Yeah I was about to say, didn't Mizzou finish in the top 3 of the league last year and advance to the elite 8? That seems like a pretty good season to me.
Smoke and mirrors, clearly...
Anderson finished 3rd ("top 2" was a convenient cutoff for the jayhawk...) last year with a collection of guys most Big 12 coaches wouldn't have offered out of high school. Now he's bringing in top 50 players and he's going to struggle to replicate that...
For what it's worth, everyone around the Mizzou program seems pretty optimistic that Mitchell will qualify. If he for some reason doesn't, however, MU's got a pretty solid backup plan. We are on Ratliffe's list of top schools (this despite not even having a scholarship at the moment). If Mitchell doesn't qualify (or if someone transfers, which seems like a more likely scenario), there's a good chance Ratliffe ends up in Columbia.
Missouri has a lot of similarities to Mike Leach at Texas Tech or Air Force in football. They will have trouble building a dynasty with that style of play- although Arkansas did it for a short period in the SEC. But it is tough to prepare for them in a tournament format- especially if you are playing them with only one day's preparation.
I would certainly not count them out of finishing in the top 2 or 3 of the league next year. They finished 2nd last year and I bet they end up top 4 this year. Mike Anderson has built something strong and although his talent is not up to the level on paper of Kansas, Texas, OU, A&M, KSU, OSU or Baylor, his teams play so aggressive that it neutralizes the talent/size disparity.
Air Force? You're comparing Mizzou to a service academy? Really?
Texas Tech hasn't been able to sustain success beyond the 7-8 win mark. But the same basic philosophies have won BCS bowls and national titles at multiple other schools. Texas Tech under Leach wasn't stuck at the 8 win range because they ran a gimmicky system. They were stuck because they were Texas Tech. If you want to go with the idea that Mizzou is a basketball equivalent of Texas Tech, that's your opinion...
Arkansas went to three final fours in the 90s and were one of the winningest programs of the 90s. Things did go downhill... but that's not unusual for coaches who are in their 60s, especially when they lose the support of their university for non-basketball related issues.
There's going to be some big time teams (Arkansas, maybe?) coming after Anderson in the next few years.
It will happen. He could be at Memphis, Georgia or Alabama right now (and would quite possibly be making more money right now, too), but he chose to stay at Missouri. He's known Bowers and Pressey since they were infants. He's not going to leave for more money and leave those two behind. If he were going to go, he'd be gone by now. I don't doubt there will be some Arkansas interest at some point, but they're no more of a "big time" program now than Mizzou. I doubt he'd want to go back there after how things ended for Richardson, anyway.