a progam program but guess what Minnesota's been garbage for 15 years and guess what when you keep scheduling like that you're going to continue to be garbage because it's not going to do anything to help you along the way um you know rant over but it's it's a problem and it's not missou it's not Minnesota it's everyone um if they are playing quality teams they're doing them and where they South Dakota now is the popular place for teams to fly in and play in front of no one um you know why why are we doing this yeah that is you know one of the things that um you know again anybody who's listening and hasn't uh listened to my conversation with Rocco um Roco Miller who's uh the bracket here.org um really really smart schedule guy uh bracketologist um helps teams find games um you know and and he gave sort of like a little bit of a behind the scenes I mean not not completely behind the scenes but a little bit more like you know teams are constantly looking for uh these sort of like midling uh neutral site matchups um because they don't have to go you know they don't have to go into another Arena um if they win the game it helps their tournament resume if they lose the game it doesn't necessarily hurt the resume uh and he actually pointed out Mississippi State as like a good example of a team that's sort of doing it and you look at Mississippi State schedule and it's not great you know it really isn't um I'll I'll pull it up real quick because I can get to it very quickly here um so they open with West Georgia who I honestly did not know was a division one team uh Georgia State uh 211 in Bart torvic sou Eastern Louisiana 289 and they play a neutral against Utah they're at SMU SMU probably will be halfway decent um a neutral against UNLV home against Pittsburg that might be the ACC challenge um home against Prairie viiew A&M a neutral against MCN which is probably uh uh one of those kind of like neutral where they're like playing in Jackson Mississippi um Central Michigan neutral uh and then they're at Memphis so that's like SE several neutral Court games but it's not against anybody really good but if they win those games it's going to look good on their tournament resume because they're beating Utah SMU UNLV pit you know all teams that may or may not even be in the conversation for the N tournament bid um you know but they're going to get help uh on the resume by by playing those games you know and and Rocko was pointing that out and like if you take a look at the rest of their schedule it looks a lot like what Dennis does you know uh Missouri does have like I said Missouri's got the benefit of of playing Illinois and Kansas there's very few teams who have Kansas on their schedule um that are not in the Big 12 that's you know that's that's a good thing for your tournament resume um Illinois you know very likely tournament team uh I think you and I are just basically saying like let's see just let's take a couple of those the lwh hanging fruit on your schedule the teams that are truly awful and just drop those and go find somebody a little better and play games on campus just stop with the neutral coordin just stop it it's stupid okay let just get rid of it and if I were inur of NCA basketball the very first thing I would do is take neutral sites off the quad system unless they're Conference tournament games which everyone plays get rid of the benefit of getting a bump for playing a neutral game no they're both home games for both the teams just stop this go play home in Road games the only way you get a bump is by going into someone else's gym and beating them stop going to Sanford pentagon and um South Dakota stop going and playing in NBA arenas where no one shows up you know like missou playing I don't know for example Villanova in Chicago no no no no no that's that's a home game for both teams you're not getting the neutral side benefit absolutely not get rid of it it's yeah I think I think we're we're mostly in agreement there but yeah so like I I think there's a a path forward uh obviously it's not going to happen this year um that run from like you know no matter what happens at Memphis you know with everything going on Memphis they should probably beat Memphis now uh you know if you're starting like you know 10 or 11 and0 and then going into Kansas um you know hey good for them but there's going to be a whole lot of people for basically the entire month of November who are just not going to pay attention and I think like that's another sort of you know part of it is like and I I get like every every team in these power conference leagues you know they're going to get their their q1 opportunities in in League Play um you know I'm not worried about q1 Q2 I I I want fewer games that are gon to be Q4 and you know the worst possible outcome is you only win by like 15 points like that that that's just we we've got to get away from playing those games let's uh let's stop talking about the noncom schedule because I think uh it's just going toet upset us both and this is hey season 8 we've got a uh an exciting whole new season plan we are going to have to suffer through that November but uh things are on the horizon here Matt Watkins uh there's a a a lovely sort of borderline