Either of those teams would be the likely third opponent

Posted on: July 20, 2016 at 09:59:23 CT

Would love to say we can compete with Xavier -- and last year we ran with them for a while on their home court -- but realistically, that's a Top 10 team that might be every bit as good as last year. So we'll kind of view that as a throw-away game and hope we show some progress.

In Round 2, Clemson and Davidson are both solid but beatable. Of course, to be honest, I'm sure they'll both look at Mizzou and chalk it up as an easy win for them... Clemson has a legit star in Jaron Blossongame and Davidson won 20 games in the A-10 last year. But I don't look at either of those teams as unbeatable on a neutral floor and that will really show us whether we're ready to take a step forward.

If we lose the first two games, Tulane (finished 3-15 in the American) is probably waiting for us in the final round. So, hey, that's a possible win, in a worst-case scenario.

You never know what will happen when the tournament starts, but even Arizona State has a pretty decent roster in Bobby Hurley's second year, and Oklahoma and Northern Iowa are obviously on a different level. It's a really, really good tournament, much better than I think people are giving it credit for.

Would love to get out of there with a couple of wins-- that would be huge. In 08-09, the win over USC in Puerto Rico really set the Elite Eight run in motion and showed us how competitive, athletic and deep our roster really was with the newcomers. Hopefully, this year's tournament gives us a little momentum too, because the November tournaments have been disasters for us the past two years.