10 Reasons I'm more excited about Missouri basketball than Missouri football

Before you make too many assumptions based off of the headline of this article, let me just point out that I will be following Missouri football and watching as many games as I can. I might even head to Columbia for a game or two. I’m just as big a fan of the football team as the next Mizzou alum, and if things fall right, I think they could certainly win another Big 12 title. I believe Blaine Gabbert will be at least a decent quarterback, and Derrick Washington may be the most underrated running back in the Big 12.**

**One of the previous statements is not true. Those who actually know me would immediately be able to spot it. Incidentally, I don’t think anyone of that ilk actually reads this. But I digress…

However, I’m much more excited about November, when the Tigers basketball team begins their follow-up to their second-best season in school history. It should be noted that as much as I like watching football, I have always liked playing/watching basketball a little bit more, especially Division I college basketball. Obviously, that and the fact that I covered the team that season makes me fairly biased. I won’t be mad if you disagree.

Without further rambling, here are my top ten reasons why Missouri’s men’s basketball team should be more exciting than the football team this school year:

10. The basketball players read poetry.

Both Kim English and Zaire Taylor have done poetry readings on campus, and Zaire actually told me last season that he plans to write a poetry book. I’m still upset I forgot to ask him to send me a copy when it comes out. Sure, some Mizzou football players have been rappers, but to me, poetry is a lot more impressive for a student-athlete. I’ll leave it to others to judge the quality of the work in both cases.

9. Celebrating is better

As a freshman at Missouri, I was one of thousands of students to rush the field after the Tigers’ huge win against Nebraska. Although nothing happened to me, I did see the police detaining some students, and it certainly seems a little dangerous to be climbing field goal posts. As schools get less and less willing to pay for new goalposts, they’re really cracking down on what you’re allowed to do after games.

Meanwhile, the one time I ran onto a basketball court after the game (It wasn’t at Missouri), there were none of those dangers. It’s simply joy in one of its purest forms, jumping up and down in a huge crowd of people celebrating the same thing as you. Plus, if you’re lucky enough to reach the players, Mizzou’s basketball team is full of guys more than happy to interact with fans (see: after the KU win last season), and they’re not shielded from you by massive pads with helmets.

8. You don’t have to go to Kansas City to see the Border Showdown

I’m sure the football team’s move to Arrowhead is making the game a lot more profitable to Missouri and Kansas, but it sure is a slap in the face to students who buy the season ticket package and then can’t even see one of the best “home” games every two years. It doesn’t help that one of my KU friends (I know, they can’t always be trusted) told me the game is included in their season ticket package when the Jayhawks are the designated home team.

But since the basketball team gets to play KU twice a year, there’s no danger of this game moving out of Mizzou Arena anytime soon. That’s great news for everyone, because the Tigers have somehow always been able to make this a close game, and even won twice in the last two years despite having severely inferior talent virtually every season. Unfortunately, this year’s not going to be any different on that front.

As an added bonus, Missouri gets a game in Allen Fieldhouse every year. Even if the Tigers get rocked (which happens too frequently), it’s an amazing way to experience the Midwest’s best college basketball rivalry.

7. The basketball team has a better team leader

I’m going by position here, and perhaps this is a little unfair, since Blaine Gabbert hasn’t had much of a chance to prove himself. But Zaire Taylor was the most efficient point guard in the conference last season, with 3.4 assists per game to 1.3 turnovers per game. With so much scoring to replace, look for him to step up that part of his game considerably, and I don’t think I need to remind Missouri fans just how good he was in the clutch his junior season.

Gabbert may be good, but it’s hard to imagine he’ll be great for at least another year. Also, he’s got the disadvantage of playing in the same conference as Colt McCoy and Sam Bradford, who may be the top two quarterbacks in the country. Finally, it just seems fairly obvious that a team with an inspiring, veteran point guard, is going to be more fun to watch than a team with an untested sophomore quarterback who has yet to show a lot of personality on the field.

