Kim Anderson was introduced on Monday as the new head coach of the Pitt State men’s basketball program.
Three weeks ago, Kim Anderson was a basketball coach without a program. He’d been asked to step down from his dream job after three seasons at Missouri.
Monday was a much brighter day despite overcast skies.
Anderson, 61, was introduced as the 15th full-time head coach at Pittsburg State, a Division II program in southeast Kansas, during a morning news conference at John Lance Arena/Whetzel Court.
“A lot of people had me retiring,” said Anderson, who is 301-163 in 15 seasons as a head coach at Central Missouri and Mizzou. “The one person that didn’t have me retiring was my wife (Melissa). She did not want me sitting around, and I did not want to be sitting around.”
He won’t be sitting around in Pittsburg, where the program went 5-22 last season.
“This is an exciting moment in the proud history of Gorilla men’s basketball,” Pittsburg State associate athletic director for communications Dan Wilkes said.
The most poignant moment of the news conference came when Anderson acknowledged his predecessor, Kevin Muff, who resigned March 7 after seven seasons at Pitt State.
“I think we owe a debt of gratitude to Kevin Muff,” Anderson said, choking up. “I know … I know how hard it is when someone loses his job, especially a good person. As we go forth and I deal with these guys, I thank him.
“He’s a friend. Obviously, we competed with each other a little bit before I went to Mizzou, so I think we need to recognize what he did for this institution.”
Anderson was 27-68 in three seasons at Missouri, but he went 274-95 in 12 seasons with Central Missouri before that.
Central Missouri and Pittsburg State are rivals in the MIAA.
Anderson led the Mules to the NCAA Division II Final Four in 2007, 2009 and 2014, winning the national title in that last appearance a few weeks before being tapped as the Tigers’ new coach to succeed Frank Haith.
Anderson’s teams won at least 20 games seven times in his last 10 seasons at Central Missouri, including three seasons with at least 30 wins, and seven Division II tourney appearances.
The Mules finished third or better nine times during that span, winning five MIAA regular-season titles.
“Why Pittsburg State?” Anderson asked rhetorically. “Why not?”
Anderson said he and his wife were impressed by an initial meeting with Gorillas athletic director Jim Johnson and Pitt State specialist assistant to the president Kendall Gammon, a 15-year NFL veteran who made the Pro Bowl in 2004 as the Chiefs’ long snapper.
Anderson called the decision “a no-brainer.” He was looking for a university with great leadership, for the school and within the athletic department, along with a great academic reputation and strong history of athletic success.
Anderson also wanted a place with strong community involvement.
Pittsburg State checked all those boxes, and he’s looking forward to his first football tailgate next fall at “mini Arrowhead Stadium.”
Anderson also was impressed with the facilities improvement in recent years and Pitt State’s available resources.
“I stole one thing from the University of Missouri — OK, I stole a lot of things,” Anderson said. “No, I didn’t take anything. I turned everything back in, but the one thing that we always talked about there” was academic success, social responsibility and competitive excellence.
Anderson said the core tenets of his program — passion, integrity, honesty, life balance and appreciation — remain unchanged.
“What you need to walk out of here remembering today … is he’s a proven winner,” Johnson said. “Players love to play for him, coaches love to coach for him, and fans love to cheer for him.”
Kim Anderson was introduced on Monday as the new head coach of the Pitt State men’s basketball program.
Three weeks ago, Kim Anderson was a basketball coach without a program. He’d been asked to step down from his dream job after three seasons at Missouri.
Monday was a much brighter day despite overcast skies.
Anderson, 61, was introduced as the 15th full-time head coach at Pittsburg State, a Division II program in southeast Kansas, during a morning news conference at John Lance Arena/Whetzel Court.
“A lot of people had me retiring,” said Anderson, who is 301-163 in 15 seasons as a head coach at Central Missouri and Mizzou. “The one person that didn’t have me retiring was my wife (Melissa). She did not want me sitting around, and I did not want to be sitting around.”
He won’t be sitting around in Pittsburg, where the program went 5-22 last season.
“This is an exciting moment in the proud history of Gorilla men’s basketball,” Pittsburg State associate athletic director for communications Dan Wilkes said.
The most poignant moment of the news conference came when Anderson acknowledged his predecessor, Kevin Muff, who resigned March 7 after seven seasons at Pitt State.
“I think we owe a debt of gratitude to Kevin Muff,” Anderson said, choking up. “I know … I know how hard it is when someone loses his job, especially a good person. As we go forth and I deal with these guys, I thank him.
“He’s a friend. Obviously, we competed with each other a little bit before I went to Mizzou, so I think we need to recognize what he did for this institution.”
Anderson was 27-68 in three seasons at Missouri, but he went 274-95 in 12 seasons with Central Missouri before that.
Central Missouri and Pittsburg State are rivals in the MIAA.
Anderson led the Mules to the NCAA Division II Final Four in 2007, 2009 and 2014, winning the national title in that last appearance a few weeks before being tapped as the Tigers’ new coach to succeed Frank Haith.
Anderson’s teams won at least 20 games seven times in his last 10 seasons at Central Missouri, including three seasons with at least 30 wins, and seven Division II tourney appearances.
The Mules finished third or better nine times during that span, winning five MIAA regular-season titles.
“Why Pittsburg State?” Anderson asked rhetorically. “Why not?”
Anderson said he and his wife were impressed by an initial meeting with Gorillas athletic director Jim Johnson and Pitt State specialist assistant to the president Kendall Gammon, a 15-year NFL veteran who made the Pro Bowl in 2004 as the Chiefs’ long snapper.
Anderson called the decision “a no-brainer.” He was looking for a university with great leadership, for the school and within the athletic department, along with a great academic reputation and strong history of athletic success.
Anderson also wanted a place with strong community involvement.
Pittsburg State checked all those boxes, and he’s looking forward to his first football tailgate next fall at “mini Arrowhead Stadium.”
Anderson also was impressed with the facilities improvement in recent years and Pitt State’s available resources.
“I stole one thing from the University of Missouri — OK, I stole a lot of things,” Anderson said. “No, I didn’t take anything. I turned everything back in, but the one thing that we always talked about there” was academic success, social responsibility and competitive excellence.
Anderson said the core tenets of his program — passion, integrity, honesty, life balance and appreciation — remain unchanged.
“What you need to walk out of here remembering today … is he’s a proven winner,” Johnson said. “Players love to play for him, coaches love to coach for him, and fans love to cheer for him.”
| ESPN.com: Men's College Basketball |  |
Sunday, March 5, 2017
Kim Anderson leaving Missouri after just 3 seasons
Missouri has asked Kim Anderson to step down as men's basketball coach after just three seasons.
Anderson, 61, took over in 2014 after Frank Haith left for the Tulsa opening. He went 19-44 in his first two seasons, then followed that up with a 7-23 record this past season. The school said he was asked to leave at the end of the season; he can still coach in the upcoming SEC tournament.
"This decision has been very difficult for me personally because of the tremendous respect I have for Kim," athletic director Jim Sterk said in a statement. "I know how hard he and his staff have worked to turn the program around over the last three years, however, the lack of on-court success has resulted in a significant drop in interest surrounding our program, and we could not afford for that to continue another year."
 | |
| Coach Kim Anderson is leaving Missouri after just three seasons. |
The school has been gauging the interest of potential candidates for the past few weeks, sources told ESPN. California's Cuonzo Martin is among the names on their list. Dan Parker & Associates have been retained to handle the search for a replacement, sources told ESPN.
Missouri self-imposed a postseason ban in January after admitting NCAA violations that occurred in the program under Haith's watch. The Tigers also vacated 23 wins from Haith's final season in Columbia. Haith left Missouri shortly after the school received a verbal notice of inquiry from the NCAA.
Anderson played his college ball at Missouri before being drafted by the Portland Trail Blazers in 1977. He also spent time in Italy and France during his playing days. Anderson was an assistant at Missouri on two separate occasions before becoming the head coach at Central Missouri for 12 seasons. He won a D-II national championship in 2014.
"Missouri is a special institution to my family and I, and I am grateful for having had the opportunity to serve as the head coach at my alma mater," Anderson said in the statement. "While we have faced significant challenges over the last three years and been unable to achieve the on-court results everyone would have liked, I do believe we have been able to stabilize the program while watching our players become responsible young men on and off the court."
Anderson signed a five-year contract when hired.
1969
Sedalia Smith-Cotton Tigers Freshman Basketball Team
1973
Missouri hires Kim Anderson
C.J. Roberts commitment means the Tigers are changing gears going forward
The athletic guard from the Dallas-Fort Worth area will fit right in on the roster, but his signing means the Tigers only have one more spot to fill.
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Good news has been hard to come by when it comes to Missouri basketball of late. With the Tigers getting shut out for most of the summer in recruiting after two bad seasons, something good was needed. Kim Anderson and the Tigers got something good to happen yesterday when they landed their guy in 2017 combo-guard C.J. Roberts, a 4-star on Rivals and a 3-star on 247sports, Scout and ESPN.
Roberts is an explosive athlete and high volume scorer with the ability to make shots at all three levels. He’s played both on and off the ball in high school and projects to play both at the college level, although primarily he’ll be thought of as a point guard due to his size. At 6’0 and 175 lbs, Roberts could stand to point on a little weight but should provide an immediate impact for a program that has struggled to score the last few years. Roberts has the ability to catch fire and carry the offensive load and has perhaps as high of a ceiling as any guard (outside of to top 3 or 4 guards) in the country.
Kim Anderson and Steven Shields identified Roberts as a guy they could get and made him an immediate priority. And it paid off when they brought him to campus.
His biggest inconsistencies right now are things which can be coached out. He’s prone to playing out of control and making erratic decisions with the ball, but overall he’s got the kind of ability you can get excited about. Roberts has the kind of shot-making ability of Michael Dixon or J.J. Frazier, both smaller, lighter combo guards, but two guys who could absolutely fill it.
Missouri isn’t looking to fill a lot of spots at this stage, so with Roberts taking one of two scholarships, let’s take a look at the Scholarship Count as of today:
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With Missouri holding onto their last scholarship this season, the scholarship situation in 2018 will be clear from NCAA sanctions. They’ll have all 13 scholarships to give out, and I anticipate the Tigers will use their last scholarship. On who? Let’s talk about it.
Mizzou Wants A Big
The top priority with the last scholarship will be a big man. The only problem with this is the pickings are slim, as they usually are when it comes to finding and securing talented post players. Missouri is still making attempts with Garrison Brooks, although the heat has picked up as he’s gotten recent offers from UNC, Baylor and Arizona State. Couple that with the Bruce Pearl effect, and I think you can summarily write him out of the picture.
Evan Battey is an intriguing prospect who recently picked up a Mizzou offer, but it’s hard to see the 4-star post leaning to Mizzou with Miami, Colorado and Purdue all in hot pursuit and all having already lined up official visits.
One name we haven’t talked about yet but could make his way into the picture is Anthony Longpre. I honestly don’t know how you pronounce his name, but he’s a 3-star 6’9 220 lb post player from Maryland. He has a bit of an interesting story because he was at George Washington on an official visit when the news broke that GW’s coach, Mike Lonergan, was fired. He originally named a final five in August, but Mizzou is trying to get in late and make an impression over Washington State, GW, St. Joe’s , Princeton and Kansas State.
Another key aspect to keep in mind is the fact Missouri can take a 5th year Graduate Transfer again, so I’d imagine if they don’t settle on a big with this class, they could take a long look at a few next offseason.
More 2017 Recruiting Updates
So with Roberts committed, Mizzou is basically going to switch off of recruiting Marcus Carr, Victor Bailey and Elijah Joiner. They’re still in on Nojel Eastern a little bit, but as the days have ticked by, Eastern’s recruiting has picked up as everyone has seemed to think they can get in, but it’s looking like Cal, Michigan State and Ohio State might be the three left standing. But Purdue, Seton Hall, West Virginia and DePaul have all joined Missouri in visiting Eastern within the last few weeks.
The Tigers will also be keeping an eye on international competition to see if any late bloomers come out, but for the most part I’d be surprised if they end up signing anyone else in the early period.
Hey, Something About 2018 kids?
Go Tigers!
Christian Bishop was offered by Missouri last night. Bishop is a fast rising kid who has grown a lot in the last few years and paid Missouri an unofficial visit this past weekend and played with the current Tiger squad. He impressed enough that Kim Anderson went to Lee’s Summit West to watch him workout, and Mizzou offered him on the spot. Bishop received an offer from Tulsa just a few days earlier, and looks like a solid high 3-star level player who has flown under the radar because of his enormous growth spurt and lack of AAU exposure. But Bishop looks like the kind of kid that can play at the SEC level, with long arms and a good left-handed release.
Missouri also recently offered Ayo Dusunmu, a combo guard from Chicago who figures to be on the cusp of a 5th star before too long. A rangy 6’3-6’4 guard with huge upside, Dusunmu is being recruited by Chicago native Emmanuel Dildy.
St. Louis problem -- if he can stick around
Luke Thompson
FOX Sports Midwest
MAY 08, 2015
ST. LOUIS -- Jayson Tatum will not be a Missouri Tiger. No one ever thought he would be -- not considering the state of the Mizzou program, not with every blueblood school in America slobbering over him -- and so it was no surprise when he recently released the names of the four teams in the running for his services and Mizzou didn't make the cut.
Same song, different verse: A St. Louis-area star -- in this case Tatum, a Chaminade College Prep junior and the nation's top Class of 2016 recruit -- turns his back on Mizzou.
