Mizzou coach Kim Anderson ‘hopeful’ he’ll return for a third season | The Kansas City Star

Missouri expects to make a decision about coach Kim Anderson’s future quickly, perhaps even before the SEC Tournament begins Wednesday in Nashville.

Anderson is expected to meet with Tigers athletic director Mack Rhoades in the coming days, but it’s unclear when the two will sit down.

“As far as me talking with Mack, I’ve had several conversations with him,” Anderson said. “I would anticipate having more. When I don’t know, but I would imagine that would come pretty quick.”

Rhoades hasn’t publicly discussed Anderson’s future.

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“We’ve talked two or three times just about the future of the program, the direction of the program and how I see things,” Anderson said. “Certainly, I’m sure we’ll visit again and continue those discussions.”

Anderson — who was hired in April 2014, a year before Rhoades came to Mizzou — also said he’ll meet with his players Monday to discuss academics and other priorities as the semester winds down. He spoke about the future and indicated that he’s preparing to return for a third season.

“I hope so, yeah,” Anderson said. “I’ve got three more years on my contract, so I hope so. Then again, I know how this business is. I’m hopeful that I get the opportunity. I think we’ve built some stuff. Obviously, we didn’t win as many games as people want. I understand that, but I certainly can’t fault our effort. I can’t fault the fight that we had. Obviously, we need to do some more recruiting and these guys need to get better.”

The Tigers are 19-44 in two seasons under Anderson. It’s the most losses the program ever has suffered in back-to-back seasons, erasing the old record set by Bob Vannatta’s 1965-67 teams that went 6-43 during his final two seasons.

Missouri finished dead last in the Southeastern Conference for the second straight season and is 6-30 in conference play the last two seasons with no wins on the road or in neutral-site games.

Of course, Anderson also inherited an NCAA investigation, which led to a self-imposed ban and scholarship reductions among other sanctions announced in January.

He was further handcuffed with a depleted roster and precious little time to cobble together his first recruiting class, because of the timing of Frank Haith’s departure for Tulsa.