Without much fanfare the Missouri Tigers finally found their replacement for coach Mike Anderson, who finally gave in to one of his many off season flirtations and took the coaching gig at the University of Arkansas. Tuesday Frank Haith accepted the coaching position. Haith 45, has quietly worked his way up the coaching ladder with assistant gigs at various programs the most prestigious of them being Wake Forest, Texas A&M and Texas. Frank took his first head coaching job 7 seasons ago at the "U" that's the University of Miami (FL) for those of you not hip to the lingo. Haith had mostly mixed results in his time in the Sunshine State winning 56% of his games while failing to make the NCAA tournament in all but one of his seasons there. Although his teams did make the NIT 4 times, the NIT will not be good enough for hoops hungry Tiger fans that believe the program should consistently make the NCAA tourney and stay in the top 25 polls on a regular basis. Hopefully Frank Haith can bring some of the Queens NY toughness that the Tigers routinely lacked last season, Missouri AD Mike Alden better hope so, as his leash is getting progressively shorter. Most of the fans of the black and gold were hoping for a big name, home run type of hire but instead must settle for Haith. In his interview Tuesday, the new coach shrugged off the criticism and even seemed to welcome the challenge when he said quote "I don't look at the negativity that I'm hearing so far as a negative," "I look at it as a positive. That's why I'm here. That's what I want. I want that passion. Because I want to win. I want to cut down nets. I'm not taking it the way you may think I should take it. I take it as a positive." The one major problem that former coach Mike Anderson had was his poor recruiting especially in the home state of Missouri. Recruiting could prove to be Frank's saving grace as he was a key recruiter for Rick Barnes at Texas and also recruit several talented players to the university of Miami. While coach Anderson did just OK when it came to recruiting Kansas City he missed out on potential NBA player Alec Burks ( Currently of Colorado )and he was horrible at recruiting the St. Louis area. St. Louis year in and year out produces elite prospects ranked in the top 100 players in America. This years class alone has two of the top 10 Shooting Guards in the Nation, both will not be attending a school in the state of Missouri next season. How quickly Haith can develop relationships with AAU coaches in the Midwest remains to be seen. Missouri fans must hope that Frank Haith has only scraped the surface of his coaching potential, at first glance this looks like quick trigger hire for a program scrambling. If Alden misses on this hire the Mizzou basketball program could go from a program on the rise back to mediocrity.
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