Commentary: MU coach earns respect for firm stand

By Bryan Burwell - St. Louis Post-Dispatch     Feb 1, 2008

? As long as they’re keeping score, no one with a competitive heart and soul will ever tell you to ignore the scoreboard. But there are rare nights when keeping tabs on the score seems a lot less important.

Wednesday was one of those nights for Mike Anderson. Twenty-four hours earlier, the Missouri hoops coach indefinitely suspended five key players for their part in the suspicious circumstances surrounding the season-ending broken jaw that starting guard Stefhon Hannah received in an early Sunday morning fight outside a local nightclub. Who knows what runs through the head of a coach of a struggling program when he musters up the nerve to do something so drastic yet so necessary?

Am I doing the right thing?

Will the fans understand?

Will everyone hate me or support me?

Will this be a horrid disaster or a monumental success?

“Actually, I was fine,” Anderson said moments after the undermanned Tigers’ narrow 66-62 loss to Nebraska. “I honestly thought all day long that we had a chance to beat ’em. I really did. I don’t think anybody else thought so, but I did. And we almost did, too.”

As he stood there only a few paces off the basketball floor, there wasn’t a hair out of place or a bead of perspiration rolling off his forehead. Even though he’d just finished stomping and shouting and frantically scribbling X’s and O’s for the past three hours, Anderson was still neat, pressed and a vision of calm in the midst of one terrific storm. He might have been fine, but everyone else involved in the Mizzou athletic department was on edge wondering what would unfold as the day wore on. “This was a crazy day,” assistant coach Melvin Watkins said. “A very crazy day.”

But as the day progressed, and the game drew near, it became clear that Anderson’s instincts were almost prophetic. The fairy-tale ending to this story would have had the undermanned Tigers knocking off Nebraska.

But as stated before, sometimes scores aren’t as important as instilling the proper attitude and altering a failed social culture that was prevalent in this basketball program long before the embarrassing transgressions of Anderson’s players over the course of the last 12 months.

The coach had grown weary of these foolish indiscretions, and he had to find a way to make them understand the rather novel concept that rules aren’t meant to be broken.

“Once I got the information about what happened, I never hesitated to do the right thing,” Anderson said. “This was never about one game. It’s always been about building a program. That’s what I’m trying to do, and I’m going to get it done.”

As he walked onto the floor before the start of the game, Anderson received a standing ovation from the sparse Mizzou Arena audience.

It wasn’t full of the dizzy emotion you get when you sink a game-winning buzzer-beater. This was more measured applause that wasn’t so much emotional as it was a firm stamp of approval from alums and students who understood exactly what message Anderson was trying to deliver.

His approval rating would only get better as the game went on. “The guys showed a new level of heart that I’ve never seen before,” junior forward Matt Lawrence said. “After the game, Coach told us he’s been coaching basketball a long time and he’s never been prouder of a team than he was tonight.”

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