9 Missouri

Two themes emerged from Missouri's Black & Gold scrimmage to kick off year III of the Quin Snyder era. For starters, Snyder is right when he says junior forward Kareem Rush has clearly improved from last season, no small feat for a guy who led the Big 12 in scoring with 21.1 points a game. "He's playing without the ball, learning to use his brain in addition to his body," Snyder says of Rush's newfound subtlety.

Whether the Tigers fulfill their potential as a dark-horse Final Four pick, however, depends largely on the second theme: Senior guard Clarence Gilbert is still the nation's most shameless gunner, and he can talk all he wants about "slowing down and not taking bad shots" after a season in which he sank just 36.4% of his nearly 15 shots a game, but in the scrimmage he jacked up rim-rattlers the first two times he touched the ball. "Look, Clarence is a gunner," says Rush in Gilbert's defense. "He can shoot us into games, and sometimes he can shoot us out of them. I can't take all the shots." In any case Snyder can only hope the heading on the Black & Gold game stat sheet—Missouri versus Missouri—doesn't describe the Tigers' attack this season.

Yet there's plenty to be encouraged about as Snyder enters the next stage of what he calls a five-year plan to turn Missouri into a national power. Sophomore center Arthur Johnson is a reliable inside scorer, even more so now that he has dropped 35 pounds to a svelte 265. (Likewise, promising sophomore forward Travon Bryant lost about 30 pounds and is now 243.) If junior college transfer Uche Okafor, a 6'11" center from Nigeria, can gain his eligibility—the NCAA is investigating the contract he signed with a Russian pro team three years ago-then Missouri will easily have the most formidable inside punch of Snyder's tenure.

Better conditioning means the Tigers will be merciless defensively, though Snyder remains worried about rebounding ( Missouri had a rebounding margin of- 0.7 a game last year) and excessive turnovers. Whenever a player turns the ball over in practice, everyone in the gym—coaches included—has to drop and do 10 pushups. Nonetheless, there's plenty of energy left to fuel the rekindled rivalry with Big 12 cousin Kansas. Snyder, who dropped midnight madness this year, recently took a jab at the Jayhawks' annual skit-filled midnight festivities, telling a reporter, "We're not the drama club. We're a basketball team."

Snyder chuckles when reminded of his neighbor-baiting smack-talk. "Sometimes when you're new to an area, people don't believe you understand the depth of a rivalry," he says. "I don't think there's any question whether I understand it or not."

[This article contains a table. Please see hardcopy of magazine or PDF.]