The Missouri Tigers (11-3) come to town tonight as Texas plays its first home game in the Big 12 this season. Unfortunately for fans of greasy, curly hair, Quin Snyder will no longer be at the head of the Mizzou bench. But for Tiger fans, they are feeling fortunate to have a new, highly-heralded coach in Mike Anderson.

Missouri comes in off of a bad loss against Iowa State where they blew a sixteen-point lead in the second half…..at home. Their offense completely shut down, as they scored only seven points in the last seven minutes of the game. While Texas probably won’t be lucky enough to see that level of futility from the Tigers, it is reassuring to know that this up-tempo team does occasionally go cold.

The Tigers run fairly deep on their bench, with nine players giving at least 14 minutes a game. But it’s freshman Stefhon Hannah who is the driving force of the team. Hannah leads the team in both points (16.1 PPG) and minutes (30.4 MPG), and is also averaging 3.4 steals per game. While that leads the nation, he is also fifth in the nation when the steals are adjusted by the minutes each player is on the court.

In addition to Hannah, the Missouri offense also likes to run through center Kalen Grimes. While Grimes only plays seventeen minutes a game, he gets a ton of touches down low. He’s not the most efficient player on offense, but he will clean up on the glass. He is particularly great at offensive rebounding, but manages to secure his share on the defensive end as well. When Grimes is in the game, it will be interesting to see who the Horns use to match up with him, and whether or not they can successfully keep him off the glass.

My favorite player on Mizzou is Matt Lawrence. While he’s a horrible defender and will repeatedly get beaten off the dribble tonight, he’s going to make up for it by nailing a ton of threes. Coming into the game, he is hitting from behind the arc at an incredible 53% clip. If the Horns try to run a 2-3 zone against this guy, he is going to make them pay.

Missouri is going to play a high-tempo, pressure style of basketball. They average over 75 possessions per game and are second in the nation at forcing turnovers, making their opponents cough it up on 29 percent of their possessions. For a comparison you can easily grasp, Tennessee forces opponents to turn it over on 25.5% of their possessions, so the intensity will be even higher tonight than it was in Knoxville.

For Texas, we can of course look for a huge game from Kevin Durant. At this point, it’s a lot like saying the sun will come up in the morning. But, as always, the fun comes in seeing who else steps up and has a great night or a key bucket. I’ll also be interested in seeing if Damion James can follow up on a great performance in Colorado and also keep his foul trouble in check.

Tip is at 7 PM tonight at the Drum, so please come on out. Missouri is no slouch, yet there are a ton of tickets available and many students are still away on break. If the FEC is as empty and dead as it was for the conference opener against Baylor a year or two ago, there will be almost no home-court advantage. And this team definitely deserves a big, energetic crowd.

If my guilt trip didn’t work, you can catch the game in the state of Texas on FSN. But you’d better text message me scores from the OSU/Kansas game if you’re going to be sitting on your couch.