After watching the basketball game yesterday (or, at least until CBS decided to make us watch Michigan-Michigan St), I concluded that front court depth is the one of the biggest problems this team has. Sure, Kim English needs to be better at just about everything. Sure, Mike Dixon could be more consistent. And of course, the defense simply needs to be better overall.

But watching Thomas Robinson tear up the offensive boards in the second half made me realize one thing that would change a lot for the Tigers. Yes, Justin Safford was pretty awful, but having him post up Robinson and try to keep Robinson from getting rebounds? Not really his strength. Safford is best utilized on the perimeter and as an infrequent body in the paint. He's had strong rebounding games, but I wonder how many of those boards came while matched up against someone smaller than him, with Bowers and Ratliffe also in the game.

When Safford has to play power forward or, god forbid, center, the Tigers are in trouble, as he is simply not strong enough on either end to take on either role. Ratliffe is the guy who should be banging bodies, but he has been severely ineffective lately. Perhaps teams have figured out that taking Ratliffe out of the game gives them a huge advantage?

The Mizzou front line is not deep. Ratliffe and Bowers are obviously the two players getting the most minutes, and for good reason. Steve Moore serves to get those two rest, play hustle defense, try to take a charge or two, and use up some fouls. Safford is for emergency use only. That's it. We saw what happened when Kimmie played power forward for half a game.

Imagine Ricardo not getting in foul trouble yesterday. At the very least he would have done a better job of keeping Robinson from the easy putbacks, but he may also have scored some points. Instead, he was on the bench, forcing at least Safford to play out of position.

In addition, since Safford is not a good post player on offense, and since Bowers is better getting the ball fifteen feet out or cutting to the basket (instead of posting up), the guards must do more. Driving to the basket must happen in a normal offense, whether to get layups or to draw fouls, but not having Ratliffe available in the paint means it is that much tougher to do. I wonder how many of English's offensive fouls or generally bad decisions happened with the bigs on the bench.

I'm not saying that the Tigers would have won (m)any more games with another man in the front court depth chart, or with a more consistent Ratliffe, but I have to believe that this is a very big reason behind the late slide.