high four star Low Five Star kid plays at link Academy his name is Davon Hannah uh it was announced this weekend um that he is visiting um sorry it was announced was it yesterday yeah that he's visiting this weekend little word salad there that's okay yeah I was trying he's visiting this weekend announced yesterday he is he is visiting this weekend um he is a guy who we've sort of quietly had on our radar for a little while um believe you know uh Mr Harris got a couple uh birdies on that one as far as uh missou is sort of trying to sort of get in on on Hannah um for anybody who's uh unfamiliar um he's a Wisconsin Milwaukee native uh earlier in the summer he cut his list down to like 12 teams or something Missouri was not on it um and at the time it was like it was like oh like don't pay attention to these lists a lot of it a lot of the list cut down tend to be you know trying to sort of figure out nil stuff um who actually going to be you know really involved Missouri is back involved they're getting a visit that's usually a good sign um who else is involved we know we we know your your favorite Wisconsin was uh was trying to get a visit well that may not happen yeah interestingly enough um he visited Alabama last weekend I believe if it wasn't last weekend the weekend before he's got a visit scheduled to missou which somehow got jumped not only into the list of visits that were nine before 10 now um it's subsequently been reduced to five visits total that have been scheduled and kept um Alabama Missouri and I don't know the order but Michigan State Ohio State and Cincinnati are the other um schools currently scheduled to have visits and the there were some other schools like Wisconsin which I don't know why anyone would want to go there um but uh I think pit was another one and a couple other other teams um that were involved but uh they got the dreaded looking to reschedule um notice um so whether that means he's down to five I don't know but I think it's pretty good indication that mizou is a serious player here if again not only they got a visit but he's now rescheduling other visits that you know Wisconsin's nil program has uh been the butt of a lot of jokes so if you see a see a kid jump up into misso and instead of visiting Wisconsin completely scratch that visit you know that may be an indication of where things are heading um is it missou I don't know Alabama's really good team Michigan State's got a great history Ohio State's got a new coach Cincinnati promising team you know but to be in that top five is a lot better than to be on the outside end of nine visits being scheduled and you don't get one of them so um things have uh changed maybe not changed but uh have become a lot more clear in uh recent days so yeah you know and it's one of those things where um any anytime you have a chance to get a guy on campus you have to feel good about your chances um now it doesn't necessarily mean that you're G you're the gonna become the favorite um he did re he was just on Alabama's campus um I don't know if anybody's paid attention but Alabama's got a lot better recent history to sort of you know talk about um you know but for all of his issues setting up a competitive uh non-conference schedule uh Dennis Gates doesn't seem to have a whole lot of issues recruiting talented players um and I think like I think this is going to be interesting to sort of track because historically you know Gates and Cy have always been they've been the guys who have sort of gotten into guys early and really develop that relationship it helped them uh with honor batang it helped him um with uh Marcus Allen it looks like it's helping him a little bit with uh What uh Nick Randall uh Bashan Robinson ant Robinson another guy who long long history there um they did get on and close quickly with Trent Pierce uh they did have more of an established relationship with pton Marshall a little bit quicker of turn room with Trent Burns um but Hannah is like Hannah is not like Trent Pierce or Trent Burns guys who were sort of like little bit of a late Riser still you know what do you like top one50 level guys like this is a guy that's been towards the top of his class for for the last couple years and Missouri seems to be kind of getting on late uh that spells to me like it it'll be interesting to see how well they do in trying to close them but also that this may be a little bit more uh financially driven uh there maybe some other recruitments yeah and with you know with high school kids it's a little bit different and I described this painstakingly in my program series last fall so I'm not going to get into all that but you know High School recruiting is different than portal recruiting even in the nil world you know with basketball recruits you've got big money freshman players but you're talking a pretty limited number of those guys you know we're talking a Cooper flag a guy who's a oneandone guy he's going to command Buu bucks just like the top portal guys whereas the rest of the portal it kind of I don't want to say gradually decreases but everyone's still concerned about that money they they all are but there's you know when you get down to the borderline division one starters they're still