Missouri Basketball opens its fifth season under Head Coach Mike Anderson on Friday, as the club hosts Harris-Stowe State University out of St. Louis at 7 p.m. at Mizzou Arena.
Missouri begins the 2010-11 season ranked #15 in both the Associated Press and USA Today Coaches polls to start the year. The Tigers are ranked in the preseason for the first time since 2003-04 when they opened at #5.
The Tigers like to include in-state programs as apart of their exhibition season under Mike Anderson. Last year the Tigers faced Truman State and Northwest Missouri State … The club will meet Arkansas-Fort Smith next week, but eight of 10 preseason games under Anderson’s watch have been vs. state programs.
One more interesting sidenote for the team. Newcomer Ricardo Ratliffe returned to his junior college on Monday as Central Florida Community College retired his #20 uniform at the school’s 2010-11 basketball season-opener.
Ratliffe was named the Big 12 Conference Preseason Newcomer of the Year, after a historic two-year career in Ocala, Fla., where he left as the school’s most decorated athlete. He set the Central Florida Community College scoring record with 798 points as a freshman, before breaking his own school record with 855 points as a sophomore.