But don't be fooled. That rejection belies Missouri basketball's significant progress in the state's most fertile recruiting ground.
Since his hiring at Mizzou almost a year ago, coach Kim Anderson and his staff have been working feverishly to repair a St. Louis pipeline that should be producing far more for the Tigers. And no coach in recent memory has been better equipped to remedy a problem haunting the program for quite some time.
"I think (Anderson) has talked about this a lot, but we've really made not just St. Louis, but recruiting the state a priority," says Brad Loos, Anderson's assistant coach and primary recruiter in the area. "I think people in St. Louis and in the state kind of felt that some of the in-state kids were kind of getting overlooked a little bit. Kids started looking elsewhere for their college choice."
Since Hazelwood Central standout Kalen Grimes signed to play for Quin Snyder in 2004, eight players from the St. Louis area have been named to the Rivals Top 150 in their respective recruiting classes.
None wore black and gold.
That list includes 2013 NBA All-Rookie Team guard Bradley Beal, Kansas' consensus All-American Ben McLemore and second-team all-conference players B.J. Young at Arkansas and Roosevelt Jones at Butler, among others. The Tigers also whiffed on consensus National Player of the Year Tyler Hansbrough, who graduated from Poplar Bluff (Mo.) High School in 2005 and played AAU ball with the St. Louis Eagles before a record-setting four-year career at North Carolina.
Anderson continues to emphasize the entire state as critical to his efforts, and Loos says that means rebuilding relationships and trust all over. But nowhere do more fences need mending than in St. Louis. And the former Central Missouri coach has already added some key pieces from the eastern side of the state.
Two former St. Louis Post-Dispatch All-Metro selections have signed with the Tigers for next season, so that's a start. But perhaps more important was Wednesday's announcement that Anderson had added Corey Tate to his coaching staff. Tate has strong ties to St. Louis-area basketball, from his prep days at Pattonville High to playing for Norm Stewart and then-assistant Anderson at Mizzou from 1994-97 to his 11-year stint as head coach at Mineral Area College in Park Hills, Missouri, about 60 miles south of St. Louis.
Chaminade star Jayson Tatum listed his final four college possibilities as Duke, Kentucky, North Carolina and one in-state school -- Saint Louis University.
Oh, and he also coaches the St. Louis Eagles 17U Nike EYBL team. That group includes Tatum and three other players ranked in the Rivals Top 100 for the next two signing classes.
A key hire, indeed.
Considering the area's wealth of future talent, it's no stretch to say Anderson's ability to lock down the borders around St. Louis could go a long way toward determining his job security at his alma mater.
"It's going to be huge for him," says Kelvin Lee, who coached several Division I players, including Beal and NBA forward David Lee, during a 16-year tenure at Chaminade and now coaches at St. Mary's High in St. Louis. "He's got to corner the market."
REASON FOR OPTIMISM
The signings of Pacific High product Cullen VanLeer and junior college transfer Martavian Payne won't transform the program, but they form a solid start.
Neither player drew significant attention or turned down any blueblood schools, although Payne had offers from Creighton and Kansas State. Lee says VanLeer's recruitment could have been more competitive if he hadn't committed so early, but the shooting guard doesn't appear to be anywhere near the level of Tatum or some of his AAU teammates.
The Tigers need shooters more than perhaps anything else, and VanLeer brings some serious ability and range. Gateway Basketball Club director Scott Schroepfer says VanLeer could see success as a solid, blue-collar-type player.
"He wants to get better," Anderson says. "He's a good student. He's the type of kid we want to have in our program that you know is going to come to work every day."
Payne played one year for the Eagles, and club president Tim Holloway says he was shocked but happy to learn the talented guard will be attending Mizzou next season. He originally committed to Southeast Missouri after playing for Imagine Prep and Madison Prep in high school, and Loos doesn't see why Payne would fail to provide some immediate contributions for a team trying to recover from a school-record 23 losses last season.
Despite Anderson's dismal start, many of the biggest names in St. Louis basketball circles still have faith in his ability to win at Missouri. The confidence in Anderson, the Big Eight Player of the Year for the Tigers in 1977, goes beyond his likable personality, strong integrity and deep ties to the state.
"There've been a lot of kids that come through here that really didn't even consider Mizzou, but I think with those two realizing that there's so much talent that's not even being tapped, or even recruited, really, that's going to change," says Holloway, who played for the Eagles with Mizzou standout Kelly Thames in the early '90s. "So I think even starting last year, that's a lot more contact with those guys and they've been reaching out to a lot of our players a lot more often, so it's a good thing."
He dismisses persistent rumors of a rift between the Tigers and Eagles, and Holloway speaks frequently with the Mizzou coaching staff to maintain what he says is a strong relationship. Webster Groves coach Jay Blossom saw a flawed relationship while coaching an Eagles AAU team in 2013, but he's confident the hiring of Tate will help ease those tensions.
Anderson and his staff stay in contact with Schroepfer, who has also been impressed so far by the new regime. Of course, they're not exactly new to the area, since they've been coaching in Missouri for years.
Loos even spent his early childhood in St. Louis before moving to Tennessee, and he spent 12 seasons with Anderson at Central Missouri, where the Mules won the Division II national championship in 2014.
At Central Missouri, Anderson spent more recruiting resources on players in Kansas City, largely because of its proximity to UCM's campus in Warrensburg. The Tigers also had success during that time in the Kansas City area, where they found standouts such as Leo Lyons, Marcus Denmon and Michael Dixon.
But Loos jokes he's been to St. Louis so much his car can probably drive itself, and Schroepfer says the Mizzou coaches know the area inside and out. That means they're already working to build relationships with all the up-and-coming talent, including such freshmen as Vianney's Carte'are Gordon, Whitfield's Torrence Watson and Pacific's Cameron VanLeer, Cullen's younger brother.
ON THE BORDER WAR
If new Mizzou AD wants peace with KU, the least KU can do is listen
"Right now, I think that Kim needs to keep doing what he's doing and the main thing is just to turn that thing around, go win some games," says Lee, a longtime friend of Anderson's and former assistant at SLU, Baylor and Texas A&M. "I think if he starts winning some games, that'll change people's perspective about Mizzou."
A SORDID HISTORY
Missouri's recruiting issues in St. Louis date all the way back to the early days of the Norm Stewart tenure.
The legendary coach didn't bring in any kids from city schools after 1971, although that didn't stop him from fining success in the county. In Stewart's final five seasons, the Tigers got contributions from St. Louis-area standouts Tate, Thames, Tate Decker, Johnnie Parker and Brian Grawer.
A few others have been solid role players and even four-year starters, but no St. Louis player has earned all-conference honors for Mizzou since Thames in 1998.
Stewart missed out on his share of elite area players in the mid '90s, including Kansas' Ryan Robertson, Georgetown's Jahidi White, Duke's Chris Carrawell, Marquette's Jon Harris, and Loren Woods, who went on to play at Wake Forest and Arizona.
When Stewart retired in 1999, many thought the Tigers had struck gold with his replacement, Snyder, a star Duke assistant. Blossom began his tenure the same year and still has fond memories of Snyder, while Schroepfer had high hopes after starting his AAU program in 1998.
"We had a guy in our program -- Bill Vollmar had a great relationship with Duke because Chris Carrawell went there and we thought when (Snyder) came it was a great get," Schroepfer says. "He was actually the primary recruiter the whole time with Chris Carrawell and he didn't really maintain that (relationship with Bill) or really show up in St. Louis."
“RECRUITING'S ALL ABOUT FORMING RELATIONSHIPS. I THINK (ANDERSON'S) A RELATIONSHIP GUY.”
Webster Groves coach Jay Blossom
Snyder's tumultuous tenure saw him win a pair of high-profile recruiting battles in St. Louis, including Vashon standout Jimmy McKinney, 2002's Mr. Show-Me basketball and the Tigers' only signee from a city school in the last 40 years. In 2004, Mizzou beat out schools such as Kansas and Kentucky to sign Grimes, a talented forward who never quite lived up to his massive potential.
Meanwhile, Snyder's well documented problems with NCAA rules led to him missing out on two eventual NBA first-round picks, Hansbrough and Chaminade's Lee, who signed with Florida in 2001. Blossom says Hansbrough would have gone to Mizzou in 2005 if not for concerns regarding Snyder's character and recruiting violations, while Kelvin Lee says early rumors of sanctions caught his star player off guard.
Snyder finally resigned mid-season in 2006, and Mike Anderson did an admirable job of cleaning up the mess rather quickly when he took over later that year. But St. Louis played only a small role in his five-year tenure, which ended with three NCAA Tournament appearances, and opinions differ on whether Anderson could have done more to draw talent from the area.
"When he got the job, that next day he was in my office," Lee says. "He was just wanting to let me know that he was here and that he wants to put the borders up."
That was in 2006, and he'd return often to Chaminade to see Beal, one of the top five recruits in the Class of 2011. But the heavy recruiting efforts weren't enough to prevent the standout shooting guard from going to Florida, and fellow St. Louis stars McLemore and Young left the state as well.
Blossom and Schroepfer have nothing but good things to say about Mike Anderson and his staff, even if he came up mostly empty-handed in St. Louis. The one exception was lightly recruited Lafayette guard Matt Lawrence, who Schroepfer says was a 4.0 student with a 35 ACT score and never needed an athletic scholarship as a four-year starter for Mizzou.
But Fort Zumwalt North coach Charles Glotta says Anderson could have recruited St. Louis much harder, particularly in the case of Young, a McCluer North guard who ended up playing for Mike Anderson at Arkansas despite committing to his predecessor, John Pelphrey. Holloway got the sense Anderson's top priorities were always Arkansas and the Memphis area, which Lee says was understandable with the former Razorback assistant's connections.
He left a full cupboard for Frank Haith, who struggled to recruit high school talent from anywhere for teams that got progressively worse throughout his three-year tenure in Columbia. Holloway says Haith recruited the crown jewel of St. Louis' 2014 class, Texas' Jordan Barnett, but Schroepfer and other coaches say they almost never saw Haith, even when assistant coach Isaac Chew recruited three-star forward Ryan Rosburg.
A 'TOUGH NUT'
The Tigers' past will be far from the only obstacle Kim Anderson and his staff face in St. Louis.
Locking down the borders is harder than ever with elite schools such as Kansas, Duke and Kentucky spending millions of dollars on recruiting. When a Beal or Tatum shows up, so do Bill Self, Mike Krzyzewski and John Calipari.
Anderson says it's critical to develop relationships with everyone in a recruit's inner circle, a group that keeps getting bigger with new options for player development. Aside from AAU and high school coaches, players in St. Louis also can hone their skills at training academies run by former Division I players such as Drew Hanlen's Pure Sweat, Corey Frazier's WITTS Training Academy, Larry Hughes' D1 Basketball and Brett Ledbetter's Ledbetter Academy.
All of those have appeared in the last seven years, since Glotta arrived from Kansas. His sons accepted Division I scholarships at Southern Illinois and Austin Peay the previous two seasons, so he's had multiple chances to see the area's recent proliferation of talent firsthand.
"I know when I got here seven years ago and was looking for opportunities and places for kids to play for starting my feeder program, it was hard as hell to find a league that was decent, to find tournaments," Glotta says. "Now you can put together a team and play a tournament every weekend, so I think that part helps from the underside."
The heavy concentration of elite talent in AAU helps coaches some, but it still takes a lot of work to find all the players in the area. Coaches must navigate a tricky dichotomy of private and public schools, as well as city and county.
It all combines to make St. Louis a "tough nut" to crack, in the words of Blossom, the winningest coach in Webster Groves history. He does his best to stay involved in his players' recruitment, but he also knows many others are influencing their decisions and development.
"Recruiting's all about forming relationships," Blossom says, echoing sentiments from both Loos and Anderson. "I think (Anderson's) a relationship guy. Now, you're in a game that's coached by a lot of snakes, so I don't think he's like that at all.
"Maybe that'll make it harder. I don't know. I would like to think kids and parents will appreciate something like that."
Anderson doesn't worry about the history of past Mizzou coaching staffs, even the ones he was a part of from '82-85 and '91-99. Word gets around in high school coaching circles about past recruiting troubles or perceived lack of effort, but Schroepfer and Holloway don't believe anyone is telling players to stay away from the Tigers.
Perhaps more important, kids themselves notice when none of their peers are finding success at the state school many of them dream of playing for growing up. Anderson and Loos say their best recruits are their players, so perhaps nothing would open up the pipeline to St. Louis more than a standout career for a local high school star.
"Kids are impressionable," says Schroepfer, who watched VanLeer play for Gateway in the summer. "They see success and if Cullen comes in and is part of a turnaround, yeah, he could be an icon-type kid, which would be pretty neat."
Realistically, most five-star recruits would seem to be out of the question until Missouri can establish itself as more of a winner, with the possible exception of Columbia's own Michael Porter. Rivals ranks the Tolton Catholic High star No. 2 nationally in the Class of 2017, and his father serves as an assistant for the Mizzou women's basketball team.
Tatum and East St. Louis center Jeremiah Tillmon -- another St. Louis Eagle ranked 11th in Rivals' Class of 2017 -- are much less likely targets than their teammates Tyler Cook of Chaminade and Xavier Sneed of Hazelwood Central, two forwards Rivals ranks in the top 80 for the Class of 2016. Even Anderson acknowledges the Tigers have to know who they can recruit, but Loos clarifies it doesn't necessarily preclude them from bringing in top players.
