Greetings from Missouri. Before I touch on basketball, I want to congratulate ISU on their huge win in Norman yesterday. For many years ISU was my second favorite team in the Big XII and for the last few years they have been my favorite. There are many Mizzou fans who feel the same. In fact, after out game next month, I hope you win all your games until if/when we would meet in the postseason.
I'm old and attended every Mizzou/ISU football game and all but one or two basketball games in Columbia since 1972 and a few others before that while I was a student. I was very happy to see this game on our schedule though I freely admit when it was announced, my only question was how many points we would lose by. As has been mentioned in this thread a few things have changed since then.
I have enjoyed reading all of this and I do want to address a couple items that were brought up early on. Someone compared Missouri hiring Michael Porter, SR to kansas hiring Danny Manning's dad. The only similarity is they are both fathers of star recruits. Michael Porter, SR was the Director of Basketball Operations for three years and then an assistant coach another three years for the Mizzou women's basketball team. There he worked for his sister-in-law, Robin Pingeton. His wife Lisa Becker Porter, Robin's sister, was a star player at the University of Iowa in the 1980s after averaging 58 points per game as a senior at Jefferson High in Cedar Rapids. I believe she then played professionally for a time overseas. She and her husband are both 6'4".
Two years ago, then Coach Kim Anderson, tried to hire Porter, SR to be his assistant on the men's team. However, considering the dumpster fire we were at the time he turned it down. Then Lorenzo Romar who had played with Porter, SR on Athletes in Action and is Michael JR's Godfather hired Sr to be an assistant at Washington and later JR. signed an LOI and Jontay gave a verbal. The Porter family consists of five boys and three girls, with the two oldest girls being on the Mizzou women's team. Even before Romar was fired, he had sent feelers back to the Mizzou AD through his sister-in-law, that they might be interested in returning to Columbia where they had lived for six years. They are a unique family and that's an understatement. All eight kids were/are home-schooled through elementary school and are as close-knit as you will find anywhere. When Romar was fired, that was the end of the Porters in Washington. So Porter, SR has seven years experience in college basketball, the last four as an assistant coach, with the last one on the Washington men's team.
Also, after Jeremiah Tilmon was released from his LOI to Illinois some thought they would block him to Mizzou just like a lot of Illini fans did. However, the block rule only applies to the transfer of players already enrolled in school. There is no blocking of a player who had never been enrolled in school.
Finally, if you haven't already heard, the ticket situation isn't good for those wanting to attnd and who don't already have tickets. The entire arena is sold out for the season. The only available single game tickets will if an opposing team returns some of theirs. Though the attendance has been awful the last few years. the Hearnes Center was sold out for many years in the 1980s and 90s though there were often a lot of no-shows for some of the low-level non-conference games.
Needless to say, nothing quite like this has ever happened before. No doubt the last three horrible years plus the fact that our football team is having a horrible year has only intensified the interest. Good luck to finding tickets at a reasonable price to those who want to attend.
I hope to see some of you there and good luck again in every other game.