Justin Safford News

Sports Columnist Bryan Burwell [More columns] Bryan Burwell ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH 12/24/2009 All night long you could see Kim English talking, which is not exactly unusual for him.

ST. LOUIS If a decade of history has its way, the Missouri men's basketball team will again fall to Illinois Wednesday night in the annual Braggin' Rights game, which has gone to the Tigers' neighbors from across the Mississippi the past nine years.

For the first time in 10 years, Illinois players and coaches dispersed for Christmas with a feeling of despair and the nagging sensation that something is amiss.

Marcus Denmon contends that he is oblivious to the nine straight losses Missouri has suffered to Illinois in the Braggin Rights game.I wasnt there, said Denmon, a sophomore guard from Kansas City whose personal experience is merely last years 75-59 defeat.

COLUMBIA, Mo. a ' Predictably enough against 0-8 Arkansas-Pine Bluff, the Mizzou basketball team plowed the Golden Lions 88-70 on Saturday at Mizzou Arena in another ho-hum home game full of sound and fury seemingly signifying nothing.

Kim English had 18 points while going 3 for 5 from 3-point range, helping Missouri manhandle another home opponent in an 88-70 victory over Arkansas-Pine Bluff on Saturday night.

Welcome to another night of puzzle pieces, of trying to fit square pegs into round holes, of converting guards into rebounders and forwards into scorers.

Nine games into the Missouri men's basketball season one would have expected a team like Missouri to have outmuscled some of its weaker opponents.

Missouri scored the final 12 points of the first half and eked out a 26-24 halftime lead over Oral Roberts in a college basketball game at the Mabee Center on Wednesday night.

With an 11-point second-half lead against a depleted Oral Roberts team that had seven healthy scholarship players and earlier losses to Sam Houston State and Arkansas-Little Rock, the Mizzou Tigers still managed to trump their latest miserable escapades away from home with a 60-59 loss.

Mike Anderson was one of the hottest names in coaching last season after leading Missouri to a school-record 31 wins and the Elite Eight.

The mood on the Missouri men's basketball team is far different from when they left for the South Padre Invitational last week.

In the embryonic stage of its encore campaign following last season's Elite Eight run, the Mizzou men's basketball team has seemed to be a talented, apparently promising but formless entity seeking identity and direction.

For what may be the understatement of the early college basketball season, we turn to Texas -Pan American coach Ryan Marks after his team's game at Mizzou on Sunday.

There appear to be a few significant tests looming on the horizon for the Missouri basketball team over the next two weeks, but Sunday afternoona TMs contest a ' if it can be called that a ' against Texas-Pan American was not one of them.

Laurence Bowers wasn't ready for Miguel Paul to pass him the ball. Bowers was running the baseline, headed toward the basket, when Paul fired the pass.

Jason James, a Parkway West High graduate and former Forest Park Community College coach, brings his Tennessee-Martin basketball team to Mizzou Arena tonight for the Missouri Tigers' season opener.

Friday, November 13, 2009 at 3:41 p.m. Read more: State , Missouri , Basketball A - Mizzou Basketball Coach Mike Anderson announced the signing of three student athletes to National Letters of Intent on Friday, as Kadeem Green , Rick Kreklow and Phil Pressey inked to play for the Tigers beginning with the 2010-11 campaign.

Le Moyne, a Division II school in Syracuse, N.Y., and Northwood, an NAIA program in West Palm Beach, Fla., made headlines this week when they knocked off Syracuse and Florida International in exhibition play.

Prowling the baseline of Mizzou Arena during a recent Missouri men's basketball practice, junior forward Justin Safford seemed different.