Mizzou Links, 5-5-2014: In which you will love Kim Anderson. LOVE HIM. LOVE. HIM.

Kim Anderson's hire set off a week of unabashed gushing from media outlets across the state. Plus: Mizzou and LSU will play in the quarterfinals of the SEC Softball Tournament on Thursday, Baseball gets swept by Vanderbilt, and the Mizzou Women's Track team is really damn good.

1. Kim Anderson and media coverage

Here's the deal, though: We would all come around by the beginning of the season, at least on this site. I don't know what the effect would be on ticket sales overall -- for all we know, for every new season ticket buyer who comes aboard because we're "getting back to our roots," there might be another who decides we must have given up on hoops and gives up.
But the odds are very good that Kim Anderson would win a lot of people over in a short amount of time, especially if he hires the right kind of staff. (Retaining Tim Fuller would certainly be a lovely gesture, but there's nothing saying Fuller would want to work for him, and as I've mentioned before, you don't make a specific hire because of short-term recruiting goals.) But Kim Anderson is, by all accounts, a really good guy. And whether being a True Son is a good enough reason to make him a candidate, if he were to get the job, he would say amazingly heartfelt things about this university, and it will make us all feel really good. Norm Stewart will give some incredible interviews, and it will make us all feel really good. The marketing department will almost certainly come up with some strong material, and it will make us all feel really good. Feeling good isn't enough of a reason to think things will work out. But it's still something.

I said that last Saturday, as the odds of Anderson becoming head coach seemed to be increasing. And I still believe pretty much every word. Anderson has aced every interview, has caravanned around the state, has kept Fuller, has landed a 2014 basketball commitment, has inspired some happy Norm quotes, etc. He has basically done everything right in his first seven days on the job, and I do think that most of us who were somewhere between underwhelmed and appalled by his hiring feel better about it now than they did last Monday. I know I do, and as I'll write in the future, I actually find myself feeling better about this coming year's squad than a lot of people seem to.

One thing I hadn't really counted on, however, was the "You're going to like him. No, you're going to love him. YOU'RE. GOING. TO. LOVE HIM. COME HOME, KIM. EVERYBODY'S GOING TO LOVE KIM ANDERSON" role the media has played, not only since his hiring, but since the job came open altogether. This was discussed in comments yesterday, and I agree with a lot the sentiment.

This is certainly the honeymoon phase, where almost any hire is treated to a series of "How he got here" and "Hey, this seems like a pretty good guy" pieces. But the pieces began before Anderson was hired, and they are 100 percent certain that Anderson will work out beautifully, and ... I feel like I'm looking a gift horse in the mouth. Gushing Anderson stories are infinitely better than the opposite, but at this point, they've gotten incredibly tiresome. And I feel strange complaining about that. So I'll stop. Here are a couple of the few better basketball pieces I read over the weekend.

The Trib: New Missouri coach made a memorable impact at every stop along his path

Sealing the border
The Trib: Anderson hopes state's best stop running for border

Pretty much
Fox Sports MW: Anderson inherits a largely unproven roster at Mizzou

Loos
KC Star: Q&A: Meet new Missouri assistant basketball coach Brad Loos

2. #TeamStubble will play LSU on Thursday

MUtigers.com: Miscues Allow Alabama to Escape from University Field, 2-0
The Trib: Tigers lose to Bama in finale
The Missourian: No. 13 Missouri softball ends regular season with loss to No. 6 Alabama
KBIA Sports: Errors prove to be fatal for Missouri softball team

So after losing two of three tight, intense games to conference champion Alabama, Mizzou ended up drawing the 3-seed in the SEC Tournament behind the Tide and No. 2 Tennessee. You can find the bracket here. It's a single-elimination tournament, and Mizzou will face No. 6 LSU in the first round at 11:00 a.m. ET on Thursday.

SEC Tournament
The Trib: Third-seeded MU softball team draws LSU in SEC Tournament quarterfinals
AL.com: SEC softball tournament field set; Top-seeded Alabama could play Auburn in quarterfinals