"I think what Coach was alluding to was just that we were chasing five-star kids that weren't from this area or didn't have a connection to Mizzou," Loos says. "I think what he was trying to get across was that yeah, we're going to recruit five-star kids, but there's got to be a connection."
The addition of Tate to the staff guarantees a St. Louis connection. The challenge will be persuading those kids to stay at home -- before it's too late.
"It's going to take time," Blossom says. "My guess is like Mizzou football had, they'll try to get in some of these recruiting battles and might finish second or third.
"But the thing is, you've got to keep forming relationships and earning trust and eventually you might start to get some of those kids. Hopefully, you don't get fired before then."
You can follow Luke Thompson on Twitter at @FS_LukeT or email him at lukegthompson87@gmail.com.
A basketball coach is standing in a hallway between the weight room and court at Mizzou Arena. His name is Rob Fulford, and he is here, in this moment, in a conversation about a basketball program trying to find its way.
In a more general sense, he is here because of his particular skills and connections that may help Missouri land some of the nation’s best players. More than anything else, Mizzou’s ability to attract better talent will determine whether this miserable season is someday viewed as dark foreshadowing or a noble struggle before bigger success — like that dirty apartment you had in college.
He is going through some of the minutia, and mentions that Mizzou's coaches have allotted 21 of their remaining NCAA allotted days during the current cycle to see high school kids. Then he pauses.
“Well, I guess we have 22 now,” he says, and here comes the punchline. “Since Coach almost went down last night.”
He is referring, of course, to the cancellation of head coach Kim Anderson’s recruiting trip because his plane malfunctioned and made an emergency landing on Wednesday. Fulford is making a joke, but he’s dead serious about knowing exactly how much time the Mizzou coaches can spend on the road. This is their only way out of the darkness.
This is Anderson’s first year at his alma mater, and the failures are easy to see. Ten straight losses, the worst streak since 1967 — when Anderson was 11 years old — and now even worse with guard Wes Clark missing the rest of the season because of an elbow injury. Look through the schedule, and it’s hard to find more than two games — tops — where the Tigers will be favored.
This was always going to be a bad year for Mizzou. Frank Haith’s years of playing transfer musical chairs finally turned up empty, leaving in his wake a roster bad enough for at least a one-year mulligan on any fair judgments.
So it’s not that the last seven regular-season games are irrelevant — if nothing else, Anderson needs to keep his players going hard — but it is entirely true that what Mizzou’s coaches are doing in high school gyms and the living rooms of top recruits is more important than what happens during their own games.
And on that point, the indications are pretty good, actually.
“Our message hasn’t changed,” Anderson says. “Our opportunity is there, to come in and play. Have that opportunity to play. We’re recruiting some kids who are looking at that opportunity to come in and play right away.”
At the moment, Mizzou has signed two three-star high schoolers for next year — Blue Springs South’s Kevin Puryear, and Cullen VanLeer of Pacific (Mo.). Terrence Phillips, a three-star point guard from Oak Hill Academy in Virginia who is the brother of NBA star Brandon Jennings, has also committed to the Tigers.
Mizzou also remains in on some four- and even five-star recruits, including a pair of players from Huntington Prep in West Virginia, where Fulford coached last year.
After that are even bigger opportunities, including five-star recruits Jayson Tatum of St. Louis Chaminade in the class of 2016 and Michael Porter of Columbia Tolton Catholic in the class of 2017.
The most glaring needs on the roster are for a big man and a combo guard, specifically someone who can get a bucket when a play breaks down. That’s where recruiting comes in.
“I know they’re right in there with some pretty good kids,” says Steve Smith, the coach at Oak Hill, which is effectively a factory for high-major recruits. “Just from what I’ve seen, some of the top-level kids, the kinds of kids who maybe weren’t thinking about Missouri before, I’ve seen them listing Missouri. I don’t know if they’re going to get them, but you have to start somewhere.”
Recruiting was supposed to be Anderson’s weakness, you might remember. He addressed that concern immediately, not only in hiring Fulford but in retaining Tim Fuller from Haith’s staff.
Anderson says the biggest difference from his days recruiting kids to Central Missouri is that for Division II kids, you mostly recruit the athlete and the parents. With high-major Division I kids, there are typically more people around. Not just the kid and his parents, but more coaches, more relatives, maybe a mentor or personal trainer.
Anderson and Fulford said the approach and targets have not changed as Missouri’s season has faded, something confirmed by coaches of three different recruits.
But no staff at a school with MU’s ambitions gets two seasons like this without some serious pressure being applied, so the coaches know their message has a shelf life. Especially with athletic director Mike Alden retiring.
“Seeing what they’re doing on the road, and knowing a little about Kim, I think they’ll win eight conference games next year,” says an assistant at a rival school. “But if you don’t, and I know they want Kim to succeed because he’s one of their own, but we all know we have to win.”
The MU coaches are in a strange moment in time. This year’s losing can be explained, and even spun into a positive in recruiting, depending on a player’s preferences. But all of that has to turn into success.
In other words, the losing is fine — as long as it’s temporary. Everyone knows there will be dust and a lot of takeout food when they remodel their kitchen, but patience runs out fast once the work gets behind schedule.
“What most kids look at it is, there’s an obvious need for my position,” Fulford says. “Kids look at playing time, they look at opportunity. You never want to sell losing, but I think you have to spin it, because we have some good pieces here …
“What we’re saying is, ‘Don’t lose faith in us, because we’re going to win and we’re going to win big. You see where it’s at. Help it get back to where it can be. You can be a reason it gets back to this level. Take Mizzou to a Final Four. Be a part of the first conference champion in a long time.’”
It’s the only message Missouri can spread, really. It’s a smart message, one that appears to be making some inroads. But it’s also one that has to catch quick, or be buried under more losing.
To reach Sam Mellinger, call 816-234-4365 or send email to smellinger@kcstar.com. Follow him on Twitter: @mellinger. For previous columns, go to KansasCity.com.
St. Louis problem -- if he can stick around
Luke Thompson
FOX Sports Midwest
MAY 08, 2015
ST. LOUIS -- Jayson Tatum will not be a Missouri Tiger. No one ever thought he would be -- not considering the state of the Mizzou program, not with every blueblood school in America slobbering over him -- and so it was no surprise when he recently released the names of the four teams in the running for his services and Mizzou didn't make the cut.
Same song, different verse: A St. Louis-area star -- in this case Tatum, a Chaminade College Prep junior and the nation's top Class of 2016 recruit -- turns his back on Mizzou.
But don't be fooled. That rejection belies Missouri basketball's significant progress in the state's most fertile recruiting ground.
Since his hiring at Mizzou almost a year ago, coach Kim Anderson and his staff have been working feverishly to repair a St. Louis pipeline that should be producing far more for the Tigers. And no coach in recent memory has been better equipped to remedy a problem haunting the program for quite some time.
"I think (Anderson) has talked about this a lot, but we've really made not just St. Louis, but recruiting the state a priority," says Brad Loos, Anderson's assistant coach and primary recruiter in the area. "I think people in St. Louis and in the state kind of felt that some of the in-state kids were kind of getting overlooked a little bit. Kids started looking elsewhere for their college choice."
Since Hazelwood Central standout Kalen Grimes signed to play for Quin Snyder in 2004, eight players from the St. Louis area have been named to the Rivals Top 150 in their respective recruiting classes.
None wore black and gold.
That list includes 2013 NBA All-Rookie Team guard Bradley Beal, Kansas' consensus All-American Ben McLemore and second-team all-conference players B.J. Young at Arkansas and Roosevelt Jones at Butler, among others. The Tigers also whiffed on consensus National Player of the Year Tyler Hansbrough, who graduated from Poplar Bluff (Mo.) High School in 2005 and played AAU ball with the St. Louis Eagles before a record-setting four-year career at North Carolina.
Anderson continues to emphasize the entire state as critical to his efforts, and Loos says that means rebuilding relationships and trust all over. But nowhere do more fences need mending than in St. Louis. And the former Central Missouri coach has already added some key pieces from the eastern side of the state.
Two former St. Louis Post-Dispatch All-Metro selections have signed with the Tigers for next season, so that's a start. But perhaps more important was Wednesday's announcement that Anderson had added Corey Tate to his coaching staff. Tate has strong ties to St. Louis-area basketball, from his prep days at Pattonville High to playing for Norm Stewart and then-assistant Anderson at Mizzou from 1994-97 to his 11-year stint as head coach at Mineral Area College in Park Hills, Missouri, about 60 miles south of St. Louis.
Chaminade star Jayson Tatum listed his final four college possibilities as Duke, Kentucky, North Carolina and one in-state school -- Saint Louis University.
Oh, and he also coaches the St. Louis Eagles 17U Nike EYBL team. That group includes Tatum and three other players ranked in the Rivals Top 100 for the next two signing classes.
A key hire, indeed.
Considering the area's wealth of future talent, it's no stretch to say Anderson's ability to lock down the borders around St. Louis could go a long way toward determining his job security at his alma mater.
"It's going to be huge for him," says Kelvin Lee, who coached several Division I players, including Beal and NBA forward David Lee, during a 16-year tenure at Chaminade and now coaches at St. Mary's High in St. Louis. "He's got to corner the market."
REASON FOR OPTIMISM
The signings of Pacific High product Cullen VanLeer and junior college transfer Martavian Payne won't transform the program, but they form a solid start.
Neither player drew significant attention or turned down any blueblood schools, although Payne had offers from Creighton and Kansas State. Lee says VanLeer's recruitment could have been more competitive if he hadn't committed so early, but the shooting guard doesn't appear to be anywhere near the level of Tatum or some of his AAU teammates.
The Tigers need shooters more than perhaps anything else, and VanLeer brings some serious ability and range. Gateway Basketball Club director Scott Schroepfer says VanLeer could see success as a solid, blue-collar-type player.
"He wants to get better," Anderson says. "He's a good student. He's the type of kid we want to have in our program that you know is going to come to work every day."
Payne played one year for the Eagles, and club president Tim Holloway says he was shocked but happy to learn the talented guard will be attending Mizzou next season. He originally committed to Southeast Missouri after playing for Imagine Prep and Madison Prep in high school, and Loos doesn't see why Payne would fail to provide some immediate contributions for a team trying to recover from a school-record 23 losses last season.
Despite Anderson's dismal start, many of the biggest names in St. Louis basketball circles still have faith in his ability to win at Missouri. The confidence in Anderson, the Big Eight Player of the Year for the Tigers in 1977, goes beyond his likable personality, strong integrity and deep ties to the state.
"There've been a lot of kids that come through here that really didn't even consider Mizzou, but I think with those two realizing that there's so much talent that's not even being tapped, or even recruited, really, that's going to change," says Holloway, who played for the Eagles with Mizzou standout Kelly Thames in the early '90s. "So I think even starting last year, that's a lot more contact with those guys and they've been reaching out to a lot of our players a lot more often, so it's a good thing."
He dismisses persistent rumors of a rift between the Tigers and Eagles, and Holloway speaks frequently with the Mizzou coaching staff to maintain what he says is a strong relationship. Webster Groves coach Jay Blossom saw a flawed relationship while coaching an Eagles AAU team in 2013, but he's confident the hiring of Tate will help ease those tensions.
Anderson and his staff stay in contact with Schroepfer, who has also been impressed so far by the new regime. Of course, they're not exactly new to the area, since they've been coaching in Missouri for years.
Loos even spent his early childhood in St. Louis before moving to Tennessee, and he spent 12 seasons with Anderson at Central Missouri, where the Mules won the Division II national championship in 2014.
At Central Missouri, Anderson spent more recruiting resources on players in Kansas City, largely because of its proximity to UCM's campus in Warrensburg. The Tigers also had success during that time in the Kansas City area, where they found standouts such as Leo Lyons, Marcus Denmon and Michael Dixon.
But Loos jokes he's been to St. Louis so much his car can probably drive itself, and Schroepfer says the Mizzou coaches know the area inside and out. That means they're already working to build relationships with all the up-and-coming talent, including such freshmen as Vianney's Carte'are Gordon, Whitfield's Torrence Watson and Pacific's Cameron VanLeer, Cullen's younger brother.
ON THE BORDER WAR
If new Mizzou AD wants peace with KU, the least KU can do is listen
"Right now, I think that Kim needs to keep doing what he's doing and the main thing is just to turn that thing around, go win some games," says Lee, a longtime friend of Anderson's and former assistant at SLU, Baylor and Texas A&M. "I think if he starts winning some games, that'll change people's perspective about Mizzou."
A SORDID HISTORY
Missouri's recruiting issues in St. Louis date all the way back to the early days of the Norm Stewart tenure.
The legendary coach didn't bring in any kids from city schools after 1971, although that didn't stop him from fining success in the county. In Stewart's final five seasons, the Tigers got contributions from St. Louis-area standouts Tate, Thames, Tate Decker, Johnnie Parker and Brian Grawer.
A few others have been solid role players and even four-year starters, but no St. Louis player has earned all-conference honors for Mizzou since Thames in 1998.
Stewart missed out on his share of elite area players in the mid '90s, including Kansas' Ryan Robertson, Georgetown's Jahidi White, Duke's Chris Carrawell, Marquette's Jon Harris, and Loren Woods, who went on to play at Wake Forest and Arizona.
