- During the past month, the folks at Ballin’ is a Habit have taken a cross-country road trip to visit 13 college basketball venues across the Midwest. It’s a hoops fan’s dream trip — when I ran into them in Springfield during a Creighton-Missouri State game last week, I even told them how jealous I was of their month-long trek. From Nashville to Assembly Hall, they’ve been everywhere. And most recently, they made a stop at Allen Fieldhouse, where they caught up with KU’s Connor Teahan. The piece outlines his journey beginning in high school, when most of his scholarship offers consisted of Missouri Valley Conference schools. Now a senior, Teahan has cracked the rotation for a Top 10 team and one of the most historic programs in college basketball. If you’re a fan of the underdog story, BIAH’s feature is worth a read.
- Talk radio is terrific for controversy, and that’s exactly what former UMKC coach Rich Zvosec stirred up after saying Laurence Bowers‘ injury was “addition by subtraction” for Missouri this season. He attributed MU’s success to its four-guard lineup, and he claimed that Bowers would only disrupt this unique style. We see his point, but that’s still a ridiculous position to take. How could losing an All-Big 12 forward ever be a good thing? Even with Bowers in the lineup, Missouri would still be faster than just about every team in the nation. It would still shoot lights out from three and run an efficient half-court offense. That’s because the players have rallied around Frank Haith to play unselfish, inspired basketball. Sure, the four-guard lineup helps, but that’s not why MU beat Baylor last Saturday. That happened because Ricardo Ratliffe came to play and the Tigers’ outrebounded and out-toughed the Bears. You think having Laurence Bowers blocking shots, rebounding and providing post depth wouldn’t help this team? C’mon, Coach Z.
- Frank Martin announced Tuesday night the reinstatement of Jordan Henriquez, who could not practice with the team for the past six days because of “conduct detrimental to the team.” We’re still not sure what that phrase means, but Martin attempted to explain it, saying the junior center “just lost his focus and needed time to understand his priorities.” Whatever he did, the junior center and KSU’s best shot-blocker is now back in action. He still may not play against Texas Tech tomorrow night, but the Wildcats shouldn’t have much trouble without him in Lubbock. If they do, then they’ve got bigger problems than Henriquez’s detrimental conduct.
- In this age of lame student sections, Kansas actually pulled out a decent Billy Cundiff reference during some free throws in the Jayhawks’ win over Texas A&M on Monday. The Aggies still shot 7-11 from the line, so it didn’t exactly have the desired effect. Still, credit those guys for coming up with something at least somewhat original, although it certainly does not top the time Missouri’s student section made blow-up versions of these incriminating pictures of a future NBA Rookie of the Year in a win over Oklahoma in 2009. That’s still an all-time favorite to this day.
- Staying with Missouri, here’s yet another look at the Tigers’ resurgence under Frank Haith. This time, the guys at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch conduct a roundtable about Haith’s success, and there’s nothing new here. Missouri is ranked higher than its been in a decade, and after a tumultuous offseason and the departure of Mike Anderson. Like we’ve been saying for a while, as long as MU keeps winning, expect these articles to keep rolling out.