Hey, guess what?
It’s 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,
and I’ve already started prepping for the SEC Conference Previews. That means it’s also time to look at the non-conference schedule.
The Full Non-Conference Schedule:
- October 24th — vs. Kansas State (exhibition)
- November 3rd — at Howard Bison | Preview
- November 7th — vs. Southeast Missouri | Preview
- November 9th — vs VMI | Preview
- November 12th — vs Minnesota | Preview
- November 17th — vs Prairie View A&M | Preview
- November 20th — vs South Dakota | Preview
- November 25th — vs South Carolina State | Preview
- November 28th — vs Cleveland State | Preview
- December 2nd — at Notre Dame | Preview
- December 7th — vs Kansas (in Kansas City, MO) | Preview
- December 11th — vs Alabama State | Preview
- 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: Alabama State Hornets
It’s rare to get these types of buy games in back-to-back seasons, but here we are! Just last year Missouri played Alabama State in late December and got a pretty spicy game from the Hornets. But few could have predicted that season would be Alabama State’s best since 2016. The Hornets ended up making the NCAA Tournament, and won their first round game against another 16th seed, Saint Francis, in dramatic fashion.
Located in Montgomery, Alabama State is a historical black college which has been playing basketball since 1934. For about 50 years the program competed in NCAA’s Division II in the SIAC, then made the move to Division I in 1982 when they joined the SWAC.
Since the 82-83 season there have been 4 conference regular season championships and 5 conference tournament championships, leading to five total NCAA trips and just the one win last year.
Head Coach | Tony Madlock | 4th Season 41-58
Tony Madlock has had an interesting career, he played at Memphis with Penny Hardaway. And quickly after he was done playing he began his career as a coach. He was a long time assistant who got his D1 start under Dickey Nutt at Arkansas State in 1997. His next move was in 2006 to UTEP and Tony Barbee’s staff. He stuck with Barbee all the way to Auburn before hopping on Andy Kennedy’s staff at Ole Miss, where he actually finished out the 2017-18 season when Kennedy stepped away from the team knowing he was about to be fired. After the staff turnover at Ole Miss, Madlock landed back at Memphis under Hardaway before finally taking his shot at South Carolina State in 2021.
His stay in Orangeburg didn’t last long as Alabama State become open the very next season and Madlock made the quick jump.
Since taking over the program, there were three steady years of progress after an opening 8 win first season. The culmination came with the first NCAA Tournament win in program history which is pretty cool. Madlock has earned a long leash after his first three seasons. Who knows, he keeps it up and a few other jobs might take a long look.
Series History | Missouri leads 2-0
Last year Missouri got a good fight in their game with Alabama State. You can relive it in this Study Hall if you want, but we were more relieved because the non-conference slate was over. Missouri played well enough for most of the game to win by a larger margin, but the Hornets kept fighting and trimmed the lead to 17 by the end.
The only other meeting between the schools was in 1987 and it… uh… wasn’t close. It was the 3rd largest margin of victory for a Missouri Tiger basketball in school history. At the time it was the largest margin of victory. Mizzou beat Alabama State 129-64. That team featured Derrick Chievous, Byron Irvin, Doug Smith, Lee Coward… it was a solidly talented team who had things cooking that night.
What about the team now?
It’s hard to build a consistent roster in college basketball these days. It’s even more difficult at lower levels when you’ve had some success. The Hornets top two scorers from last year left for greener pastures in the portal, CJ Hines landed at Temple and Amarr Knox ended up at Eastern Kentucky. Also gone are Micah Octave, Ubong Okon, and D’Ante Bass. Third leading scorer TJ Madlock also graduated.
Coming back are rotational players Micah Simpson, a 6-2 guard, and JaSteven Walker, 6-10 forward. But that’s just two players out of the top 7.
So to backfill, Madlock dipped into the portal to reel in Demarien Yates, a Junior wing from Memphis, Asjon Anderson, a junior point guard from Queens College, and R’Chaun King a former 3-star recruit who landed at Arkansas State.
Madlock has put together a pretty decent roster, but still the expectations are low. They’re preseason 331 in EvanMiya.com and 317 in BartTorvik.com. Both slots would still project a big Mizzou win.
