Oct. 18, 2001
Dallas, Texas - The University of Missouri men's basketball team was picked second in the annual Big 12 Conference preseason coaches' poll, as released today by the league office.
The University of Kansas, winners of the first two championships in league history (1997 and 1998), was picked to win the league with seven first-place votes, and 126 overall points in the poll. Missouri, picked in many top-10 pre-season national polls, was a close second to its rival, with four first-place votes, and 111 points overall.
A year after leading the Big 12 in scoring at 21.1 points per game, Tiger junior forward Kareem Rush was tabbed as the league's preseason player of the year. The pre-season all-American is looking to become MU's first league player of the year since Melvin Booker won the Big Eight Conference award in 1994. Earlier this week, Rush was named one of 30 pre-season candidates for the Naismith Award, given annually to the top collegiate player.
Head Coach Quin Snyder and his Tigers will look to challenge for Missouri's first-ever Big 12 title, after finishing sixth each of the last two seasons. Mizzou returns its top three scorers from last year's team which went 20-13 and reached the second round of the NCAA Tournament.
The highest MU has finished since the inception of the Big 12 came in 1999, when then-coach Norm Stewart's final team tied for second place, after being picked 3rd in the coaches' pre-season poll.
Here's a quick look at MU's Big 12 history with the coaches' pre-season poll:
Season Predicted Actual 1996-97 No poll 10th 1997-98 4th T-5th 1998-99 3rd T-2nd 1999-00 5th 6th 2000-01 3rd 6th