Mizzou Basketball: Time to dust off the dancing shoes

For the first time in four seasons the Mizzou basketball team is headed to the NCAA Tournament. That’s right Tiger fans, it’s time to go dancing!

The Tigers go into the tournament as the eighth seed in the West Region. They will play Florida State in Nashville on Friday with the winner of that likely facing one seeded Xavier.

This is a great draw for the Tigers as the West Region is the weakest overall bracket in the tournament. Xavier is the fourth ranked one seed with the only real scary team being the two seeded North Carolina Tar Heels. Michigan, Gonzaga and Ohio State round out the top five seeds in the West Region.

Of course the selection committee could have given the entire KC area what they wanted, but they failed. With the Kansas Jayhawks a one seed and Mizzou an eighth seed it would have been so simple to put them together for a possible matchup in Wichita. But the committee dropped the ball and decided they don’t care about ratings and split the two schools up. A major disappointment for both fan bases.

But first things first and that is the Tigers first round matchup against the Seminoles of Florida State. They finished ninth in the ACC with an overall record of 20-11 and conference record of 9-9. At one point they were ranked as high as 19th in the country, but finished the season out of the top 25. They had three wins over top 25 teams including #5 Florida, #12 North Carolina and #11 Clemson.

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Florida St starts a smaller lineup with two 6’8 guys followed by 6’5, 6’4 and 6’1 front court. But they have size on their bench, and by size I mean two players over seven feet tall who average over 10 minutes a game. They aren’t afraid to use their bench either as 10 guys average over 10 minutes a game.

This long bench will be a major test for Mizzou who will at best only have eight players dressed if senior Jordan Barnett is suspended as expected. On paper this looks like a bad matchup for the Tigers as FSU has the offense to shoot the lights out and the size to shut us down on the defensive side.

But this is the NCAA Tournament where anything can happen, especially when you have the wild card known as Michael Porter Jr. This team has already reached what most fans would say was their number one goal before the season, they’ve made the dance. We all get to see the Tigers on our brackets and have a reason to watch outside of gambling.

There is nothing more dangerous than a team playing with house money and nothing to lose. So Tiger fans, put on your dancing shoes and get ready for Friday. The Tigers are back in the NCAA Tournament and they have maybe the best player in the country and nothing to lose. This is going to be fun!