<table> </table> GLENDALE, Ariz. | You probably know that Bill James, baseball writer extraordinaire, is an intense Kansas basketball fan. It is one of the obsessions of his life. He grew up in Kansas, went to school at Kansas, lives in Kansas, and he will refer to the Jayhawks as &#8220;we.&#8221; And as a Kansas fan, he takes very seriously all of his Jayhawk responsibilities.</p><p>&#8220;I hate Missouri basketball with a bottomless passion,&#8221; he says.</p><p>So, OK, Kansas fan hates Missouri? Great. News flash. What&#8217;s the point?</p><p>Only this: &#8220;I love this Missouri team,&#8221; Bill James says.</p><p>He does not want to like Missouri. He can&#8217;t help himself. And he is not alone. ESPN baseball writer Rob Neyer has been rooting against the Tigers ever since he arrived on the Kansas campus at the same time as Danny Manning. If you have read Rob&#8217;s work, you probably know that he does not get overly sentimental.</p><p>&#8220;I&#8217;m pulling for the Tigers,&#8221; he says.</p><p>And more. E-mails rush in from Kansas fans who, against every fiber of their being, find themselves oddly drawn to this Missouri Tigers team.</p><p>&#8220;I want to hate them,&#8221; a lifelong Jayhawks fan named John writes in. &#8220;I&#8217;m supposed to hate them. And I can&#8217;t hate them.&#8221;</p><p>This is not to suggest that all Kansas fans have gone soft on Missouri. I&#8217;m quite certain that at this very moment numerous Kansas fans are composing e-mails hammering home the point that they still despise Missouri with every hate fiber in their body.</p><p>No. The point is that this Tigers team is so lovable that even some Kansas fans find themselves swaying to the music.</p><p>Really, what&#8217;s not to love? The Tigers were picked to finish seventh in the Big 12. They use 11 or 12 guys every game. They play an all-out, full-court press defense. They led the entire nation in assists. The Tigers&#8217; best player is the coach&#8217;s nephew. Their three-point shooter is a lifelong Missouri fan who was ready to walk on. Their most gifted player came to Missouri because his mother made him. Their gutsy point guard was recruited about as heavily as a triple jumper as basketball player. Their heart and soul was briefly homeless after transferring to Missouri.</p><p>&#8220;We&#8217;re the most unselfish team in America,&#8221; forward Leo Lyons says. He&#8217;s the gifted one who wanted to go to Kentucky but went to Missouri for his mother. And while it&#8217;s hard to measure unselfishness, there&#8217;s no question that this Missouri team radiates with it. In the Tigers&#8217; last five games, which includes their Big 12 tournament championship run and their NCAA Tournament run, they have had four different leading scorers.</p><p>&#8220;We are the ultimate team,&#8221; Missouri coach Mike Anderson says and says and says.</p><p>He really wants to get this point across. Ultimate team. And there&#8217;s a good reason he keeps saying it: This Tigers team is the kind every coach dreams about. They really don&#8217;t seem to care about their statistics. They really don&#8217;t seem to care about their minutes either. Zaire Taylor &#8212; he&#8217;s the heart-and-soul player who took a chance and transferred from Delaware and found himself without a place to live &#8212; talks happily about how he doesn&#8217;t mind getting tired because he loves watching backup Miguel Paul play.</p><p>&#8220;I know Miguel Paul is going to come in and do the same thing or even raise it up another notch,&#8221; Taylor says. &#8220;So I don&#8217;t have to worry about if I get tired.&#8221;