When Stewart retired in 1999, many thought the Tigers had struck gold with his replacement, Snyder, a star Duke assistant. Blossom began his tenure the same year and still has fond memories of Snyder, while Schroepfer had high hopes after starting his AAU program in 1998.
"We had a guy in our program -- Bill Vollmar had a great relationship with Duke because Chris Carrawell went there and we thought when (Snyder) came it was a great get," Schroepfer says. "He was actually the primary recruiter the whole time with Chris Carrawell and he didn't really maintain that (relationship with Bill) or really show up in St. Louis."
“RECRUITING'S ALL ABOUT FORMING RELATIONSHIPS. I THINK (ANDERSON'S) A RELATIONSHIP GUY.”
Webster Groves coach Jay Blossom
Snyder's tumultuous tenure saw him win a pair of high-profile recruiting battles in St. Louis, including Vashon standout Jimmy McKinney, 2002's Mr. Show-Me basketball and the Tigers' only signee from a city school in the last 40 years. In 2004, Mizzou beat out schools such as Kansas and Kentucky to sign Grimes, a talented forward who never quite lived up to his massive potential.
Meanwhile, Snyder's well documented problems with NCAA rules led to him missing out on two eventual NBA first-round picks, Hansbrough and Chaminade's Lee, who signed with Florida in 2001. Blossom says Hansbrough would have gone to Mizzou in 2005 if not for concerns regarding Snyder's character and recruiting violations, while Kelvin Lee says early rumors of sanctions caught his star player off guard.
Snyder finally resigned mid-season in 2006, and Mike Anderson did an admirable job of cleaning up the mess rather quickly when he took over later that year. But St. Louis played only a small role in his five-year tenure, which ended with three NCAA Tournament appearances, and opinions differ on whether Anderson could have done more to draw talent from the area.
"When he got the job, that next day he was in my office," Lee says. "He was just wanting to let me know that he was here and that he wants to put the borders up."
That was in 2006, and he'd return often to Chaminade to see Beal, one of the top five recruits in the Class of 2011. But the heavy recruiting efforts weren't enough to prevent the standout shooting guard from going to Florida, and fellow St. Louis stars McLemore and Young left the state as well.
Blossom and Schroepfer have nothing but good things to say about Mike Anderson and his staff, even if he came up mostly empty-handed in St. Louis. The one exception was lightly recruited Lafayette guard Matt Lawrence, who Schroepfer says was a 4.0 student with a 35 ACT score and never needed an athletic scholarship as a four-year starter for Mizzou.
But Fort Zumwalt North coach Charles Glotta says Anderson could have recruited St. Louis much harder, particularly in the case of Young, a McCluer North guard who ended up playing for Mike Anderson at Arkansas despite committing to his predecessor, John Pelphrey. Holloway got the sense Anderson's top priorities were always Arkansas and the Memphis area, which Lee says was understandable with the former Razorback assistant's connections.
He left a full cupboard for Frank Haith, who struggled to recruit high school talent from anywhere for teams that got progressively worse throughout his three-year tenure in Columbia. Holloway says Haith recruited the crown jewel of St. Louis' 2014 class, Texas' Jordan Barnett, but Schroepfer and other coaches say they almost never saw Haith, even when assistant coach Isaac Chew recruited three-star forward Ryan Rosburg.
A 'TOUGH NUT'
The Tigers' past will be far from the only obstacle Kim Anderson and his staff face in St. Louis.
Locking down the borders is harder than ever with elite schools such as Kansas, Duke and Kentucky spending millions of dollars on recruiting. When a Beal or Tatum shows up, so do Bill Self, Mike Krzyzewski and John Calipari.
Anderson says it's critical to develop relationships with everyone in a recruit's inner circle, a group that keeps getting bigger with new options for player development. Aside from AAU and high school coaches, players in St. Louis also can hone their skills at training academies run by former Division I players such as Drew Hanlen's Pure Sweat, Corey Frazier's WITTS Training Academy, Larry Hughes' D1 Basketball and Brett Ledbetter's Ledbetter Academy.
All of those have appeared in the last seven years, since Glotta arrived from Kansas. His sons accepted Division I scholarships at Southern Illinois and Austin Peay the previous two seasons, so he's had multiple chances to see the area's recent proliferation of talent firsthand.
"I know when I got here seven years ago and was looking for opportunities and places for kids to play for starting my feeder program, it was hard as hell to find a league that was decent, to find tournaments," Glotta says. "Now you can put together a team and play a tournament every weekend, so I think that part helps from the underside."
The heavy concentration of elite talent in AAU helps coaches some, but it still takes a lot of work to find all the players in the area. Coaches must navigate a tricky dichotomy of private and public schools, as well as city and county.
It all combines to make St. Louis a "tough nut" to crack, in the words of Blossom, the winningest coach in Webster Groves history. He does his best to stay involved in his players' recruitment, but he also knows many others are influencing their decisions and development.
"Recruiting's all about forming relationships," Blossom says, echoing sentiments from both Loos and Anderson. "I think (Anderson's) a relationship guy. Now, you're in a game that's coached by a lot of snakes, so I don't think he's like that at all.
"Maybe that'll make it harder. I don't know. I would like to think kids and parents will appreciate something like that."
Anderson doesn't worry about the history of past Mizzou coaching staffs, even the ones he was a part of from '82-85 and '91-99. Word gets around in high school coaching circles about past recruiting troubles or perceived lack of effort, but Schroepfer and Holloway don't believe anyone is telling players to stay away from the Tigers.
Perhaps more important, kids themselves notice when none of their peers are finding success at the state school many of them dream of playing for growing up. Anderson and Loos say their best recruits are their players, so perhaps nothing would open up the pipeline to St. Louis more than a standout career for a local high school star.
"Kids are impressionable," says Schroepfer, who watched VanLeer play for Gateway in the summer. "They see success and if Cullen comes in and is part of a turnaround, yeah, he could be an icon-type kid, which would be pretty neat."
Realistically, most five-star recruits would seem to be out of the question until Missouri can establish itself as more of a winner, with the possible exception of Columbia's own Michael Porter. Rivals ranks the Tolton Catholic High star No. 2 nationally in the Class of 2017, and his father serves as an assistant for the Mizzou women's basketball team.
Tatum and East St. Louis center Jeremiah Tillmon -- another St. Louis Eagle ranked 11th in Rivals' Class of 2017 -- are much less likely targets than their teammates Tyler Cook of Chaminade and Xavier Sneed of Hazelwood Central, two forwards Rivals ranks in the top 80 for the Class of 2016. Even Anderson acknowledges the Tigers have to know who they can recruit, but Loos clarifies it doesn't necessarily preclude them from bringing in top players.
"I think what Coach was alluding to was just that we were chasing five-star kids that weren't from this area or didn't have a connection to Mizzou," Loos says. "I think what he was trying to get across was that yeah, we're going to recruit five-star kids, but there's got to be a connection."
The addition of Tate to the staff guarantees a St. Louis connection. The challenge will be persuading those kids to stay at home -- before it's too late.
"It's going to take time," Blossom says. "My guess is like Mizzou football had, they'll try to get in some of these recruiting battles and might finish second or third.
"But the thing is, you've got to keep forming relationships and earning trust and eventually you might start to get some of those kids. Hopefully, you don't get fired before then."
You can follow Luke Thompson on Twitter at @FS_LukeT or email him at lukegthompson87@gmail.com.
A basketball coach is standing in a hallway between the weight room and court at Mizzou Arena. His name is Rob Fulford, and he is here, in this moment, in a conversation about a basketball program trying to find its way.
In a more general sense, he is here because of his particular skills and connections that may help Missouri land some of the nation’s best players. More than anything else, Mizzou’s ability to attract better talent will determine whether this miserable season is someday viewed as dark foreshadowing or a noble struggle before bigger success — like that dirty apartment you had in college.
He is going through some of the minutia, and mentions that Mizzou's coaches have allotted 21 of their remaining NCAA allotted days during the current cycle to see high school kids. Then he pauses.
“Well, I guess we have 22 now,” he says, and here comes the punchline. “Since Coach almost went down last night.”
He is referring, of course, to the cancellation of head coach Kim Anderson’s recruiting trip because his plane malfunctioned and made an emergency landing on Wednesday. Fulford is making a joke, but he’s dead serious about knowing exactly how much time the Mizzou coaches can spend on the road. This is their only way out of the darkness.
This is Anderson’s first year at his alma mater, and the failures are easy to see. Ten straight losses, the worst streak since 1967 — when Anderson was 11 years old — and now even worse with guard Wes Clark missing the rest of the season because of an elbow injury. Look through the schedule, and it’s hard to find more than two games — tops — where the Tigers will be favored.
This was always going to be a bad year for Mizzou. Frank Haith’s years of playing transfer musical chairs finally turned up empty, leaving in his wake a roster bad enough for at least a one-year mulligan on any fair judgments.
So it’s not that the last seven regular-season games are irrelevant — if nothing else, Anderson needs to keep his players going hard — but it is entirely true that what Mizzou’s coaches are doing in high school gyms and the living rooms of top recruits is more important than what happens during their own games.
And on that point, the indications are pretty good, actually.
“Our message hasn’t changed,” Anderson says. “Our opportunity is there, to come in and play. Have that opportunity to play. We’re recruiting some kids who are looking at that opportunity to come in and play right away.”
At the moment, Mizzou has signed two three-star high schoolers for next year — Blue Springs South’s Kevin Puryear, and Cullen VanLeer of Pacific (Mo.). Terrence Phillips, a three-star point guard from Oak Hill Academy in Virginia who is the brother of NBA star Brandon Jennings, has also committed to the Tigers.
Mizzou also remains in on some four- and even five-star recruits, including a pair of players from Huntington Prep in West Virginia, where Fulford coached last year.
After that are even bigger opportunities, including five-star recruits Jayson Tatum of St. Louis Chaminade in the class of 2016 and Michael Porter of Columbia Tolton Catholic in the class of 2017.
The most glaring needs on the roster are for a big man and a combo guard, specifically someone who can get a bucket when a play breaks down. That’s where recruiting comes in.
“I know they’re right in there with some pretty good kids,” says Steve Smith, the coach at Oak Hill, which is effectively a factory for high-major recruits. “Just from what I’ve seen, some of the top-level kids, the kinds of kids who maybe weren’t thinking about Missouri before, I’ve seen them listing Missouri. I don’t know if they’re going to get them, but you have to start somewhere.”
Recruiting was supposed to be Anderson’s weakness, you might remember. He addressed that concern immediately, not only in hiring Fulford but in retaining Tim Fuller from Haith’s staff.
Anderson says the biggest difference from his days recruiting kids to Central Missouri is that for Division II kids, you mostly recruit the athlete and the parents. With high-major Division I kids, there are typically more people around. Not just the kid and his parents, but more coaches, more relatives, maybe a mentor or personal trainer.
Anderson and Fulford said the approach and targets have not changed as Missouri’s season has faded, something confirmed by coaches of three different recruits.
But no staff at a school with MU’s ambitions gets two seasons like this without some serious pressure being applied, so the coaches know their message has a shelf life. Especially with athletic director Mike Alden retiring.
“Seeing what they’re doing on the road, and knowing a little about Kim, I think they’ll win eight conference games next year,” says an assistant at a rival school. “But if you don’t, and I know they want Kim to succeed because he’s one of their own, but we all know we have to win.”
The MU coaches are in a strange moment in time. This year’s losing can be explained, and even spun into a positive in recruiting, depending on a player’s preferences. But all of that has to turn into success.
In other words, the losing is fine — as long as it’s temporary. Everyone knows there will be dust and a lot of takeout food when they remodel their kitchen, but patience runs out fast once the work gets behind schedule.
“What most kids look at it is, there’s an obvious need for my position,” Fulford says. “Kids look at playing time, they look at opportunity. You never want to sell losing, but I think you have to spin it, because we have some good pieces here …
“What we’re saying is, ‘Don’t lose faith in us, because we’re going to win and we’re going to win big. You see where it’s at. Help it get back to where it can be. You can be a reason it gets back to this level. Take Mizzou to a Final Four. Be a part of the first conference champion in a long time.’”
It’s the only message Missouri can spread, really. It’s a smart message, one that appears to be making some inroads. But it’s also one that has to catch quick, or be buried under more losing.
To reach Sam Mellinger, call 816-234-4365 or send email to smellinger@kcstar.com. Follow him on Twitter: @mellinger. For previous columns, go to KansasCity.com.
On Friday evening, first-year head coach Kim Anderson received his third commitment in his Class of 2015, as Pacific High (Missouri) shooting guard Cullen VanLeer decided to remain in-state and commit to Mizzou. He announced his decision via Twitter.
“I’m excited to say I have verbally committed to the University of Missouri to continue my basketball career,” VanLeer tweeted.
The 6-foot-4 shooting guard is the the third three-star prospect to commit to the Tigers in the last five months, joining power forward Kevin Puryear and shooting guard Drew Lock. The 6-foot-3 lock is a pro-style quarterback, committed to play for the football team. All three hail from the Show-Me State.
VanLeer had offers from Evansville, Lehigh, Missouri State, Southeast Missouri State and Wofford, according to Rivals. He averaged 21.9 points with 8.4 rebounds, 4.4 assists and 1.8 steals per game as a junior.
When Tim Fuller was brought to Missouri, he was called an "ace recruiter" by many. What does it mean to have an "ace recruiter" on staff at a place like Missouri?
