13 Missouri

O.K., so maybe coach Norm Stewart is right. Maybe junior Lee Coward, the Tigers' top playmaker, has some work to do. "He does well in the last three minutes of the ball game," says Stewart. "If he could play [the rest of the game] as he does the last three minutes, we may not be involved in so many slugouts." And maybe senior guard Byron Irvin, the top scorer back from last year's team, could be working harder at recovering from an off-season injury to his left knee. "He's obviously in touch with somebody I don't have the privilege of being in touch with," Stewart grumbles, "because the only way you can be healed is to go and rehabilitate yourself." And maybe freshman Anthony Peeler, Mizzou's best recruit, really did need to miss the Tigers' opening practice for a tutoring session. "We want to make sure he gets himself off as a student," says the coach.

But can't Stewart find anything comforting to say about his team? Well, there are, he allows, a few freshmen who "can move in and help us," especially guard P.J. Mays. And there's 6'10" Doug Smith, who averaged 11.3 points and 6.6 rebounds a game as a freshman last season. And as Stewart well knows, Coward, Irvin and Peeler are all players who will have a big hand in Missouri's success. The Tigers' biggest shortcoming is more general than particular: improving the team defense, which surrendered 78 points per game (fifth in the Big Eight) in 1987-88.