ESPN reports that Mike Anderson will remain at Missouri, signing a new 7-year deal.

It’s hard to compare offers head-to-head with all of the different incentives that are separate from the base and guaranteed money, but it looks as if Anderson chose to remain at Missouri despite an offer speculated to be several hundreds of thousands of dollars higher from Georgia.

It’s certainly a bad blow, and the public rejection is egg on the face. No way to spin that. There are other quality coaches though, and the numbers reportedly involved in the Anderson offer have to be attractive to some of them.

Make no mistake, this isn’t a failure of effort. Georgia put their best foot forward and outbid Missouri. Offering over $2 million for a hoops coach is a serious indication of commitment to the basketball program and would make Georgia one of the higher-paying programs in the nation. That’s a good first step, but now it’s time to close.

As to who might be next on the list, there’s all sorts of speculation, but little of it can be believed. If the search firm and athletic department were this quiet up to now, they’re not suddenly going to publish a list of the next three guys to be contacted. A lot of the names you might hear will surface simply because opportunistic agents are trying to get their guys talked about.

And don’t forget Wednesday’s date…