In 2011 when Frank Haith was hired at Missouri, he ended up hiring an old friend to be his top assistant. Since then that friend, Missouri assistant coach Tim Fuller, has been a fantastic ambassador for Missouri Basketball. He's smart, intense and extremely likable (he even followed me on twitter!) Fuller has also helped to shape the future of the program, even with his friend and mentor Haith moving on.
From the moment he was hired he was labeled as an "ace recruiter" by several in the know. And for sure Fuller has shown that he can get in the door at just about any place he needs to. He's the primary reason why Jerry Meyer noted that the idea of Isaiah Briscoe and Antonio Blakeney both ending up at Mizzou isn't such a crazy idea.
Fuller is responsible for Johnathan Williams III coming to Mizzou. He's also responsible for running down Jakeenan Gant, and he's the main reason why Gant stayed when the head coach didn't. He brought in Jabari Brown and Alex Oriakhi as transfers. One of his best recruiting jobs was to get Rob Fulford on board as an assistant at Mizzou, which helped land Montaque Gill-Caesar, and possibly Thomas Bryant. That's not to mention any other possible 2016 guys that are giving Mizzou a look thanks to Fuller.
Read Fuller's Bio on MUTigers.com
Fuller's MUTigers.com bio will give you the full back story of Fuller's climb up the coaching ladder, and how he landed at Mizzou.
At Louisville, Fuller was a part of a staff that set the foundation for the Cardinals National Championship in 2013. He spent one solemn season as an assistant there, but not before helping the Cardinals with a class that had Chane Behanan, Wayne Blackshear and Kevin Ware. At the time that Fuller left, the Cardinals had gotten a huge commitment from Rodney Purvis, the number 1 rated PG in the 2012 class. Fuller left, Purvis decommitted.
"Right now, they're talking to people, feeling them out and really not in a hurry to get on anyone's campus, just trying to develop arelationship to see if that touchy-feeling thing can develop with someone outside of Tim. That was part of the whole de-commitment with Louisville was to give Louisville's staff a chance to see if they can develop that relationship but also to be fair to themselves as a family to see if someone else can do it. They're not going to entertain a list of 15 schools or anything like that, but I don't know if you can say it's down to four."(1)
Negus Webster-Chan (who did end up following Fuller, until he went to Hawaii) was also a Louisville commit, and UL was considered the top school for 5-star recruit Ricardo Ledo (who never qualified at Providence). Since none of the three ended up at U of L, Fuller has something of a reputation with our friends at the Card Chronicle. 4-star PF Montrez Harrell did end up at Louisville in that class, however. Harrell played for the CP3 All Stars AAU Team in High School before committing to Louisville.
Much of recruiting is about relationships. And Fuller has those. The kinds of relationships that Fuller has been able to build most likely start with his connection to Chris Paul. Paul is an NBA All-Star, and was an All-American at Wake Forest. Fuller was an assistant basketball coach at West Forsyth High School when Paul was developing into a star guard. Fuller ended up back at Wake Forest during Paul's sophomore season there (his last) and the two continued their relationship. Paul also funds one of the top AAU teams in the Southeast. The CP3 All Stars from North Carolina.
The CP3 All Stars
and Tim Fuller
and Tim Fuller
It's good to be connected.
- Montrez Harrell: c/o 2012
- Rodney Purvis: c/o 2012
- Aaron Scales: c/o 2012
- Tyrek Coger: c/o 2013
- Shelton Mitchell: c/o 2014
- Harry Giles: c/o 2016
The CP3 All Stars is a good example to use on the importance of relationships because the Fuller connection runs as deep as anywhere, and the results are indisputable. Montrez Harrell went to Louisville thanks in part to the relationship with Fuller and the CP3 All Stars, Purvis committed to Louisville andconsidered Mizzou before ending up at NC State (he's since transferred to UConn). Scales committed then decommitted. Coger did the same. Shelton Mitchell had Mizzou in his top two and was rumored to favor Mizzou until he ended up at Vanderbilt. And Harry Giles, a prize of the 2016 class has been on campus to visit the school (though it seems that he is unlikely to end considering Mizzou). By having a close relationship with Chris Paul, Fuller by extension will be able to get in the door for almost any recruit that comes out of that AAU program.
That's not his only relationship though, that's probably just his strongest. Fuller also has a close connection to the Southern Stampede and the Atlanta Celtics. The Celtics boast kids with Mizzou offers: Josh Langford, Kobi Simmons, Kaiser Gates and Braxton Blackwell. Having worked at Nike, the relationship exists with the EYBL. Its through the EYBL that you get in on the premiere Nike sponsored AAU teams. One in particular is Each1 Teach1, Amare Stoudamire's AAU team that Antonio Blakeney is a part of. Another member is the New Jersey Playaz. Their top player? Isaiah Briscoe. There is a reason why these top players are popping up with Mizzou on their radar.
"Tim’s very genuine when he comes across with his recruiting and how he sits down and talks to people," said Tony Edwards, who coaches Coger and Purvis on the CP3 All-Stars AAU team. "He’s coached in high school, coached in college, and I think the experiences he’s had as a player, recruiter and coach have helped him as far as understanding the relationship with kids and what’s real and what’s not." (2)
It's up to the assistant coach to forge the relationship with the player he's recruiting. They have to get in the door. That is what makes Fuller more of an "ace" than most other assistants. He has that ability to get in the door and players obviously get close with him. Jakeenan Gant felt so strongly about Fuller that as soon as the Coach was kept on at Mizzou after Haith left, Gant affirmed his pledge to Mizzou. Gant's relationship with Fuller was so strong that Ahmed Hill, Gants AAU Teammate with the Southern Stampede, had Mizzou in his top two when he committed to Marquette. He strongly considered Mizzou when coach Buzz Williams left Marquette for Virginia Tech, only to end up at Virginia Tech and back with Williams.
So relationships matter, but what often matters most is the head coach. Frank Haith struggled to close with the big names that Fuller brought around. Haith couldn't close on Purvis, and missed on several other recruits that Fuller brought to the door. Now Fuller has some big time players knocking again, with October 11th potentially being a huge day for Mizzou recruiting. With 2 confirmed 5 star recruits coming in, a couple more rumored, Kim Anderson will have a big chance to do what Haith couldn't... Turn Mizzou into a 5-star destination.
Kim Anderson, 6' 7" SF, Missouri
Portland Trailerblazers Roster 7-79
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| Kim Anderson, Portland Trailblazers, Missouri |
Coaches for UCM, Warrensburg
Kim Anderson, Mizzou
Dr. Forrest Phog Allen, KU
Gene Bartow, UCLA, Memphis, UAB
Joe B Hall, Kentucky
Jim Wooldridge, Kansas State
Bob Sundvold, UMSL
Tom Scott, North Carolina
Tom Smith, Valparaiso
Don Doucette, Chaminade
Lynn Nance, University of Washingto
n
Willard Greim, FIBA President 48-60
Leroy "Lee" Hunt, (asst coach at UCM)UMKC, Memphis State, Illinois, UCLA (where Hunt got a taste of the NCAA Final Four more than once), Alabama-Birmingham, and Mississippi before taking the coaching position in Kansas City. At many of the schools he served under Gene Bartow.
At Ole Miss, Hunt took the position of men’s head basketball coach and Assistant Athletics Director in 1982. After being picked to finish eighth in the pre-season polls, Hunt led the Rebels to a 19-12 overall record and a second place SEC finish. As a result, Hunt was selected as the SEC Coach of the Year in 1983 and was awarded the Rupp Cup, which was a namesake of legendary Kentucky coach Adolph Rupp.
Kim Anderson, Graduation from Sedalia, Smith-Cotton High School, Sedalia Missouri 1973
Missouri coach Kim Anderson's upbringing made him the man he is today
The Kansas City StarMay 10, 2014
He is 6 feet 7 inches of genuine gentleman and self-deprecating wit.
Talk to him, and he'll actually listen, rare and telling in itself.
All of which makes Anderson almost universally liked and about unanimously seen as just plain nice.
Yet it's basically that demeanor that makes detractors wonder whether he can make a nimble leap from coaching Division II Central Missouri to the national championship to whisking Mizzou back to national prominence.
But there's this curious contradictory snippet in his profile that speaks to a broader, more important truth about Anderson ... even if the example isn't inherently laudable.
No Missouri basketball player fouled out of more games in a career (34) or season (13) than Anderson.
At his Tuesday introductory news conference last week, Anderson was presented a replica of his No. 42 jersey from the 1970s that seemed inauthentic to one observer.
"There's no blood on that thing; it doesn't belong to Kim," former Tiger Al Eberhard joked to Anderson's father, Keith.
Even one who protested a few of the fouls now bears witness to their legitimacy.
"I'll tell you one thing: They weren't slapping fouls, either," former Tigers coach Norm Stewart said, laughing.
With a chuckle, Anderson embraced the distinction as a record that probably will never be broken and tried to answer what it suggested about the way he played.
"The positive interpretation would be I played hard, and the negative would be I played stupid," he said, deadpanning, "So I guess I played hard and stupid."
As it happens, Anderson's foul play is easily reconciled with his demeanor.
It had little to do with playing "stupid," though surely he could have been more judicious at times.
It reflects his sincerity and authenticity and straightforwardness and single-mindedness of purpose, the traits that also helped make him Big Eight player of the year in 1977.
And that way is what makes him resonate as the fresh face of basketball in Missouri as MU seeks stability after churning through three coaches since Stewart retired in 1999.
That reverberated at the news conference.
"There's no way anybody who saw that could think that wasn't him," said his wife, Melissa. "What you see is what you get, really."
That helps explain why an unscientific poll by The Star asking readers to choose between loving and loathing his hiring yielded 1,779 votes in favor and 482 against.
And it's a reason that even those who wonder if this will work out can't help but want it to.
"I think Missouri people are kind of a unique breed," said Melissa Anderson, a Lee's Summit, Mo., native. "And he's like that. I think people can connect to that. He's generous. He is thoughtful. And he's one of us. One of them."
The forces that formed Anderson still radiate from here, the house a mile or so from the Missouri State Fairgrounds that Keith Anderson and his wife, Donna, bought 57 years ago.
It's the immaculately maintained home with the manicured lawn and the U.S. flag flying and a smaller Central Missouri banner on display - and dueling Mizzou logos etched in concrete at the doorstep.
Here, the melt-your-heart kind Keith Anderson, 85, delights in having a visitor in his living room, where he could still picture former Kansas coach Ted Owens showing his son post-up moves on a recruiting visit while Stewart was idling outside.
He calls the house where Kim Anderson shared a room with his younger brother, Kevin, "nothing fancy."
And that seems a point of pride for a longtime teacher, coach and referee who put himself through Central Missouri with jobs that included a few summers in Kansas City driving 4 a.m. delivery routes for The Star.
"We didn't have much," he said. "We kind of struggled there for a long time."
But not with the most precious things: nurturing their children and setting examples and providing opportunities for them.
Some of that started in the driveway for his two oldest children, Kim and Kathy, who is three years younger and became a basketball star, too: an All-American at Central Missouri and a member of the U.S. women's national team for three years entering the 1980 Olympics that the United States boycotted.
They learned to dribble on the gravel driveway, learned how to go left because of a bush in the way on the right that became their cushion for fadeaway shots.
"Bush didn't last long," Keith Anderson said. "They played until the dust would get thick out there. The backyard looked like a plowed field. Donna, my wife, she kept Kool-Aid out there all time."
Neighborhood kids congregated there, too, for basketball, and sometimes Wiffle ball.
But mostly it was Kim vs. Kathy, because Kevin was 10 years younger than Kim. The father remembers a lot of "pushing and shoving and griping" and sometimes crying.
"It was that really fine gravel, so if you fell down you were going to get scratched pretty good," Kim Anderson said. "Your hands were always skinned up."
The Andersons also could play in about any school gym around since their dad held keys as a longtime administrator and coach.
That was magic to the children, who saw - and see - their father as firm, fair, honorable and amiable.
He didn't wield an iron hand at home, but maybe he didn't need to because his children heard how he ran his classrooms.
As a teacher, he was known for accurately throwing tennis balls and chalkboard erasers at inattentive students.
"I'd be in jail by 8 o'clock in the morning now," he says, laughing.
Donna Anderson, who was working in special education when she died at 73 after suffering a heart attack in 2006, was more outgoing.
She was the one who needed to take care of everyone and everything, the one whose voice carried at every game her children played in, the one who instilled competitiveness in them.
The combination made for a remarkable reaction in their children, whether or not they recognized it at the time.
"We just wanted to be like them," said Kathy Anderson, now a senior associate athletic director at Central Missouri.
So they were respectful.
One elementary-school teacher told her family that Kim Anderson was her favorite student because he'd stay after school daily to help her clean. Kathy was apt to do the same, though she scoffed that Kim actually helped clean.
They were attentive and well-behaved ... even if Kathy Anderson wanted her brother asked how often he said he was going to the library and didn't.
"I'm not sure what she's insinuating," Kim Anderson said, with mock indignation. Still, Kim Anderson seldom, if ever, was in trouble.
"He wasn't a saint, but there was only one night I can remember he didn't come home when he was supposed to," Keith Anderson said. "We made a phone call or two, and he wasn't long to come home. I think that's about the only time we kind of restricted what he could do the next day or two."
And they learned to work.
Kim Anderson spent many summers working at the Sedalia Country Club, starting as a janitor and working his way up to manager.
They'd all work every summer at the state fair, where Kim Anderson typically helped with parking or selling concessions in the grandstands.