looking for money where when you come into High School recruiting it's a little bit more than that it's a little bit more old school recruiting I guess where connections really matter it's not a speed dating contest you go visit one place they say the number you want and you commit that's not how high school recruiting is done it never has been that way and even today so when you when you look at um a kid like Hannah who's on that borderline you know how much money is he really willing to command I mean it's not a top top dollar from high school ranks it's not a top Dollar in the nil um category in the portal recruiting World either um so it's kind of you know is he the type of player that is going to be better his freshman year than what you could get for that amount of money in the portal that's basically what it comes down to nowadays um because you can get that guy in the portal for that money um and have a pretty good idea that that's the type of level or the level of player that you're going to get um you know there's always variance in whether the kid performs or not that as we saw last year um but if you have the finances it's dependent on who you think is going to be a bigger impact player short term longer term is when you get more down into the you know again the guys rated more close to a 100 um but when you when you're bringing in guys like uh even in the case of an honor boang who is ranked similarly to Hannah you know you have to Pony up a little bit more for him than you would for guys who project to be around for three or four years for sure um and you know take their take their lumps before they get on the court um so you know it's it's a not only a matter of this kid versus this kid it's do we want a freshman or do we want a junior or senior next spring that we can get for that same money um so that's kind of the competing interest the evaluation of how you have to look at it as far as what he wants no idea um you know as far as where mou values his talents versus anyone else don't know but that's how you kind of have to look at it now on the salary day and age uh and I'm gonna complain really quickly because I really don't like that 247 still classifies a players's HomeTown uh the city that they're from is the city where they're playing uh their high school basketball because Hanson is not a Missouri kid like he is not a Missouri kid if you go and you sort by like you know best prospects in Missouri it's like all link Academy kids and it's just like like none of these guys are Missouri kids like can we just if you're if you're from Missouri like he's a Wisconsin kid like Nick Milwaukee kid to be clear not Wisconsin Milwaukee yeah Nick randle's out in Arizona he's not an Arizona kid he's a Missouri kid like that's where he should be ranked anyway that's uh maou has a really strong um recruiting class each year in high school now thanks to uh down there and was a lake Tanny yeah freaking Branson uh yeah I think bossy even in his article had mentioned like Tanny Como or something like that it's like a geez uh table Ro nice country down there for golf are they are they closer to Tanny Como CU Tedy is like an offshoot of of Table Rock right it's it's all down there somewhere I'm sure have some members tell us about it on the message board later but it's a nice area hey uh I have a lot of family in Springfield Missouri so I'm I'm mostly familiar we used to go to the Table Rock Lake a lot um but it was never really on the Branson side it was a little bit further uh to the West yeah um I'm trying to remember the the the name of the town um it was it's it's one of those one of those things that might might get you uh might get you censored um if uh if this was if this was that kind of podcast where uh where we were using bleeps um like like not knick or something like that um yeah that's uh that's tabber Rock Lake people um but yeah so uh we're moving on from recruiting uh it does look like uh we well keep a close eye on what happens with Hannah and uh also if you're a subscriber look for Matt Harris to drop a lot of film on this tomorrow that's why he's uh begged off of the podcast tonight is he's crunching film as uh his new toy allows him to do um so look for that coming this weekend and you'll have H plenty of plenty of numbers and film on 's visitor this weekend so then the last thing that I want to talk about is uh is your little question series and I we're not going to get too far in because we want to uh I do actually want to try to keep these brief um uh sorry for everybody that we we're GNA keep it to under an hour I promise um but your most recent question was about what you call the Holy Trinity and uh and so I figure that's probably a decent place to start if you are a subscriber make sure that you're on the forums and uh and reading up on on on Matt's questions for 2425 uh we're going to briefly touch on this uh this topic tonight but there's way more in-depth stuff uh on on what it's about um but you're you're basically trying to make the argument that what Missouri is gonna be like a a top 10 team yes basically that's the gist of it um no it's uh you know we we've mentioned in the podcast in over the summer uh in our very indepth discussions