COLUMBIA | Kimmie English knows who is to blame for the NCAA&rsquo;s new basketball rule giving the opposing coach the right to select who will shoot free throws in place of an injured player.</p><p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;d say it&rsquo;s the J.T. Tiller Rule,&rdquo; English said.</p><p>Not the Kimmie English Rule? After all, it was English who came off the Missouri bench and shot two free throws for an injured Tiller with 5.5 seconds left with the score tied against Marquette in the NCAA Tournament. It was English who made both and with that calm collectedness fueled Missouri to an 83-79 victory and into the West Regional semifinals.</p><p>&ldquo;We were debating,&rdquo; English deadpanned. &ldquo;But I&rsquo;ve got to go with J.T. It would never have happened if he hadn&rsquo;t made the great play to go get fouled.&rdquo;</p><p>Certainly, what English did in that game &mdash; in the first half as well as the final 5.5 seconds &mdash; has changed his life.</p><p>The presence of English, a 6-foot-5 shooting guard out of Baltimore, seems larger than the final statistics for his freshman season: 6.5 points averaged in 14.4 minutes a game. And that presence goes beyond his outspoken personality.</p><p>On the day Missouri returned from Glendale, Ariz., having fallen just one victory short of its first Final Four, English made a promise, which was captured on video outside Mizzou Arena.</p><p>Before English leaves Missouri, the Tigers will bring the NCAA men&rsquo;s basketball title to Columbia.</p><p>&ldquo;I said it,&rdquo; English said recently in an interview with The Star. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s done. I don&rsquo;t have to say it again.</p><p>&ldquo;But I wouldn&rsquo;t play for anything less. I professed it. I wanted everyone to know that this group of guys wasn&rsquo;t satisfied with an Elite Eight finish. We&rsquo;re working on bringing that national championship to this university.</p><p>&ldquo;We&rsquo;re going to work our hardest to make that happen.&rdquo;</p><p>After Missouri&rsquo;s Sweet 16 victory over Memphis, English grabbed a microphone and virtually took over an interview session with his teammates.</p><p>&ldquo;Junk Yard Dog!&rdquo; English called DeMarre Carroll in a fine imitation of the late Howard Cosell.</p><p>Then this line used as a preamble to interviewing Tiller, &ldquo;It&rsquo;s well known that Kim English is the best-looking player on the team,&rdquo; English said.</p><p>English went on to be host of a well-received radio show on Columbia&rsquo;s KFRU-AM. He would like to do it again but acknowledged that MU coach Mike Anderson might not like him doing that during the basketball season. </p><p>Hardly a week has gone by since the end of the NCAA Tournament that someone has not posted a Kim English quote or contention on Facebook or Twitter.</p><p>Then there is the urban legend of how English, at an MU baseball game, was signing a ball for a young fan who revealed that he really rooted for KU in basketball. English, so the story goes, finished signing, showed the baseball to the kid and then threw it out of the stadium.</p><p>&ldquo;That&rsquo;s not true,&rdquo; English said, shaking his head, laughing. &ldquo;It never happened.</p><p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t care if the guy was a KU fan, I&rsquo;d still sign the ball. I&rsquo;m not that cold-hearted to the border rivalry.&rdquo;</p><p>No? Is that a twinkle or a glint in English&rsquo;s eye as he explains the Facebook and Twitter banter that sometimes references the Border War.</p><p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s for my friends and classmates,&rdquo; English said. &ldquo;They don&rsquo;t like KU, so I can&rsquo;t like them either.&rdquo;