God loves Mike Alden.
I know, I know. Don't mix religion and politics. God doesn't give a damn about college athletics. Tebow Tebow Tebow and all that.
But seriously, God loves him some Mike Alden.
There's no other way to possibly explain the turn of fortunes for the University of Missouri Athletic Director other than to chalk it up to divine intervention.
If you aren't plugged in to the goings on at Missouri over the past year, Alden make a full-court press to land Purdue men's basketball coach Matt Painter to replace Mike Anderson when Anderson bolted for Arkansas. It was a classic "use another school to get his current employer to pony up the cash" move by Painter, and Alden played the role of patsy to a tee. He (and the St. Louis media) got played, pure and simple.
Then, to compound the issue, Alden seemed to make a pure panic hire in Frank Haith from Miami. Coming off a mediocre tenure at Miami that saw his Hurricanes win a whopping 38% of their ACC games, with their best player arguably a tight end in the NFL right now (Jimmy Graham for the Saints), Haith was on nobody's radar as somebody who deserved a big raise at another program.
The fact Haith was hired just days after the Painter pursuit crashed and burned made it seem that much worse. No Shaka Smart from VCU. No Brad Stevens from Butler. Hell, Cuonzo Martin, who left Missouri State for Tennessee, would have created more buzz than Frank freaking Haith.
But there they were, Haith and Alden, trying to sell a despondent alumni and fan base on "great character" and "leadership of young men," as if sports fans actually care about either of those things (at least not in the absence of NCAA tournament victories).
Then Haith got caught up in the Miami football scandal surrounding booster Nevin Shapiro, where phrases like "paid for a stripper's abortion" were bandied about. Haith's program was alleged to have benefited from a $10,000 payment to associates of recruit DeQuan Jones, which is just a little bit against the rules.
(Miami was sitting out Jones as the NCAA investigates, but was just forced by Jones and his attorney to let him begin play effectively immediately. According to Yahoo!'s Charles Robinson, who originally broke the Miami scandal, the allegations involving Jones are still very much part of the larger investigation.)
To say Missouri fans were concerned is an understatement. Would Haith get fired? If so, should Alden go with him? After a brief resurgence of relevance under Anderson, it looked like the long, dark winter of discontent was poised to set on the Tigers men's basketball program once again.
Over the next few months, Missouri found itself in the headlines for yet another not-because-we're-winning reason: the rumored, then confirmed, then unconfirmed, the re-confirmed, and now final decision to bolt the Texas Longhorn Network for the Southeastern Conference.
Congrats Missouri, the joke went, you're now Vanderbilt without the academics. Enjoy that TV money, because there aren't going to be many wins to go along with it.
But then a funny thing happened: the Tigers actually started winning.
Since the move to the SEC became official in early November, the football team is 3-0, including its first win over Texas in the Gary Pinkel era, and heads into the Independence Bowl against North Carolina on Monday.
Far more impressive has been the 11-0 start to the basketball team in Haith's first season. Coaching a team comprised of Anderson's recruits, Haith is getting far more out of them than Anderson ever did.
While senior Marcus Denmon leads the team in scoring at 19 points per game, perhaps nobody has epitomized the Tigers' growth this season more than fellow senior Kim English. Not only has English raised his production from 10 points per game to 16, his field-goal percentage has jumped gone from an anemic 37% to now 54%. He's gone from "this kid is killing us" to a legitimate — and, most importantly, consistent — second scoring option behind Denmon.
(It helps that sophomore Phil Pressey has developed into an all-conference point guard and sets everybody else up, but it still takes other guys to convert the opportunities Pressey creates. English's three-point accuracy this season has gone from 37% to 53%, and he's doing it with an increased volume of 5.6 attempts per game, up from 4.2 per game last year.)
Of course Haith is going to have to do more than just coach up Anderson's leftovers to be considered a long-term successful hire for Alden. He's going to need to bring in his own guys and maintain the winning ways in the SEC to earn Alden true validation for the hire.
Luckily for Alden, Haith's reputation for being a quality pitch-man is already paying dividends. While it usually takes coaches a few years to develop the relationships that bring in high-profile recruits, Haith has taken a short cut by landing Jabari Brown, who decided to leave Oregon just a few games into his freshman season.
Brown was a four-star get for Dana Altman at Oregon, and should provide an immediate boost for the Tigers when he becomes eligible next December. He will join two other transfers in Earnest Ross from Auburn and Keion Bell from Pepperdine. And the Tigers have been mentioned as a possible destination for Khem Birch, a top-12 recruit from the class of 2011 who, like Brown, decided to bolt his school (in this case Pittsburgh) just a few games into his career.
(Birch has yet to make a decision, so it's all speculation, but the fact Missouri is even being included in the speculation is a big step for the program.)
Haith still has some work to do in recruiting his own state. Forward Cameron Biedscheid out of St. Louis (No. 62 on ESPN's ranking for the class of 2012) has signed with Notre Dame, but Mizzou is still in the game for class of 2013 four-star forward Ishmail Wainright out of the Kansas City area.
The top talent from Missouri have never viewed Mizzou as a top destination. Bradley Beal, B.J. Young, Otto Porter, and Ben McLemore were all top 50 recruits from Missouri that elected to leave the state, and Haith will have to change that pattern to make some real headway. But the Tigers have a little bit of buzz right now, and that's the name of the game when it comes to recruiting 16- and 17-year-old kids. Now Haith has to capitalize with an NCAA Tournament run to seal the deal.
To recap, Alden has gone from under extreme duress, a panic hire, and a messy divorce from the Big 12, to enjoying the holidays with an established football program, an undefeated basketball team, and a windfall of SEC cash with which to continue to build his program.
It's either God's love, or a deal with the devil. Either way, I'm not sure Mizzou fans care all that much. Just keep winning them games, and everything will be all right.
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