By the time Anderson arrived at MU in 1973, Stewart said, he was "eassssssy coaching" because of his parents.
Stewart and Anderson have vivid memories of their first meeting at Wentworth Military Academy in Lexington about 46 years ago, possibly in 1967 before Stewart coached his first game at MU.
"It was on Court Three. I remember he came over; I was shooting," Anderson said. "We talked a little bit, and he took me to the goal, and we started working on post moves.
"That's pretty special when you're 12 years old. That always made a lasting impression on me that he took the time to do that."
Stewart came to make an even more indelible impression recruiting Anderson, who took visits to Kansas, Kansas State, Memphis, Texas and Vanderbilt. Anderson knew he would go to MU but hadn't been out of state much and just wanted to travel, but Stewart left little to chance.
Recruiting rules were more relaxed then, and down the stretch Anderson believes Stewart drove 190 miles round trip from Columbia every day for two weeks to either visit or just hover in the Smith-Cotton High cafeteria as Anderson ate.
Anderson went on to a thriving career at MU that included helping the Tigers to their first NCAA Tournament appearance in 32 years.
But that season ended with a chapter in MU's star-crossed history as the Tigers fell to Michigan 95-88 in an NCAA Tournament Elite Eight game in 1976 ... despite Donna Anderson clutching her rosary in the stands in Louisville.
The game is best-known for Willie Smith's 43 points. But it also featured a controversial technical-foul call on Anderson with Mizzou leading 76-71 in the final 8 minutes after trailing 50-37 at halftime.
Anderson had escaped for a layup only to be undercut at the rim and grabbed it for self-preservation.
The layup was ruled a dunk, which wasn't allowed then, and Anderson was assessed a technical. Michigan got free throws and the ball and outscored rattled MU 24-12 in the final minutes.
Stewart still struggles some to talk about the ruling that arguably kept MU from its only Final Four.
Asked if the play had seemed game-changing, Stewart said, "Oh, it was more than that. ... That changed a lot of things."
Including, Stewart believes, the dunk being reinstated the next season.
At the time, Anderson felt the anguish but naively thought, "Well, we'll just come back next year."
Now he knows nothing can be taken for granted through a career that included playing briefly in the NBA and three years in Europe before starting his coaching life at Mizzou in 1982.
Anderson paid serious dues there, driving around the state with then-MU assistant Gary Filbert to conduct clinics, sometimes for $12.50 a day each, and selling sunglasses that read "Mizzou" on one lens and "Tigers" on the other before football games at Memorial Stadium.
"I truly have come a long way," Anderson said, laughing.
For a long time, it wasn't evident he would come back this way.
He spent 11 years in two coaching stints at Mizzou only to be jilted for the top job in 1999, a rejection that pained him and his wife but that they also learned to compartmentalize and not feed.
On he went to the Big 12, where he served as director of basketball operations for four years and kept absorbing tips from other coaches even as it appeared he wouldn't join their ranks again.
And on he went to Central Missouri when athletic director Jerry Hughes had a vision Anderson was the right man for the job.
And then Anderson took the Mules to his third Final Four and the championship in March to finally become the right man for the MU job when Frank Haith left for Tulsa.
Along the way, so many experiences have formed Anderson's profile.
But mostly he stayed true to himself and what he comes from, the same characteristics that always have and always will serve him well.
"If you want an eagle," Stewart said, "get an eagle egg."
UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI
Coach Kim Anderson’s first recruit, small forward D’Angelo Allen, commits to MU basketball
May 4
BY TOD PALMER
The Kansas City Star
COLUMBIA — New Missouri coach Kim Anderson landed his first new recruit for the 2014-15 season when D’Angelo Allen, a small forward from Dallas, committed to the Tigers.
Allen’s AAU coach, Erven Davis of Dallas
Showtyme Elite, confirmed that the versatile 6-foot-6 standout from Kimball High School in Dallas committed to Missouri during a weekend visit to Columbia.
“D’Angelo’s probably one of the best uncommitted prospects that’s out there right now,” Davis said. “He and his mother really enjoyed the visit. He was telling me, even when he’d only been there a few hours, how much he was enjoying it.”
Davis said Tigers assistant coach Tim Fuller had been recruiting Allen for a while and that connection helped sway Allen’s decision.
Allen also hit it off with Anderson during the weekend visit, cementing a commitment to Missouri.
“It’s an SEC program … and he has a chance to come in and make an impact as a freshman,” Davis said. “He can guard any perimeter position and he’s an adept ball-handler, so I think he’ll be able to play anywhere from the two to the four, depending on what’s needed.”
Davis compared Allen’s game to Hall of Famer Scottie Pippen from the standpoint of versatility and all-around impact.
“He’s a Scottie Pippen-type, a stat stuffer,” Davis said. “He can score, he can defend, he’s totally unselfish in his approach to the game. He can handle it, he can shoot the ball and has a good mid-range game. He can shoot some three-pointers.
“There’s really nothing he can’t do. He’s a young kid, just turned 17 recently, and the sky’s the limit for him. I think he’s going to be an impact player. I don’t think he’s just going to be good. He’ll be one of the ones we’re talking about one day.”
The Tigers have at least two remaining scholarships to fill next season after guards Jordan Clarkson and Jabari Brown left early for the NBA and transfer forward Zach Price was kicked off the team.
Allen fills one of those three openings, and State Fair Community College guard Kevin Punter, a junior college All-American who averaged 20.3 points last season, remains a possibility.
He committed to Missouri before former coach Frank Haith left last month and has since de-committed, but Punter is believed to be choosing between Missouri and Tennessee, where he visited this weekend.
Missouri convinced Jakeenan Gant, a 6-foot-8 power forward from Effingham County (Ga.) High School, to stay after Anderson was hired to replace Haith. He signed with the Tigers in November.
Pacific Hills shooting guard Namon Wright from Los Angeles, who also signed early with Missouri, has asked to be released from his national letter of intent, his high school coach Ivan Barahona told the Los Angeles Times on Saturday.
Wright will meet with Anderson on Tuesday, so it’s possible the 6-foot-5 shooting guard could still play for the Tigers, but, if he decides to explore other options, Missouri would have three open scholarships again.
Missouri names Kim Anderson as next coach
Missouri has named has announced Kim Anderson as its new head coach.
Anderson will be introduced at a press conference on Tuesday morning.
He has spent the last 12 seasons as the coach of Central Missouri, going 274-94 and playing in seven Division-II NCAA Tournaments.
“I'm honored and humbled to have the opportunity to return to Mizzou and lead a program that our family is so vested in,” Anderson said in a release. “When we took over in Warrensburg 12 years ago, we faced an uphill battle. We had support, we had a winning history and great campus leadership, but the program had lost its identity. I see that same opportunity here at Missouri. We have great leadership with Dr. Loftin and Mike Alden, and I know we have a passionate fan base. We have a lot of work ahead of us and that work starts today, but as a Missourian I embrace this challenge and look forward to bringing championship basketball back to Norm Stewart Court and Mizzou Arena.”
This will mark a return to Columbia for Anderson, who spent 11 seasons as an assistant coach for Missouri under Norm Stewart, from 1982-85 and 1991-99. He was also an assistant at Baylor for six seasons under Gene Iba.
“We are pleased and excited to have Kim Anderson leading our program,” athletic director Mike Alden said. “He's a man of great character, integrity and respect. He has demonstrated the ability to mentor young men on and off the court, academically and socially. He's a proven winner on all levels, and he's built tremendous relationships around the country in the basketball community, which assists greatly with recruiting and other important aspects for a program. Lastly, the fact that he's a Missouri Tiger at heart is important, he is committed to Mizzou and has a passion to build a program of which all Tiger fans will be proud.”
Anderson also played his college ball at Missouri, winning Big Eight Player of the Year honors in 1977.
He replaces Frank Haith, who left earlier this month for the vacancy at Tulsa.
WARRENSBURG, Mo. -- For the past 12 years, Kim Anderson has brought tremendous honor to the University of Central Missouri as the Mules head basketball coach. He is not only known for the outstanding teams he has coached, including the 2014 NCAA Division II National Championship team, but for his stellar reputation as a positive influence and role model for young people both on and off the court.
With his new position at MU, Coach Anderson carries on a great tradition of outstanding coaches like Phog Allen, Gene Bartow, Joe B. Hall, Lynn Nance and Jim Wooldridge, whose careers included coaching assignments on the UCM campus. The entire UCM community celebrates Coach Anderson's legacy at UCM, and wishes him much success in his new role. Although no decisions have been made, the university will soon begin looking at options and formulating plans to find the head coach's successor. "We want to thank Coach Anderson for his contributions to Mules Basketball and the University of Central Missouri," said UCM Athletic Director Jerry Hughes. "He returned Mules Basketball to national prominence and helped to mentor young men both on and off the court. We wish him the very best in his new role at MU."    |
Celebration Video UCM Mules |
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Westwood One radio highlights |
 Mar 29, 2014; Evansville, IN, USA; West Liberty Hilltoppers guard Shawn Dyer (12) shoots against Central Missouri Mules guard Jon Gilliam (21) and forward/center Brennen Hughes (10) during the second half at Ford Center. Central Missouri defeated West Liberty 84-77. Mandatory Credit: Jamie Rhodes-USA TODAY Sports |
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| 2014 National Champions D-II The University of Central Missouri |
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Thursday, Apr 3, 2014
Posted on Wed, Apr. 02, 2014
Posted on Wed, Apr. 02, 2014
Central Missouri’s Kim Anderson chosen Division II coach of the year
The Kansas City Star
Central Missouri men’s basketball coach Kim Anderson was chosen Division II coach of the year Wednesday by the National Association of Basketball Coaches.
He will receive the award Sunday during an awards show in conjunction with the Final Four in Dallas.
Anderson led the Mules to their first NCAA championship since 1984, and the first in his 12 years at Central Missouri, on Saturday with an 84-77 victory over West Liberty (W.Va.). Anderson is 274-95 in his career with the Mules and has recorded three consecutive 30-victory seasons.
Central Missouri men’s basketball coach Kim Anderson was chosen Division II coach of the year Wednesday by the National Association of Basketball Coaches.
He will receive the award Sunday during an awards show in conjunction with the Final Four in Dallas.
Anderson led the Mules to their first NCAA championship since 1984, and the first in his 12 years at Central Missouri, on Saturday with an 84-77 victory over West Liberty (W.Va.). Anderson is 274-95 in his career with the Mules and has recorded three consecutive 30-victory seasons.
© 2014 Kansas City Star and wire service sources. All Rights Reserved. http://www.kansascity.com
2013-2014 UCM Mules Basketball Roster
| MAGE | # | NAME | POS. | HT. | WT. | YR. | HOMETOWN | HIGH SCHOOL | PREVIOUS SCHOOL |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 | 00 | Garrett Sandbothe | F/C | 215 | R-So. | Lee's Summit, Mo. | Lee's Summit West HS | Park University | |
 | 1 | Ryan Magdziarz | G | 215 | Sr. | Overland Park, Kan. | Blue Valley HS | Johnson County CC | |
 | 3 | Brad Woodson | G/F | 190 | Fr. | St. Louis, Mo. | Vianney HS | ||
 | 4 | Preston Brunz | G | 195 | R-Jr. | Mankato, Minn. | Mankato West HS | Kirkwood CC | |
 | 5 | Joe Davis | F | 195 | R-Jr. | Sylva, N.C. | Smoky Mountain HS | Brevard College | |
 | 10 | Brennen Hughes | F/C | 240 | Jr. | Moberly, Mo. | Moberly HS | Moberly CC | |
 | 11 | Daylen Robinson | G | 190 | Sr. | Kansas City, Mo. | Northeast HS | Texas Tech | |
 | 12 | TJ White | G/F | 185 | Jr. | Raytown, Mo. | O'Hara HS | Moberly CC | |
 | 15 | Jordan Epps | G | 180 | So. | Springfield, Mo. | Nixa HS | Missouri Valley | |
 | 21 | Jon Gilliam | G | 180 | Sr. | Paris, Mo. | Paris HS | Moberly CC | |
 | 22 | Charles Hammork | G/F | 190 | Sr. | New Orleans, La. | Perry Walker HS | Coffeyville CC | |
 | 23 | Connor Wheeler | G | 185 | So. | Carbondale, Ill. | DuQuoin HS | John A Logan CC | |
 | 24 | Dillon Deck | F/C | 240 | Jr. | Smithville, Mo. | Smithville HS | William Jewell | |
 | 30 | Sean O'Brien | F/C | 205 | Fr. | St. Louis, Mo. | Vianney HS | ||
 | 32 | Ryan Donald | F | 220 | Jr. | Memphis, Tenn. | Cordova HS | Shawnee CC | |
 | 33 | Kyle Wolf | G/F | 190 | Fr. | Lenexa, Kan. | Rockhurst HS |
| NAME | TITLE | |
|---|---|---|
 | Kim Anderson | Head Men's Basketball Coach |
 | Brad Loos | Associate Head Men's Basketball Coach |
 | Nate Johnson | Assistant Men's Basketball Coach |
 | Bryce Brunz | Graduate Assistant Men's Basketball Coach |
 | Marcus Santoro | Graduate Assistant Men's Basketball Coach |
 | Dennis Larson | Student Assistant Men's Basketball Coach |
Division II basketball champions
Central Missouri (30-5) also won the division title in 1984.Shawn Dyer led West Liberty (31-4) 19 points. West Liberty built a 35-26 lead 18 minutes into the game before the Mules came back to tie it 37. Neither team led by more than five points in the second half until the final 20 seconds in the game that had 14 ties and nine lead changes.