on the the roster the Deep Dives um you know that missou has three guys on their team that if things go reasonably well we're not talking about seeing a jump like we saw from De Moy Hajj coming over from Cleveland State where he went from a 32% three-point shooter to a 40% shooter here at missou that's uncommon or DeAndre gston going from a guy who is you know average at Milwaukee in the Horizon league and then coming out and having a really good year at missou those are surprising things I'm not talking about that I'm talking about what Tony Perkins did last year at Iowa I'm talking about what Mark Mitchell did last year at Duke and I'm talking about what Tamar Bates did last year on a pretty rough missou Squad that uh you know didn't do well but if those guys three guys perform they to me have the analytical makeup to be all conference quality players and I had that in my mind like how many teams have three players that could be this good uh you know so I went and went and dug through some numbers I massaged the parameters a little bit to to fit a big enough sample um you know as far as uh the numbers are concerned I just really looked at three areas and they're not super complex minutes played usage rate and uh offensive efficiency and all those things mean is how many minutes a player was on the court how many possessions in those minutes he was involved in the offense and how good he was at it that's it um and looking at those three players numbers I went back and kind of set that as a baseline last year to see how many teams had three players that performed at that level and there weren't that many I mean there were I think there were five high major teams and eight teams total in division one that had three players clear the bars all clear the bars that each of those guys cleared last year you know and these are high major players that did it at a high major level already so we're not projecting them to make a big jump It's just doing what they what they've already done right there were five teams that had that just five in all of high major basketball of 80 plus teams you know so when you look at is maou gon to be really good next year I don't know that there's a lot more that goes into it than just offensive play three players um but when you look at teams that really perform well offensively I think when I broaden the parameters out a little bit half of the top 25 in adjusted offensive efficiency had those three type of guys you know three players of those type um that's that's crazy and missou already has three of them going into next year so when you look it are they gonna are they going to struggle to win a game no absolutely not they have good players and that's before we even get down the depth chart when we're talking about a mar Marquez War uh Jacob Cruz Caleb Grill Anthony Robinson all these guys have performed at the division high major division one level before so if they can supplement those guys they might be even better um you know so it it was very interesting to me and all the numbers are laid out there um and hopefully explained pretty well but you know it's I like to look at the makeup of teams and I was a little hesitant actually last year about mou not having a go-to guy wrote a whole column on it over at Rock M it's still up there um free for everyone to see um they ended up getting one of those guys in sha East which was a pleasant surprise but to make the math work everyone else needed to do a little bit more and be a little bit better and they just weren't capable of that especially after the injuries occurred you know is a there wasn't much margin for error where this year it's different yeah I think you know the experiment of uh you know of trying to basically like have Five Guys on the floor with everybody who is going to average like you know 20% usage uh and and shoot a bunch of Threes um when that goes out the window uh like you know what's what's going to be your fallback and uh and I think like that's one of the things that I've I've liked about the series that you've done so far is you know pinpointing I think what you can probably point out as what the coaching staff probably came to a realization to as well and that's that you know like there's there's only so many things you can count on um and it does seem to me like one of the things that they've um you know maybe it's just on paper but they went and got guys who play defense you know they went and got guys who force uh turnovers uh they went and uh you know and got guys who are also efficient on offense and and they're essentially when you're doing all those things together what you're doing is you're sort of trying to eliminate as much variance as you can uh so you have a product that you can trust um and when they take the the floor you hopefully have a good idea of what kind of production you're going to get um I do think that is you know if if there's anything to be taken away from like it is a benefit to for this team at least that last year's team bombed as bad as they did because it is going to allow this team to kind of fly into the radar um it's also probably gonna allow them to fly under the radar by not playing anybody for for a month um and so you know I'm