6. National title hopes don’t end after week 8

Actually, that’s probably being too generous. As much as I’d like it to happen, I’m not sure that Missouri will be able to get past Illinois in St. Louis, a home game against Nebraska, and a huge road test at Oklahoma State. Even if they do, a home game against Texas would surely be the end to any undefeated hopes, and this isn’t a team with enough acclaim to make a national championship appearance with one loss unless some crazy things happen.

In fact, it’s not unrealistic to think that the Cotton Bowl would be the best-case scenario for the Tigers after week eight. The Missouri-Kansas game will still be fun, but it won’t be nearly as exciting as it was the last couple of years.

On the other hand, Missouri showed last year that good Mike Anderson teams are extremely good at evolving and improving as the season goes along. Fortunately, that tendency works perfectly in college basketball, where the Tigers simply have to get a bid in the NCAA tournament.

I realize a national title is probably beyond ridiculous to expect from this team. They don’t have the same quality of talent this season, but they’ll still make it fun to watch and maybe score an upset or two. The difference, to me, is there’s still that hope, as slim as it may be.

5. More games, less talk

This one’s pretty simple. Last season, the football team played the maximum 14 games. The basketball team played 38. The football season lasted 122 days from the opener against Illinois to the bowl win against Northwestern. 134 days passed between Missouri’s first victory against Prairie View A&M and their Elite Eight loss to UConn.

It doesn’t take a math whiz to figure out basketball games happened at a much higher frequency, meaning you get to see the actual product a lot more often. It also means less time for useless arguments by the media, you and your friends about who is the best team based on something other than what happens in games. That’s good for everyone in today’s oversaturated sports world.

4. Cheaper tickets

This isn’t even close, so I don’t even want to waste my time looking up numbers. You can if you want. For student tickets, we’re generally talking about $20-30 per game or $50 per season. I would imagine it’s worse for the general public.

3. Faster Game

Mike Anderson’s style has been dubbed the “Fastest 40 minutes of basketball”. The players are nearly always running all over the place, and you can expect them to go 9 or 10 deep so they can keep up the frantic pace.

Gary Pinkel’s pass-first, second and maybe third offense could be the “slowest 40 minutes of basketball outside of Lubbock”. It doesn’t help that Missouri’s pass defense actively encourages the other team to take the same approach. In the past, there was a channel in the dorms that would show the previous Saturday’s games in the middle of the week, and take out all of the huddles and downtime between plays.

Those broadcasts lasted maybe 30 minutes, or 45 with commercials. In reality, you’re lucky if a Big 12 game featuring Missouri gets in under the 3½ hour mark.

2. Big 12 tourney champs

This one’s pretty self-explanatory. In case you forgot, the basketball team rolled through the Big 12 tournament last season for the school’s first-ever Big 12 basketball tournament championship. It might not seem likely this season, but then again, no one predicted it would happen last year. Either way, it’s a great thing to have in your pocket when opposing fans aren’t being nice.

The football team has done well to take the North crown the last two years, but I’m not even going to repeat the scores of the two Big 12 championship games against Oklahoma. They’ve already caused enough pain and suffering to the team and its fanbase. Worse yet, the Tigers are only getting further away from the Sooners, not to mention the Longhorns.

1. Home game = win

I love streaks. Joe DiMaggio’s 56-game hit streak, John Wooden’s seven straight championship, Roger Federer’s 21 straight Grand Slam semifinals, Mark Buehrle’s streak of 45 straight perfect innings, and of course, Missouri’s 19 straight home victories. Okay, maybe that last one doesn’t quite belong.

But when a streak lasts more than one whole season, that’s pretty impressive by my estimation, especially for a team in the Big 12 conference. It’s going to be a great atmosphere at Mizzou Arena this season. I would expect a huge increase in attendance for nonconference games this season as compared to last year, when the arena often wasn’t even half-full.

Sure, Missouri football draws nice crowds, and it gets fairly loud at Faurot Field, but then they go and do things like play poorly and lose Oklahoma State. The last real upset the football team scored at home was probably its win over No. 10 Nebraska on October 11, 2003. In its most recent home game, the Tigers’ basketball team beat Blake Griffin and the No. 4 Oklahoma Sooners by a comfortable nine points.