The 2013-2014 season for the Missouri Tigers basketball team has come to an end. And even though they finished 23-12 and made it to the second round of the NIT, it was considered a disappointing season by many of the fans. I was disappointed with the season, but at the same time I felt that if you make it to the post season then you had a pretty good year. Yes, it could have been better by at least making it to the NCAA tournament, but the last two seasons have shown us that even if Missouri makes it to the NCAA tournament the fans still won't be happy. Missouri has made it to the big dance the last two seasons, both of those times they lost in the first round, but they still made it to the postseason. That was not enough to satisfy the fans. On top of that, this season has had many fans calling for Frank Haith to be fired. I understand how fans can overreact, but Frank Haith does not deserve to be fired, yet.
Frank Haith has not met the high, and sometimes unreasonable, expectations of the Missouri fans. I was not very happy with the hiring of Frank Haith, and I'm still a skeptical fan of of his. Haith's record at Missouri is 77-29, that's a pretty good record if you ask me, and it's well above .500. Yet, fans want him gone, now. Personally I don't think any coach should be fired before the end of his contract, unless of course there were some major rules or laws being broken, or if the coach only wins a very small amount of games. But Haith hasn't had any of that, and yet fans of Missouri are calling for his head. Sounds pretty crazy right? I agree, but I feel that if Missouri keeps declining like it has been since Haith's arrival then he should be let go at the end of his contract.
Frank Haith has shown that he is a great recruiter, there is no doubt about that. Haith has the ability to draw talented players to his team, but he lacks the ability to coach those players. In Haith's first year at Missouri he coached the Missouri Tigers to a 30-5 record, and won the Big 12 Tournament. Many people thought that Frank Haith was going to be the savior of the Missouri basketball program, and at first it did appear that way. But, lets look at that season in more depth. Haith arrived to Missouri to take over for Mike Anderson, who left Missouri to take the head coaching job at Arkansas where he had been an assistant for 17 years. All of the players on this team were players that Mike Anderson recruited, these players had been together for most, if not all, of their college careers. These guys new how to play with each other, they knew how to pass the ball to each other, where each guy would be, and what role each guy had. There are a lot of people that want to give Frank Haith credit for that terrific season, and I believe he deserves some of the credit, but mostly the players deserve the most. This is how I think it played out, I think the players got together and pretty much coached themselves through that season. That team had great leadership, and that leadership is what got them through that season.
If you compare Haith's first year at Missouri to the two previously you will see that there is a big lack of leadership on his teams. Haith is not one to provide great leadership to his teams, and he has not been able to recruit great leaders on his teams. Laurence Bowers was the leader for the Tigers in Haith's second season at Missouri. Bowers would have been on the 2011-2012 team but he tore his ACL before the season started, and had to sit out. He came back the following season and was the key leader for the Tigers. There were many times during that season where it looked as though there wasn't much leadership either, but when you have a point guard in Phil Pressey that wanted to take the winning shot in close games, it's hard to lead the team. Haith has said repeatedly that he talked to Pressey about taking those shots and that he did not want Pressey to take those shots, but Pressey still attempted to win the game on his own. That says something about the lack of leadership from Frank Haith.
The Missouri basketball program has been on a decline every year for the past three seasons. Haith has had mostly transfers from other schools come to Missouri, maybe he just needs time to recruit the kids he wants out of high school. Haith's first year at Missouri had the Tigers finishing with a 30-5 record, a Big 12 Tournament Championship, and were knocked out of the NCAA Tournament by Norfolk State. Haith's second year saw the Tigers struggling on the road and they finished the season with a 23-11 record (11-7 in the SEC), and were knocked out of the NCAA Tournament by Colorado State. Going 11-7 in a weak SEC Conference was very disappointing, and many fans can see the huge decline from the previous year. In this past season the Tigers went 23-12 (9-9 in the SEC), and were beat in the NIT Tournament by Southern Mississippi. Missouri has a worse conference record this year than they year before, and they didn't make it to the NCAA Tournament. This shows a pattern of the program declining, but I wouldn't say it is completely dead.
Anybody that expected Missouri to produce seasons like Haith's first season at Missouri doesn't understand to circumstances that surrounded that season. Even if you go back and look up Haith's time at Miami would tell you that Haith isn't going to produce Final Four teams. But, if anybody thinks that a guy with a .726 winning percentage at Missouri is going to get fired, then you are wrong. I think the people who say "fire Haith" are letting their frustrations get the best of them. Those fans do not have the answers, so they want to make drastic decisions.
I am not a huge fan of Frank Haith, but having him fired is not going to help matters any. I think that fans are upset and want to blame Haith for everything, and that firing him will make everything better. If that happens, you will still be left with players that have no chemistry, and a new coach will have to come in and try to coach kids that he didn't recruit. I do think Haith is mostly responsible for the lackluster season at Missouri, but I am not one to say that he should be fired. I don't have the answers to the problem, if I did I would be in charge, but I don't, and I'm not. I don't know many coaches, if any, that came in and took over an average basketball program and made them National Championship contenders overnight. It is going to take time for this program to get better. There is no guarantee they will get better or worse. But Haith deserves time to try. Fans of Mizzou need to realize that Haith isn't going anywhere for a couple of years at least. Mike Alden isn't a governor or anything, he doesn't get voted in by the public, so he doesn't care about fan approval. If the Missouri basketball program continues to dwindle then I think Haith should be gone at the end of his contract, but he deserves that allotted amount of time to try and get Missouri to be a really good program. What Mizzou fans should do, always, is support the coach and the team. If you are a true fan of Mizzou, then you will support them through thick and thin. It won't do any good to constantly ridicule the team (coach included) and boycott games. It isn't going to make a quality coach want to come to school with a fan base that act like crybabies because they can't get what they want. I'm not saying you have to like Haith, you don't have to like the decisions he makes, but you need to at least support him and the team. Remember fans, you support the Tigers, not the individual. Frank Haith is a Tiger right now, show some support.
