Missouri hires Kim Anderson

Yowser! What in the name of sanity is going on at Mizzou? Their former coach leaves for Tulsa obviously believing that's a step up. And now this.

Is the former head coach at a Division II school considered a good hire? I'm asking because I really don't know much about Kim Anderson.
 
A loyal sports radio caller in Tulsa by the handle of ChiefMou has claimed for a few weeks that Anderson was the guy he & they(Mizzou) wanted.. fwiw...

Sent from my HTC_Amaze_4G using Tapatalk
 
Anderson is an MU alum, former player under Norm Stewart and I think has been a candidate for this job when Quinn Snyder was hired. Has done well at the D2 level and a local.
 
61sooner said:
Anderson is an MU alum, former player under Norm Stewart and I think has been a candidate for this job when Quinn Snyder was hired. Has done well at the D2 level and a local.
Click to expand...

This brings back memories for me. My former roommate was from Missouri and we used to go to the Big 8 pre-season basketball tournament in Kansas City every year. Every Big 8 team played 3 games in 4 days and we watched every one of them ... even the game on Saturday morning for 7th place when there weren't 100 people in the stands.

It was magic on Saturday when Ted Owens and his Kansas team would end up playing Norm Stewart's Missouri team. The stands were packed and rocking. Those 2 and K-State under Jack Hartman were the big draws. OU had some good teams under Dave Bliss. I remember the guys like John McCullough, Al Beal, Cary Carabine, Aaron Curry were fun to watch.

Anyway, Kim Anderson epitomized Norm's big, physical teams of the 70's. He was a really good player. I wish him the best of luck at Missouri.
 
dubyac said:
A loyal sports radio caller in Tulsa by the handle of ChiefMou has claimed for a few weeks that Anderson was the guy he & they(Mizzou) wanted.. fwiw...

Sent from my HTC_Amaze_4G using Tapatalk
Click to expand...

For a good portion of the Mizzou fan base, Anderson has been the guy for 15 years.

He was an assistant under Norm for most of the '90s in addition to being a former player here (one of Norm's first great players, co-Big 8 POY in the late '70s). He was the guy Norm was apparently grooming as his successor, but when Alden replaced Castiglione, one of his first moves was to push Norm into retirement. In doing so, he created a divide among our fan base that has basically lasted until now.

Popular opinion has been that anyone associated with Norm would not be welcome, which meant Anderson was never a real option. This was furthered by billionaire Bill Laurie (of Walmart fortune via marriage), who donated millions to build our new arena. Laurie grew up in rural Missouri and was on their 1973 final four team. Apparently he'd held a grudge all those years. When he donated the money, one of the initial stipulations was that Norm's name would be nowhere near it. That's how we ended up with Paige Sports Arena (eventually the Norm supporters won out and the floor did get named after him).

Laurie also is responsible for hiring Quin over Self, by the way. Most support was behind Self at the time. Quin was Laurie's preferred choice. But that's a different story... (albeit one that's inextricably connected to Anderson's timeline; neither Alden nor Laurie wanted Anderson).

When Anderson didn't get the Mizzou job, he took a nearby DII job (same school where Gene Bartow, Joe B. Hall and Phog Allen got their start... and also Jim Wooldridge). He was overqualified for the position, but he grew up in the area and apparently wasn't interested in working his way up through the mid-major ranks.

Anderson was passed over for the job twice more, first when we hired Mike Anderson (that one was justifiable) and again for Haith (stupid; Anderson had three conference championships and two final fours by then).

I don't know what changed now. If he was ever going to be the hire, the right time was 1999. If not then, then at least avoid the Haith experiment. But now? The time for this move might have passed.

What I feel 100 percent sure of regarding this hire:

*He will not embarrass Mizzou in the way Quin did (off the court rumors, NCAA issues and poorly coached teams).
*He will not embarrass Mizzou in the way Anderson did (flirt with other jobs every year to leverage a raise, ultimately leave a week after saying he planned to retire here).
*He will not embarrass Mizzou in the way Haith did (bolt for any job that will take him at the first sign of trouble; the only way he considered Tulsa a step up from Mizzou is in the sense that they would guarantee him more than one more season, which we wouldn't do).

So in that sense, he's an upgrade.

But he was also at Mizzou for a decade in which we struggled to recruit. Norm's peak (with 1994 excepted) was before Anderson was on the bench. Anderson was here for the Haley twins and Mark Wampler and Monte Hardge and Matt Rowan and Tate Decker. All names I imagine you've long since forgotten. There's a reason you don't remember them. He was also here for Jason Sutherland, who I imagine you'll never forget.

The man clearly knows how to coach. You don't win a national title, even at the DII level, without some serious knowledge of the game. But recruiting is a huge question mark.

Maybe those '90s Mizzou teams lacked for talent because it was hard convincing 18-year-old kids to play for Norm at the time. He was as old-school as a coach can come, definitely not a player's coach. Maybe Anderson will be better at selling himself.

tl;dr
Is it a good hire? It's complicated. Some Mizzou fans think so. They're mostly the types who pronounce it Missouruh. The rest of us will wait and see.
 
Another fun Kim Anderson fact:

As I mentioned, he was Norm's choice to succeed him. We hired Quin instead.

Quin brought Ricky Clemons to Mizzou. Clemons was ultimately the recruit who undid him, but we were desperate for a point guard.

Nate Johnson was a point guard in that same class. He grew up in KC and played two years at Moberly Area CC, half an hour from the Mizzou campus. Mizzou didn't offer. He signed with Florida State and had two really solid years (led the ACC in A/T as a senior).

Johnson served as an assistant coach under Kim Anderson last year and is being floated as a potential assistant here now.

So yet another (potential) reminder of how messed up it was to hire Quin instead of Kim in the first place.
 
But really, I'm gonna need an updated avatar. Mods, help me out here. At least throw a Haitheist my way.
 
I hope it works out for this guy. He seems like a guy that has more than put in his dues to pursue his dream of being the head coach at Missouri and it finally happened.
 
LOL congrats Missouri on hiring a coach whom can't even be first place in google searches of Kim Anderson
 
Hire Kim English for something... Also keep that good recruiting ast you have.. name slips me!
 
Many on this board wanted Terry Evans when Lon was hired (before we thought Lon was a candidate). Kim Anderson is a better coach than Evans and has proved it on the same level.

I think it's a solid hire for Mizzou and I think he will do a good job. He needs to get the good Missouri recruits, which typically has some very good players (Hansborough, Otto Porter, Brad Beal, BJ Young, Ben McLemore, etc.; the last 4 were all in the class of 2011). If he can land the good Missouri recruits every year, he will have a great program.
 
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