Hey, guess what?
It’s finally time to start talking basketball. Well, it’s never NOT been time to talk about basketball, because that time is all the time for me. But we are getting closer to the basketball season.
I’ve got the SEC Conference Previews beginning October 9th. Until then, we’re going to spend some time looking at the non-conference schedule.
In recent years Missouri has been slow to release their non-con schedule. So much so that I had to scramble to get these together and out on time. So this year I planned to push back the start of the preview schedule to go right up to the SEC conference previews only to have Mizzou release their schedule super early! But I’m sticking with my schedule.
The Full Non-Conference Schedule:
- October 24th — vs. Kansas State (exhibition)
- November 3rd — at Howard Bison
- November 7th — vs. Southeast Missouri
- November 9th — vs VMI
- November 12th — vs Minnesota
- November 17th — vs Prairie View A&M
- November 20th — vs South Dakota
- November 25th — vs South Carolina State
- November 28th — vs Cleveland State
- December 2nd — at Notre Dame
- December 7th — vs Kansas (in Kansas City, MO)
- December 11th — vs Alabama State
- December 14th — vs Bethune-Cookman
- December 22nd — vs Illinois (in St. Louis, MO)
These previews aren’t here to re-hash the argument over whether Dennis Gates put together a good schedule or not. It’s simply to talk about the opponents, and what can be expected. We’re also not going to use these to preview Kansas State since it’s an exhibition. We’ll do a quick K-State preview before the game, but for now we’re going to focus on the games that matter.
Let’s Meet: the Howard Bison
Now why is Missouri going to Washington D.C. to play a true road game against the Howard Bison?
Your guess is as good as mine, but it’s happening. And I don’t really hate it. It’s an interesting matchup against a pesky team. And it forces you to be ready to go as early as possible. Gates is known for wanting to spend some time during the non-conference schedule “in the lab” by conducting experiments with multiple different oddly shaped lineups. Playing a true road game against a team who can, but shouldn’t, beat you, means you have less time to play around.
If you don’t know much about Howard, how dare you! Originally founded in 1867 following the Civil War, Howard was originally meant to be a theological seminary for the education of black clergyman; however it quickly expanded into colleges of the liberal arts and medicine.
As a basketball school, Howard has been a bit up and down. It’s one of the better resourced programs in the MEAC Conference and has battled Norfolk State and North Carolina Central in recent seasons for which program is the best in the league. For the record, Norfolk has been winning this argument and has consistently been the best in the MEAC. But for the Howard they’ve been solid if unspectacular in recent seasons, with their 2023 season being their best.
Missouri welcomed Howard to Columbia just last year, you can read our preview of that game here, and the results of it here.
Head Coach | Kenny Blakeney | 7th Season 73-96
I have a lot of respect for coaches who take hard jobs. There’s a big difference in pay when you coach at a high major, even as an assistant, and when you’re working the sidelines at a MEAC school.
The former Duke Blue Devil has been in basketball coaching circles for decades. After graduating from Duke in 1995 he’s spent time at James Madison, Harvard, Columbia, and St. Bonaventure. In 2019, he took the job at Howard and saw a bit of a rough entry. He won four games his first season and the team only played five total games his second thanks to COVID.
However, in year three he began to turn things around by going 16-13 and followed that season up with a 22-13 team that earned an NCAA tournament berth after winning the regular season and conference tournament title. The next season saw a bit of a step back, but the Bison caught fire in the conference tourney and earned their second straight NCAA bid.
Last year, things didn’t go as well, and Howard missed the tournament after losing four straight to finish the regular season, as well as the conference tournament opener. Injuries had a bit of an impact as the Bison lost starting guard Bryce Harris for the bulk of the season, and Joshua Strong also missed time down the stretch.
Series History | Missouri leads 1-0
There’s been one game between these two schools and it happened last year. I linked to our coverage above so if you really wanna see how it went go ahead. But basically, Mizzou won fairly easily despite Howard shooting over 50% from deep and the Tigers having an awful night from outside.
A win is a win. And now that you’re traveling to DC to play them, maybe just take a win any way you can get it.
What about the team now?
Howard returns just three players from last year’s team. And it’s not exactly the big guns.
Bryce Harris is back after missing all but seven games last year with a foot injury. Calvin Robbins started four games and played in 21, but only averaged around 10 minutes a game and just over three points. The third returnee is Ose Okojie, a senior who averaged 4.7 points in six games.
So there isn’t much to be known about what the Bison have as an overall product. There are five freshmen, and only one has a 247sports.com profile. So that could be a mixed bag. Ed Holland transferred in from Penn, Alex Cotton transferred from North Texas, and Cam Gillus came from LeHigh.
Such is the life of a low major program, cobbling together what you can of a roster. There’s no telling what this team will look like but it’s likely to be something in the sub-300 range in the analytics once the numbers settle in. They’re currently 345 in BartTorvik.com’s preseason numbers. I’m not sure they’ll be that bad, but it might be close.
