By BRADFORD DOOLITTLE
SportsRadioKC.com

Missouri has so much backcourt depth and so many capable wing players, it's become common to view the Tigers' contingent of big men as the weak link in Mike Anderson's chain. While Missouri's big guys have held their own at times, the lack of size has become an issue for Anderson and limits the ceiling of his team this season, and into the future.

The first thing you notice about the Tigers' big guys is that they're really not that big. Laurence Bowers (6'8", 205 lb.) and Keith Ramsey (6'9", 210 lb.) are long but rail thin. Justin Safford (6'8", 230 lb.) looks and moves like a one-time guard that went through a late growth spurt. Well, that's exactly what he is. Steve Moore (6'9", 264 lb.) has the bulk, but lacks the athleticism of his cohorts.

That's it. Missouri's big man rotation was left short after recruit Keith DeWitt (6'11", 220 lb.) failed to gain entrance to the school because of academics. He's now at Chipola (Fla.) College, where he earned second-team All-Panhandle Conference honors and will hopefully join the Tigers down the line. The early returns on his game are that he's better on defense and on the boards than he is on offense and probably ought to stick close to the basket, which would make him stylistically different than Missouri's current big men except for the little-used Moore. When the Tigers signed DeWitt last year, he told Rivals.com that he fancies himself as another face-up four man.

Speaking of Moore, his playing time has increased of late thanks to the torn ACL Safford suffered in his left knee against Colorado on Feb 24. Safford's injury hasn't ruled him out for the season, but he hasn't played since and isn't expected to suit up for Missouri's regular-season finale against No. 2 Kansas on Saturday. Meanwhile, Moore has become a part of the rotation by default. Safford's injury also has thrust Bowers into the starting lineup, a role in which Bowers is having some trouble becoming comfortable.

With me, you know there's always going to be a stat, so I want to introduce you to "Effective Height." In terms of average height, Mizzou ranks 61st in the nation. Believe it or not, that's a higher ranking than Kansas, which checks in at 69th. However, average height doesn't tell the whole story, which is why we turn to Effective Height.

Developed by college hoops stat guru Ken Pomeroy, Effective Height tells a better story about a team's interior size by calculating the height of a team's centers and power forwards, weighting these numbers according to playing time, and comparing it to national averages. Once we've made all these adjustments, Mizzou ranks 108th in the nation in Effective Height, one inch more than the national average. Kansas jumps all the way to 26th, 2.9 inches better than average. The lesson here is that a team's size shouldn't be judged by the overall average of its roster, because the numbers show that in terms of evaluating how good a team is at big man skills (rebounding, blocking shots, defending the interior), Effective Height is much more effective.

So Missouri is effectively a small team for its conference. Baylor is the tallest team in the country by this measure, while Kansas (26th), Iowa State (30th), Colorado (51st), Texas A&M (74th), Kansas State (76th), Nebraska (101st) and Oklahoma (106th) also rank ahead of the Tigers. Despite this, Missouri is fifth in the Big 12 in shot-blocking percentage, similar to the ranking they held last season. However, the Tigers are seventh in offensive rebound percentage, 10th in defensive rebounding and, at the other end, 160th nationally in two-point field-goal percentage.

Some of this is, of course, the system Anderson runs. Given the lack of bulk on his roster, Anderson uses his big guys to space the floor and serve as disruptive forces on the press. With the exception of Moore, who lacks offensive skill at this point in his career, all of Missouri's big men are more comfortable playing a face-up game. Anderson didn't recruit these players to anchor the painted area and that's not what they do.

In my previous piece that made a stylistic comparison between Anderson's teams at Missouri and those of his mentor, Nolan Richardson, at Arkansas, I noted how the biggest difference was Missouri's lack of an offensive interior anchor similar to what Richardson had in Corliss Williamson. The difference in interior play is also the biggest difference between this year's Missouri team and the 31-7 version of the Tigers last season.

Mizzou's latest Elite Eight team was 25th in the nation in average height and 58th in Effective Height. So the Tigers were bigger, if not exactly big. Even so, Missouri was 28th in the nation in two-point percentage, which is a good indicator of the ability to score in the paint. Missouri also ranked nearly 100 spots higher nationally in foul-drawing rate last season. Those offensive advantages were important, because Missouri was even worse on the boards in 2008-09, more evidence that Anderson's system simply isn't conducive to efficient rebounding.

The inability to score consistently in the paint has been a big factor in the offensive droughts that have plagued Missouri throughout the season, costing the Tigers opportunities to gain big wins in close games against Texas A&M, at Kansas State, at Baylor and at Oklahoma. Eventually, when Missouri goes up against an excellent rebounding team that defends the paint, it's going to punch their ticket out of the NCAA Tournament.

We'll also see this shortcoming hurt the Tigers in Saturday's game against Kansas, which features perhaps the nation's best big man in Cole Aldrich. Without interior players to challenge Aldrich on offense, he'll be able to sag off his man and basically remove that part of the court from the Tigers. Once again, Mizzou will have to hope it gets hot on jump shots and that they force an avalanche of turnovers in order to beat Kansas. It's an important game for the Tigers, who must beat KU to gain a first-round bye in the Big 12 tournament.

The loss of DeWitt has been more significant than we originally thought. While Safford, Bowers and Ramsey are all effective in their roles and Bowers, especially, has a lot of upside, those players are all similar physically and stylistically. DeWitt would have complemented this rotation perfectly. DeWitt will have another juco season next year and the only power forward/center in Mizzou's highly-ranked 2010 recruiting class is Kadeem Green, who is currently listed at 185 pounds.

So the size problem isn't going away. Anderson probably won't ever go after a stud seven-footer because such a player just wouldn't be able to function in his system. However, Anderson has to figure out ways to fill the production gaps caused by having an undersized big man contingent. Until he does, the ceiling for Missouri is going to be limited.