not like saying they're going to they're going to beat Kansas at home uh I would really like them to um that would make me very happy I I hate I hate losing to Kansas um you know but I think like that game is sort of an opportunity for um you know for for for Gates and for this roster to sort of assert that you know we were really overlooked because I fully expect them most people to have them probably 10th or 11th at best in the leag yeah and uh you I've got my uh my game by game pick them out had a few uh few results in already and and you know even people that that know this is coming from a Missouri fan you know although credit to to Blake level Blake is still on the gates train um but uh uh you know but but it is one of those things where you know I think we are gonna you know people are people are going to be surprised to see that Missouri isn't bad again um I also saw some like stupid coach ranking and somebody had Dennis Gates 16th I'm like you know I was talking with Jim root the other day over at uh thre man weave and I I sent him a snippet of what I had shared on the board and I said if you had these three players and you didn't know their names and you didn't know whose team they were on where would you have this team ranked these are the top three players just had the numbers he was like I don't know probably pretty pretty well I'm like what if I told you that was maou you know it's like how much of this is perception versus how much of it is reality yes maou was bad last year I mean they were 0 and 19 they lost to Jackson State it was a dirty no good terrible season what difference does it make you know it didn't impact him bringing in a top five high school class it didn't impact him bringing in a top five top 10 portal class it didn't impact everything that he did well as a coach his first year you know mizou has gone from 11 wins to 25 to eight if that doesn't tell you that it's a year-to-year proposition I don't know what does you know it it's all about the team you built this year the past matters not one bit you know that's how I see it well uh I agree yeah the you know the transfer portal has certainly uh changed everything nil certainly changed everything the fact that the SEC is um seemingly like you know 12 13 teams you know who are really going to be competitive this year um you know like uh without completely outing Blake um you know he did have you know Vandy picked in the basement I just like you know that almost feels like yeah like that it very much feels to me just like a reflex and you know I think I think there's going to be a lot of that happening and we're not we're not going to be be able to get away with that you know year to year now like you're really gonna have to look deeply at these rosters look at at returning production and not just returning production from the team the year before but from where those guys were the year before they joined the team uh because like that it's like you know it's like I talked about earlier in the summer the amount of experience that are coming that's coming into the SEC this year is is wild like the the amount of you know Point production alone of guys you know who have just played a lot of minutes scored a lot of points at the division one level is astronomical we've never seen anything like this uh it is going to create a very uh hyper competitive league I think Missouri is you know very well positioned to be competitive this year so uh how's that for an opening episode I thought that was pretty good yeah we do okay yeah got a little fired up I hadn't been on here for a while so I had to hey get some things off your chest hey you asked me about scheduling and I gave you my opinion so play games at home play games that matter stop playing games that don't um so yeah so we're going to get out of here uh dive Cuts is going to go uh every other week until we get a little closer to the season um so probably I think two or three episodes of every other week uh I am kind of still working on maybe a couple interviews that'll we kind of toss in um into the mix uh in in off weeks but but we're going to we're going to hit this every other week you know the season is is two months away M so I I gotta go start writing some previews um thanks everybody for tuning in uh we'll be back in a couple weeks uh make sure that you uh are subscribed here uh make sure that you are subscribed at Rock M plus uh We've I think we finally got some t-shirts on the way for for folks that kind of like t-shirts um we've been working on that uh site upgrades are coming we've got uh we've got new people working on things that are going to make the site better um very excited about the future at Rock and plus uh hop on board get in forms you know tell uh tell me tell Matt uh tell the other Matt why we're why we're right why we're wrong um talk about football uh make sure you uh listen to before the box score am I missing anything no go football uh yeah Buffalo you could still buy the football preview magazine even though it's good good read yeah I mean I mean missou really hasn't played anybody so um so yeah so go go by the preview magazine and we'll be back in a couple weeks uh thanks for thanks everybody for tuning in bye- bye