COLUMBIA | If, as optimists maintain, Missouri basketball has embarked upon a renaissance, the beginning of the era will have been marked by the most successful season in school history.</p><p>Last season, Missouri went 31-7, won the Big 12 tournament and roared through Marquette and Memphis and into the Elite Eight of the NCAA Tournament.</p><p>Coach Mike Anderson will cling to a less obvious point of rebirth: Jan. 30, 2008. A 66-62 loss to Nebraska at a half-filled Mizzou Arena.</p><p>It was the first game after Club Athena, the fight-marred lowest point in Anderson&rsquo;s tenure at Mizzou. Seniors Stefhon Hannah, Darryl Butterfield, Marshall Brown and Jason Horton and junior Leo Lyons had been suspended.</p><p>That left Anderson with only six scholarship players &mdash; plus his son Michael Jr. &mdash; to play against Nebraska.</p><p>&ldquo;Those guys came out and just played their hearts out,&rdquo; Anderson recalled on the cusp of the 2009-10 season. &ldquo;They set the standard of how it was going to be. The brand.</p><p>&ldquo;On and off the floor.&rdquo;</p><p>DeMarre Carroll, J.T. Tiller, Justin Safford, Matt Lawrence, Keon Lawrence, Vaidotas Volkus and Anderson Jr. became the core of a team. While Keon Lawrence, Volkus and Anderson Jr. had either transferred or run out of eligibility by last season, Carroll, Tiller, Matt Lawrence and Safford represented the core of a program.</p><p>Now, only Tiller and Safford remain from that seminal group. Mizzou&rsquo;s top three scorers from a year ago &mdash; Carroll, Lyons and Matt Lawrence &mdash; are gone.</p><p>But what remains is the chemistry that saved Missouri basketball. Infused with the lessons learned from seven players new to the Missouri uniform last season, but now themselves carriers of the flame.</p><p>&ldquo;We&rsquo;re like a family,&rdquo; said Tiller &mdash; in his fourth year, the acknowledged oldest son.</p><p>&ldquo;Coach Anderson, he&rsquo;s like the father. Even coach (Nolan) Richardson, he&rsquo;s the grandfather,&rdquo; Tiller said of Anderson&rsquo;s former coach and mentor during Anderson&rsquo;s run as an assistant coach at Arkansas.</p><p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s beyond being just a team.&rdquo;</p><p>The clich&eacute; about players willing to run through a wall for a revered coach does not go far enough. At Missouri, players now say they would run through a wall for one another.</p><p>In fact, these Missouri basketball players do not perceive any wall as a barrier.</p><p>&ldquo;We&rsquo;re friends first, then we&rsquo;re teammates secondly,&rdquo; said sophomore guard Kimmie English. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s easy to give a little bit extra for your friend that you just happen to be playing basketball with.</p><p>&ldquo;I love these guys like brothers.&rdquo;</p><p>Zaire Taylor, ineligible because of transfer rules during that Club Athena season but a force at point guard as a junior last year, goes beyond that.</p><p>&ldquo;These guys <em>are</em> my brothers,&rdquo; Taylor said.</p><p>English credits Anderson, noting that even players who were not yet committed to playing basketball at Missouri did so, in part, because of the lessons of Club Athena.</p><p>&ldquo;We knew about it,&rdquo; English said.</p><p>While the crowd at that Nebraska game gave Anderson a standing ovation prior to the opening tip, English and Laurence Bowers and Marcus Denmon and Michael Dixon and the others turned their future over to Mike Anderson.</p><p>&ldquo;Coach Anderson got quality guys to go along with OK basketball players,&rdquo; English said. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s again a tribute to his vision. I&rsquo;m a firm believer that he&rsquo;s a wise man.&rdquo;</p><p>English admits he saw the will but not necessarily the way. Not at first.</p><p>&ldquo;I would have never guessed that our team would mesh the way we did last year and the way we are meshing this year,&rdquo; English said.</p><p>Forecasts of Missouri taking a step back from the heights of last season &mdash; especially in a Big 12 predicted by some to have two Final Four quality teams in Kansas and Texas &mdash; do not broker doubt at the new Mizzou.</p><p>&ldquo;The blueprints have been laid,&rdquo; Zaire Taylor said. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re going to have a great season this year.&rdquo;</p><p>Coincidentally, Club Athena is now gone. The Missouri program remains.