Mizzou basketball held media day on Tuesday talking about the 2010 season, the incoming crop of players and moving past last year.
Here's Mike Anderson on the fresh recruits that have received some heavy praise (except no Tony MItchell who's ineligible -- Anderson says he hopes to have him back at semester.)
"A lot has been said about the recruiting class that's coming in here but that's on paper. As I always say, those guys haven't played a single minute, a single second of Division I basketball. So there are a lot of unknowns, even after we've gone through the individual workouts, sessions from late August until right now there are still a lot of question marks. But I'm anxious to get going and that process starts on Friday."
He mentioned guys like Kim English when talking about the leadership that's on the team. He started off saying that everyone's been talking about this new recruiting class but they haven't played "a single minute of division I basketball" so he moves onto the veterans on the team that already understand the program.
"To me the guys that are going to be key [for us] are the guys that are here already and have been through the wars. They're your key guys. All of those guys are the core guys very much like Leo, DeMarre, and Matt [were two seasons ago]. I just think Tiger Basketball is going to have a tremendously exciting year. I'm not one of those guys that looks ahead, but even in the following year."
English is expected to be one of those veteran guys who is the man on the team. I think if you'd ask outsiders who the face of Mizzou is, a lot would say English. Here's English on the being the face of the program:
"Whoever it is, it is. We just really want to play and win. I don't really care who the face is or who is thought of as the face. At the end of the day, it's just about which team has the most points at the end of the game, and that's all I care about."
Anderson says that there won't be any favoritism going on and the freshman will have a shot. He says he's wiping everyone's slate clean and there are no starters right now.
"And really as we start on Friday it's wide open. You can sit here, I can sit there and say this guy here is going to be a starter- no, it is wide open right now. And that's why I said there is great competition going on right now amongst our guys."