As the University Of Missouri tries to emerge from the wreckage of the Quinn Snyder Era, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch’s Bryan Burwell is adamantly against the Tigers’ courting of former Cincy coach Bob Huggins.
The messages being sent out just by the mere suggestion that somebody thinks this is a good idea says so much about the internal struggles that Missouri’s athletic department is enduring. It shows just how fragile, uncertain and disruptive everything is in Columbia. It demonstrates how embattled athletics director Mike Alden is struggling to keep his job, conduct a credible job search for a new coach and deal with the whispers and shadowy plots that may be hatching to eliminate him, or at the very least, seize on his weakened position, and wrestle control of the program out of his grips.
Not everyone in Columbia feels like things are desperate for the basketball program. In fact, there are a lot of good folks who think bringing in Huggins on the heels of Snyder’s scandal-ridden administration is purely toxic and certifiably insane. But there are enough powerful alums who are willing to engage in this dangerous dance with the devil. Those people want to only talk about Huggins’ impressive and gaudy on-court basketball resume.
Here’s what maybe they don’t want to see that also comes along with Huggins:
A coach who was arrested for drunken driving and fired from his last job. … An assistant coach arrested for driving under the influence. … Numerous players arrested for driving under the influence. … A player arrested for carrying a handgun. … A player arrested for punching a police horse. … A player arrested and indicted for kidnapping a roommate, taping him to a lawn chair, pounding him on the head with a weight-lifting bar, then burning him with cigarettes and a hot coat hanger.
So tell me again why this is such a good idea? If this is what we have to look forward to with Huggins, there may come a time when we actually look back fondly on the Ricky Clemons days.