Heading into 2003-04, the path for Missouri basketball was obvious and beautiful. The Ricky Clemons incident had recently begun to the program to some degree -- while serving at a halfway house for a domestic incident, he crashed an ATV at the school president's house -- and he had been kicked off the team. Still, this was a preseason top-five squad.
Seniors Arthur Johnson, Rickey Paulding, Travon Bryant, and Josh Kroenke were going to mix with veteran Jimmy McKinney, prolific VMI transfer Jason Conley, and youngsters Linas Kleiza and Thomas Gardner. The Tigers were going to have an awesome season, move to Mizzou Arena (well, the Paige Sports Arena), land Poplar Bluff's Tyler Hansbrough and Kansas City's Brandon Rush, and move toward an awesome new era of basketball.