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Credit: Joe Robbins/NCAA Photos/Joe Robbins/NCAA Photos
Date: Mar 29, 2014
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| Mar 29, 2014; Evansville, IN, USA; Central Missouri Mules head coach Kim Anderson reacts during the first half against the West Liberty Hilltoppers at Ford Center. Mandatory Credit: Jamie Rhodes-USA TODAY Sports
Credit: Jamie Rhodes/Jamie Rhodes-USA TODAY Sports
Date: Mar 29, 2014
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DENNY SIMMONS
Central Missouri's Daylen Robinson (11) drives past West Liberty's Kelvin Goodwin, left, and Cedric Harris (32) during the NCAA men's Division II championship basketball game in Evansville, Ind., Saturday afternoon, March 29, 2014. Central Missouri won 84-77. (AP Photo/The Courier & Press, Denny Simmons)
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29 MAR 2014: University of Central Missouri players celebrate in the closing seconds against West Liberty University during the Division II Men's Basketball Championship held at the Ford Center in Evansville, IN. Central Missouri defeated West Liberty 84-77 for the national title. Joe Robbins/NCAA Photos
Credit: Joe Robbins/NCAA Photos/Joe Robbins/NCAA Photos
Date: Mar 29, 2014
Credit: Jamie Rhodes/Jamie Rhodes-USA TODAY Sports
Date: Mar 29, 2014
Mar 29, 2014; Evansville, IN, USA; Central Missouri Mules forward/center Dillon Deck (24) celebrates after cutting the net following the second half against the West Liberty Hilltoppers at Ford Center. Central Missouri defeated West Liberty 84-77. Mandatory Credit: Jamie Rhodes-USA TODAY Sports
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Coach Anderson addresses welcome home rally in Warrensburg.
 Prominent men's basketball coaches
Kim Anderson
Keith Kim Anderson (born May 12, 1955) is the Head Coach of the University of Central Missouri Mules Basketball team.[1] He has led the team to back-to-back MIAA championships and two appearances in the NCAA Division II Final Four in 2007 and 2009. He also lead the Mules to the NCAA Men's Divison II Basketball Final Four in 2014 and an appearance in the 2014 National Championship game with a victory over No. 1 Metro State (71-69) in the Final Four. He played collegiately for the University of Missouri.
Born in in Sedalia, Missouri, he was selected by the Portland Trail Blazers in the 2nd round (28th pick overall) of the 1977 NBA Draft and by the Milwaukee Bucks in the 7th round (146th pick overall) of the 1978 NBA Draft.
He also was a court coach for Team USA during the Pan American Games Team Trials. Was a junior forward on Norm Stewart's first Big Eight Conference championship team in 1976, then led the league in scoring and was it's "Player of the Year" in 1977. The Sedalia product was Academic All-Big Eight in 1975 and '77, and won Missouri's George Edwards Award for basketball excellence, academic ability, citizenship and character three times. He tallied 1,289 points in his career to rank among Missouri's top-20 alltime scorers. Anderson was a first-round pick of the NBA's Portland Trailblazers and also played professionally in Italy and France. From 1982 until earlier this year, he was an assistant basketball coach - 12 years at MU and six years at Baylor. He's currently the director of basketball operations for the Big 12 Conference.
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National roundup: Central Missouri wins NCAA Div. II championship
LPGA
Posted: March 30, 2014 - 12:26am
DENNY SIMMONS
Central Missouri's Daylen Robinson (11) drives past West Liberty's Kelvin Goodwin, left, and Cedric Harris (32) during the NCAA men's Division II championship basketball game in Evansville, Ind., Saturday afternoon, March 29, 2014. Central Missouri won 84-77. (AP Photo/The Courier & Press, Denny Simmons
EVANSVILLE, Ind. — Central Missouri won the NCAA Division II championship game with defense,
Facing a West Liberty squad that averaged 101 points, the Mules held the Hilltoppers 24 below their average Saturday in an 84-77 victory. Daylen Robinson scored 16 of his 21 points in the second half for Central Missouri.
“Defense was the difference at the end,” said Robinson, the tournament MVP. “Coach (Kim Anderson) said, ‘We need stops these 4 minutes,’ and that’s just what we did. We knew we had to contest their shots, or they would score a bunch of points. We kept our poise late in the game, offensively and defensively.” Dillon Deck added 16 points and 10 rebounds for Central Missouri (30-5), including two key baskets in the final 4 minutes. The Mules also won the division II title in 1984.
Robinson hit a 3-pointer with 8:18 left to tie it at 65, then made it 68-65 with another 3-pointer 90 seconds later. The Mules never trailed again.Central Missouri could not pull away, however.
UCM led 76-73 with less than 3 minutes to go, and that’s when defense began to take over. The 6-foot-9 Deck deflected two shots, then stepped up and made a key basket to put his team ahead 78-73 with 1:40 to go. After C.J. Hester cut Central Missouri’s lead to 78-75 with a pair of free throws, Deck grabbed an offensive rebound following a missed free throw, was fouled, and hit both free throws to put the Mules up 80-75.
West Liberty came up empty the next two times downcourt, and the Mules held on..
“Every coach dreams of winning a national championship, but that only happened to me because of the players around me,” Anderson said. “Their ability to stay focused and not get rattled showed through again. This was a very difficult opponent for us. We knew if West Liberty put up 101 points in this game, we wouldn’t win.”
West Liberty built a 35-26 lead before the Mules came back to tie it at 37 late in the first half. Neither team led by more than five points in the second half until the final 20 seconds in the game that had 14 ties and nine lead changes.
Shawn Dyer led West Liberty (31-4) with 19 points, and Cedric Harris had 18 — 14 in the first half.
“It’s tough getting this far, and going home without a championship,” West Liberty coach Jim Crutchfield said. “These guys are hurting right now. In a few days, well, maybe a few years, they’ll look back and be very proud of their accomplishments.”
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Missouri Central students, from left, Logan Northup and Mario Garciduenas celebrate during their 84-77 win over West Liberty in the NCAA Division II men’s basketball championship at the Ford Center in Evansville, Ind., Saturday, March 29, 2014. Denny Simmons —— The Associated Press  |
Wins 30 years after they won their first
The MIAA: Kansas City, Mo. (March 29, 2014) – Central Missouri defeated West Liberty 84-77 to win the second Men’s Basketball National Championship in the school’s Division II history. After seeing no one lead by more five for much of the half UCM closed out the game on a 6-2 run to ice the game.
Central Missouri knocked down 11 three pointers and out rebounded the Hilltoppers 44-36 in the game. The Mules shot .524 from the three-point line and got 18 offensive boards in the win.
Dillon Deck led the way with a double-double scoring 16 points and pulling down 10 rebounds. Daylen Robinson was three of five from behind the three points line dropping a game high 21 points.
Jordan Epps scored 11 points and Charles Hammork had nine points and a game high 12 rebounds while also dishing six assists. Preson Brunz also added nine points and TJ White added had seven rebounds.
The Mules went 30-5 on the season winning their last five straight after winning the MIAA regular season title.
Notes: The MIAA becomes the first conference in Division II to have teams win the Football and Men’s Basketball National Championships during the same school year after Northwest Missouri won the football title in December…The MIAA was the most recent conference to have teams win the title in football and basketball as in 2009 Northwest Missouri won the football championship and the Emporia State women’s basketball team also won the national title…That last two MIAA basketball teams to win the national title (UCM Men & ESU Women) did not win the conference tournament that season…It was the 30th anniversary of the last time that UCM won the nation title, winning the 1984 game over Saint Augustine’s 81-77 in Springfield, Mass.
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| Meryl Lin McKean, UCM Alum |
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| Mar 29, 2014; Evansville, IN, USA; Central Missouri Mules guard/forward Charles Hammork (22) dribbles against West Liberty Hilltoppers forward Mike Lamberti (24) during the second half at Ford Center. Central Missouri defeated West Liberty 84-77. Mandatory Credit: Jamie Rhodes-USA TODAY Sports
Credit: Jamie Rhodes/Jamie Rhodes-USA TODAY Sports
Date: Mar 29, 2014
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Sunday, Mar 30, 2014
Posted on Sat, Mar. 29, 2014
Central Missouri’s Anderson wins one for the good guys
By VAHE GREGORIAN
The Kansas City Star
For most of the frantic Division II national title game Saturday, Central Missouri coach Kim Anderson radiated his customary pose of poise.
There he stood on the sideline, stoic, his arms crossed, projecting a restrained strength he wanted his team to absorb all through the dizzying nine lead changes and 14 ties in the Mules’ 84-77 win over West Liberty.
He even transmitted calm when it was the last thing he felt, like when the Mules lost the ball out of bounds with 50 seconds left and leading by three and he felt a certain paranoid “vision.”
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Kim Anderson, UCM Coach |
Then there was this:
Amid a surge capped by Raytown product TJ White’s layup that gave Central Missouri a nine-point lead with 10 seconds left, Anderson started crying and hugging anybody nearby. He buried his head in the shoulder of guard Jon Gilliam and assistant coach Brad Loos or some combination thereof.
If you know him, you might have wanted to be in on that, too. Score one for the Mules but also one for dignity and grace, which are in short supply all over but always have been Anderson’s hallmarks.
“Just thrilled for him,” legendary Mizzou coach Norm Stewart, for whom Anderson played and coached, said via telephone Saturday.
And Stewart surely spoke for many about Anderson, who didn’t expect to coach again after he took a job with the Big 12 after being passed over in favor of Quin Snyder to succeed Stewart.
When this moment arrived, it hit fast: Before Anderson even entered the postgame handshake line, someone handed him the trophy to lug along.
“They wanted to give it to me in a hurry,” he joked, “before something changed.”
Even in between taking a call from Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon, with whom he used to play pickup ball, and snipping at the nets on both ends, Anderson, 58, still was in disbelief.
“I’m going to cry some more, I’m going to tell you that right now,” he said, misting up. “Told you. … You coach forever, and you always say, ‘We’re going to win a national championship,’ but how many people do? And there’s a lot better coaches than me around that haven’t won one.
“But we won one today.”
They won it before a national television audience on CBS on the 30th anniversary of Central Missouri’s remarkable men’s and women’s national championships in the same year.
“To have our institution showcased live on CBS, 3.1 million people and live on Westwood One radio all across the nation, you can’t buy that,” said Central Missouri athletic director Jerry Hughes, who was in his second year on the job for the last title.
They won it before a crowd of 4,742, which doesn’t seem like a lot but sounded like a lot since some two-thirds were Mules fans, including four busloads of students who came 380 miles on Saturday morning. It felt like a home game for Central Missouri.
“That’s Mule Nation,” Anderson said.
And as if to remind that the Mule is in fact the state mascot, they did it with a roster of nine native Missourians. From Moberly and Nixa and Paris and St. Louis and …
“A lot of kids from Kansas City,” noted Stewart, who watched intently on TV and perhaps offered some officiating advice along the way.
It was Kansas City-area kids and longtime friends Daylen Robinson and TJ White who combined for the game-winning bucket in the national semifinal on Thursday. And Robinson (21 points), Smithville’s Dillon Deck (16 points and 10 rebounds) and Charles Hammork (a New Orleans native) made the All-Elite Eight team.
Hammork had six assists and 12 rebounds Saturday but struggled some, missing so many shots that at one point he decided he wouldn’t take any more.
But he was too open to help himself when he hit a three-pointer that gave the Mules a 76-71 lead with 3:50 left, just after the Hilltoppers had cut it to 73-71 on a layup that proved to be their last basket until a token layup with 2 seconds left.
Hammork has been complicated for Anderson, who sent him home from a tournament last year. But every time Hammork looked to the bench on Saturday, Anderson was pumping his fist in encouragement.
“Well, here’s the story about ol’ Chuck,” Anderson said. “Chuck and I have been through a lot.”
Then his voice betrayed him, forcing him to pause long seconds as tears leaked.
On virtually every level, Anderson’s emotions were about those relationships — what this means to others. This doesn’t make him a different coach, and it’s not validation he needed.
But he loves to compete, and this has been a long time coming. And coaching seemed over when he went to the Big 12.
Until Hughes drove to Kansas City during the 2002 Big 12 tournament to woo him.
Hughes knew Anderson was from Sedalia, that his parents had gone to Central Missouri and that his sister Kathy had been an All-America basketball player there. He’d seen him play in high school and at MU, where he was Big Eight player of the year in 1977, and he knew there was a reason he kept being recognized for character.
Anderson was happy at the Big 12 but had always wanted to be a head coach. Maybe there’s no other job he would have taken, but this was home, too.
“I wanted to see if I could do it,” he said, smiling and adding, “I really was not sure what I was doing when I got there.”
Just the same, he took the Mules to Final Fours in 2007 and 2009 only to lose heartbreakers in the national semifinals.
And on Saturday he experienced a different sort of heartbreak -- the kind that comes when emotional walls fall.
“I still can’t believe it,” Anderson said, reassuring himself with the official stat sheet and two snipped-down nets he was holding.
To reach Vahe Gregorian, call 816-234-4868 or send email to vgregorian@kcstar.com. Follow him on Twitter: @vgregorian.
© 2014 Kansas City Star and wire service sources. All Rights Reserved. http://www.kansascity.com
Posted on Fri, Mar. 28, 2014
Central Missouri’s Robinson looks back fondly on road he chose
By BRIAN LESTER
Special to The Star
Daylen Robinson’s story could have had a different ending than the one that will unfold Saturday afternoon.
That is when Central Missouri will take the floor at the Ford Center for an NCAA Division II national championship showdown against West Liberty.
It remains to be seen if Robinson goes out a champion. But not too long ago, after a stellar high school career at Northeast, he thought about going a different route.
“Coming out of high school, I had to go to junior college, and I was rethinking going to college, period,” said Robinson, a senior point guard. “I thought about going overseas.”
Robinson stuck with going to college, playing at Moberly Community College in Moberly, Mo., before spending last season at Texas Tech.
He landed at Central Missouri this year and is in a position to help the 20th-ranked Mules, 29-5, win their second title in program history. The first was won in 1984, the last time Central Missouri played for the championship.
The Mules’ opponent, seventh-ranked West Liberty (W.Va.), 31-3, is in the title game for the first time.
“This is one of the greatest experiences I’ve had, and one of the best decisions I ever made was coming to this program,” said Robinson, who averages 12.9 points per outing and has dished out 178 assists. “I never thought I would get this chance to make this dream come true.”
Robinson is one of 10 new players for the Mules, and one of a handful of players from the Kansas City area.
Teammate TJ White, a junior guard out of O’Hara has been Robinson’s friend since middle school.
Junior forward/center Dillon Deck (Smithville), senior guard Ryan Magdziarz (Blue Valley) and freshman guard/forward Kyle Wolfe (Rockhurst) are also from the area.
Robinson said he and his teammates share a special bond because of the time they spend off the court, but noted his relationship with White is as special as it gets. They were teammates in junior high and played together at Moberly as well.
“We have an unbreakable bond,” Robinson said. “He is like a brother to me. He and I share a bond that I don’t have with anyone else.”
The fact that Central Missouri could make a run at the title despite having a different look than a year ago is, in part, a credit to the leadership of Charles Hammork, Jon Gilliam and Magdziarz.
“I think we had a good mix of players, and I also think our senior leadership has been tremendous,” Central Missouri coach Kim Anderson said. “Those guys did a great job of bringing this team together.”
A grueling preseason also served Central Missouri well.
“We had a boot camp with the ROTC officers, and we grinded every day,” Deck said. “We put in a lot of hard work and really came together as a team during the camp. It built the bond we have right now.”
The bond is evident on the court. The Mules average 80.4 points per game and allow 68.2. Ten players average five or more points per outing, and the Mules average 13.1 assists per game.
Teamwork will be key against the Hilltoppers, who play up-tempo basketball, living off forced turnovers and shots on the perimeter.
Anderson said dealing with West Liberty, which averages 100.5 points and features seven players scoring 10 or more points per outing, won’t be easy.
Yet, he is confident in the game plan and likes the focus of his team.
“Our focus has been unbelievable ever since we lost in the conference tournament,” Anderson said. “We had video on during breakfast this morning, and normally we don’t do that. The guys were all glaring at the TV.”
Deck can’t wait to put the preparation behind him and just play.
“It’s a great feeling,” Deck said. “I never thought I’d be able to say I get to play for a national championship. It’s exciting.”
© 2014 Kansas City Star and wire service sources. All Rights Reserved. http://www.kansascity.com
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| UCM Traditions Watch Party Pertle Springs |
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| http://www.ncaa.com/embedded/video/basketball-men/2014-03-29/mbk-dii-championship-central-missouri-west-liberty |
‘Something I can remember forever’
Central Missouri's Charles Hammork's long road to champion
EVANSVILLE, Ind. -- This is why Central Missouri's Chuck Hammork had skipped the fall and waited for one final eligible semester of college basketball.
With less than four minutes remaining in the NCAA Division II Men's Basketball Championship game Saturday, Hammork hit a 3-point shot that gave the Mules a five-point advantage against West Liberty. With less than a minute left, he ripped down one of his 12 rebounds.
Seconds after Hammork's final rebound of the game, confetti blasted into the air and Hammork and his teammates jumped into a celebratory pile at mid-court at the Ford Center.
| DII MEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP |
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The Mules had finished off an 84-77 victory. Champions, at last.
"It means a whole lot to me. I know this is something I can remember forever," Hammork said. "No one can take it away from me no matter what. I'm just so happy. I never won a championship. This is my first time ever playing in a championship game. It's just really wonderful."
The Mules had plenty of other heroes. Senior guard Daylen Robinson, who was named the tournament's most valuable player, scored 21 points on 8-of-15 shooting. Junior forward Dillon Deck had a double-double with 16 points and 10 rebounds.
The game had attracted so much interest among Central Missouri students and fans that four buses packed with students headed from Warrensburg to Evansville. Of the 4,742 at the Ford Center, more than half were Mules fans.
"I'm proud of these guys," said Central coach Kim Anderson, who won his first national title. "You saw that crowd. I'm proud to be part of this institution."
When it came time to discuss Hammork, Anderson turned emotional in the postgame press conference nearly an hour after all the nets were cut down and the last team photo had been taken. He brought his hands to his face. He looked down, attempting to hide his wetting eyes.
Hammork had not only missed the fall semester because he had only one basketball-eligible semester left, but Anderson nearly kicked him off the team at a mid-season tournament in Las Vegas last year. Here's a player who lived through Hurricane Katrina in the inner city of New Orleans with his mom and his younger sister, a guy whose family watched Saturday's game on TV.
"Here's the thing about ol' Chuck," Anderson said. "Chuck and I have been through a lot."
And that only made their relationship stronger, especially for Saturday's game when the Mules had to answer a nine-point deficit to the nation's highest-scoring team during the regular season.
"If I was going down, I was going down with Chuck," Anderson said.
Hammork wound up having one of the games of his life. His 12 rebounds were two more than anybody else. He had a team-high six assists. After missing four-of-five shots in the first half, he had to turn to other parts of his game.
"I told myself I wasn't shooting any more," Hammork said.
Assistant coach Nate Johnson had a different message.
"He told me, 'Chuck, you've worked so hard for this. Your shots are going to fall. Keep doing what you've been doing and keep grabbing rebounds,' " Hammork said. "With the team and the coaches giving me that much confidence, my confidence goes sky high."
It wasn't always that way.
Anderson was so upset with Hammork at a tournament in Las Vegas last year, Hammork's first season with the team as a junior, that Anderson sent him back to campus.
"I didn't think his attitude was very good toward me and toward our team," Anderson said. "I put him on the plane and sent him back home."
Hammork called Anderson while he was still in Vegas and apologized.
Anderson didn't dismiss him from the team, but he didn't allow Hammork to remain with the team in Las Vegas.
"I think that was the defining moment for him," Anderson said. "I was going to take the ball away from him. He asked me to give him another chance. And I did."
Hammork turned around so quickly that he only missed three games. Then came the decision for 2013-14. He had only one eligible semester remaining. He chose the second semester, meaning that during the fall he stayed in New Orleans to work out. He was not allowed, per NCAA rules, to practice or even do individual workouts at Central Missouri.
One morning at precisely 2:14 a.m., Anderson was woken up at home by a text message on his cell phone. It was Hammork. The message was to inform Anderson that he was running. At two in the morning.
"I give a lot of credit to my friends back at home," Hammork said. "A lot of them helped me. They gave me confidence and worked out with me.
They made sure I was running every morning, going to the gym even when I didn't want to."
So when Hammork played such a key role in leading Central Missouri to its second basketball national title Saturday, Anderson was among the most happy. The dark days of Vegas were a distant memory now.
"He's been unbelievable since he came back," Anderson said. "He's grown up. He's matured. As a player, but more so as a person and a leader
Wednesday, Apr 2, 2014
Posted on Tue, Apr. 01, 2014
Being there as Kim Anderson fulfilled his vision was special
By VAHE GREGORIAN
The Kansas City Star
Chances are you never saw the 1985 movie “Vision Quest.”
I remember it well, partly because I saw it a few days after I’d quit my first job back in Philadelphia … and my roommate got laid off a day later … and one day we needed a diversion from looking for jobs all day.
So we want to a matinee, since it was all we could afford. We were the only two people in the theater when the film started.
Loved the movie, which I’m not sure stands the test of time. But one scene has held up for me ever since. (Warning: some language not acceptable for children).
It starts with Matthew Modine’s character, high school wrestler Louden Swain, being puzzled over why crusty, crude Elmo, with whom he works in a kitchen, is taking a night off and getting dressed up.
It was, of course, to see Louden wrestle against the best but also to bear witness to this momentous event in his life.
For some reason, I’ve been thinking about that scene a lot (minus the graphic language I’d forgotten was part of it) since I was privileged to be in Evansville, Ind., to watch Kim Anderson’s University of Central Missouri Mules play for the national title Saturday against West Liberty.
This isn’t a perfect parallel, of course, just something that connected with me and maybe isn’t explainable. But that’s what blogs are for, right?
I’ve known Anderson for more than 20 years and his wife, Melissa, almost as long, going back to Missouri’s 1995 exhibition tour of Australia. They were all stuck with me as the only reporter in the traveling party, so I ate with the team, stayed with the team, went to the Great Barrier Reef with the team, etc. Great experience on many levels.
Along the way, Anderson took the helm a couple times and perhaps restored some order when head coach Norm Stewart was kicked out of two games.
(It might sound like the volatile Stewart was an international incident waiting to happen, but he was legitimately concerned about the safety of his players each time. Which I guess is why one time he refused to leave, citing the fact “I’m a visitor in your country.”)
Anyway, Anderson was then, remains and always will be a calming, kind and authentic person. He’s someone you’re always glad to see coming.
He’s also very good at his work, as the crowning achievement amplified Saturday.
All of which is a bit of why I wanted to drive 400-plus miles, clean up and put on my new sports coat and bear witness to his moment — “a better place to be, if only for a minute,” for the rest of us.
Central Missouri receives a champion’s welcome home, as Warrensburg celebrates the basketball team’s national championship (VIDEO)
April 1, 2014 By
Fans line the streets of Warrensburg as members of the Central Missouri basketball team make their way through the parade route (photo/UCM athletics)
A crowd of over 3,000 people packed the streets of Warrensburg and the Multipurpose Building Arena to celebrate the Central Missouri Mules’ 2014 Men’s Basketball National Championship. The Mules claimed their second NCAA-II National Championship and their fourth national title overall with an 84-77 win over West Liberty (W.Va.) on Saturday in Evansville, Ind.
The crowd lined the streets of Warrensburg as the team rolled through campus and into the arena. Once inside the arena, the team was greeted in the locker room by Missouri Governor Jay Nixon.
Once inside the arena, the team and fans were greeted by thousands of screaming fans, performances by the UCM pep band, cheerleaders and Mulekickers. UCM President Dr. Chuck Ambrose, Senator David Pierce, Athletic Director Jerry Hughes and Governor Nixon all spoke to the crowd. A highlight video of the Mules’ national championship run was played on the arena videoboard. Seniors Jon Gilliam and Elite Eight Most Outstanding Player Daylen Robinson spoke to the crowd before head coach Kim Anderson wrapped up the night.
UCM players and coaches signed autographs for all the fans in attendance. Here’s a video from UCM’s Instagram page showing the packed Multipurpose building.
Kim Anderson (1973-77)
Despite being one of the smallest centers in the conference, Kim Andersonplayed a key role for Missouri teams in his sophomore and junior seasons when he averaged 14 points and 8 rebounds per game, and helped the Tigers to the 1976 Big Eight championship and a run to the Elite Eight of the NCAA Tournament. As a senior in 1976-77, however, he became Mizzou’s leader when he propelled the Tigers to a 21-8 record and was named Big Eight Player of the Year by UPI. That season, he scored a career-high 38 points in a win over Kansas, and he led the league in scoring with 22.1 points per game in conference play, while averaging 18.3 points and 7.9 rebounds overall. Anderson later became an assistant coach on Norm Stewart’s staff, and is currently the head coach at Central Missouri State.
1984 Champions Mules and Jennies
Jennies 1984 National Championship Roster
The 1983-84 CMSU Jennies roster included: Head Coach Jorja Hoehn; Assistants Ginny Sutton, Leanna Bordner, Kathy Hagerstrom, Jonathon Pye; Players Jackie Harris, Alesia Prince, Fawna Harrison, Shara Sherman, Karen Reese, Tammy Noah, Rosie Jones, Carla Eades, Sheri Hartenberger, Faith Zimmerman, Pat Staszak; Managers Carol Burnham, Janet Wolf, Michelle Calder.
NCAA Division II National Champions – 1984
Kim Anderson
- Categories: Coaches
- Years Inducted: 2013
- Sports: Basketball
- Teams: Central Missouri State University, University of Missouri
Kim Anderson played collegiately at the University of Missouri from 1973-1977, where in 1976, he was a part of Norm Stewart’s first Big 8 Conference championship team. He led the league in scoring and was named Big 8 Player of the Year in 1977. Anderson scored 1,289 points in his career to rank among Missouri’s top-20 all-time scorers. Kim spent many years as an assistant coach at Mizzou, but his longest head coaching tenure has been at the University of Central Missouri. There, he has won more games than any other coach in school history with a 222-82 (.730) career record. He has guided the Mules to two Final Fours, four MIAA regular season championships and three MIAA Tournament Titles. Anderson’s .730 overall winning percentage ranks fifth among all active NCAA-II coaches.
Anderson was hired to become the Missouri Tigers head basketball coach in April, 2014.
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