Missouri
Vanderbilt basketball vs. Missouri: Score prediction in matchup of teams with no SEC wins
Two SEC basketball teams will enter this weekend winless in conference games, and only one will emerge.
When Vanderbilt (5-15, 0-7 SEC) and Missouri (8-13, 0-8) face off at Memorial Gymnasium on Saturday (2:30 p.m. CT, SEC Network), it will be the battle for the bottom. The Commodores are on a seven-game losing streak and the Tigers are on an eight-game losing streak. Both teams have lost 11 of their past 12 games, with the lone win coming on Dec. 30 against a Quadrant 4 opponent.
Missouri has shown a bit more than Vanderbilt this season, with a No. 118 KenPom ranking (Vanderbilt is No. 193) and two wins over top-100 opponents in Minnesota and Pittsburgh. Both also have a Quadrant 4 loss: the Commodores to Presbyterian, and the Tigers to Jackson State.
Here’s what you need to know about the matchup:
Is this Vanderbilt’s best chance for an SEC win?
KenPom gives Vanderbilt a 43% chance of winning this game, by far the highest of any remaining game. The next highest is a 32% chance in the home game against LSU.
That doesn’t mean that if Vanderbilt can’t win this game, that it will go winless in the SEC. But this is by far the best opportunity of avoiding that fate.
Strengths and weaknesses
Vanderbilt’s issue on offense is simply that it cannot shoot, ranking outside the top 300 nationwide in both 2-point and 3-point field goal percentage. The Commodores do some other aspects of offense fairly well, though. They do not turn the ball over much, they can get to the free-throw line and they are a good defensive rebounding team.
Missouri, on the other hand, is a better shooting team than Vanderbilt, especially on twos. The Tigers also avoid turning the ball over, but they are the worst team in the conference at offensive rebounding and second-worst at defensive rebounding. Missouri does not get to the free-throw line much on offense and also fouls a lot when on defense.
Undersized teams
Missouri and Vanderbilt are both relatively undersized.
The Commodores’ tallest active player is Carter Lang at 6-foot-9. Missouri does have a few players taller, including 7-footer Jordan Butler and 7-5 Connor Vanover, but neither player makes a huge impact: Vanover averages 4.2 points and 2.7 rebounds in 12 minutes per game and Butler averages two points and 2.1 rebounds in 9.4 minutes.
The Tigers do have one tall guard in Tamar Bates, who is 6-5. Bates is Missouri’s second-leading scorer with 13.8 points per game.
Despite the lack of size, the Tigers do excel at blocking shots, and everyone on the roster can generate steals thanks to coach Dennis Gates’ defense.
ESTES Vanderbilt doesn’t want to fire Jerry Stackhouse, but it may not have a choice
Score prediction
Vanderbilt 68, Missouri 64: With a manageable home game against the team with which it is tied for last, there is no better opportunity for Vanderbilt to get its first SEC win.
Aria Gerson covers Vanderbilt athletics for The Tennessean. Contact her at agerson@gannett.com or on Twitter @aria_gerson.
Missouri
Missouri consumers file class-action lawsuit against Good Day Farm
A marijuana dispensary chain with locations in Springfield and Columbia is again facing allegations of creating a monopoly to take advantage of the Missouri recreational marijuana market.
Damon Toussaint Frost Jr. filed a class-action lawsuit May 4 in Jackson County Circuit Court against Good Day Farm, Missouri’s largest dispensary chain.
Frost, who is identified in the court filing as a Missouri resident who has purchased recreational cannabis from GDF, alleges that the dispensary chain’s and its affiliates have conspired to monopolize recreational cannabis sales in Missouri, resulting in Missouri consumers paying significantly higher prices than they would have in a free market. Frost and other class members — defined in the suit as Missouri citizens who have purchased recreational cannabis products from Good Day Farm or its affiliates in Missouri — are seeking that the “illegal conspiracy” be dismantled and that they be compensated for damages.
Frost is represented by Michael Williams of Williams Dirks Dameron in Kansas City. Williams did not respond to a request for comment as of publication.
A spokesperson for GDF denied the allegations.
“The claims in this lawsuit are baseless and without merit. Our company operates in full compliance with all applicable Missouri state laws and regulations, and we will vigorously defend that record,” the spokesperson wrote in an email Friday, May 15, afternoon. “We will not allow aggressive legal tactics to distract us from what matters most: our mission to deliver uninterrupted service and exceptional products to the patients, customers and employees who rely on us.”
This isn’t the first class-action lawsuit filed against the dispensary chain. In April, two Missouri-licensed cultivators and manufacturers alleged that GDF violated the Missouri Constitution and created a “cartel.”
Like in the April lawsuit, Frost’s lawsuit alleges that the “GDF consortium” — which includes Good Day Farm Dispensaries, Codes Dispensaries, Greenlight, 3Fifteen Primo and Fresh Karma — has control of about 25% of dispensary licenses in Missouri. The Missouri Constitution mandates that entities are limited to owning, controlling or managing no more than 10% of the total dispensary licenses in Missouri.
In order to circumvent the 10% cap, GDF “arranged for investors to invest into limited liability companies” that would then acquire already-licensed entities from owners, court records said, and would then be operated by GDF. The lawsuit alleges that GDF created four limited liability companies.
It also alleges that GDF employees, including the compliance director, general counsel and former director of investor relations, were listed on paperwork for various Codes, Greenlight and Fresh Karma dispensaries.
“Defendants anticompetitive conduct (i) robs consumers of choice and selection of products, and (ii) leaves third parties to compete for a significantly (and increasingly) small sliver of shelf space in the overall Missouri market,” the petition said. “In addition, Defendants misconduct will likely result in fewer competitive brands on the market, substantially reduced diversity of products available and sold, and, ultimately, to fewer choices, lower quality, and higher prices for consumers.”
Missouri
Crews safely remove individual from house fire Friday in Kansas City, Missouri
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A resident of a home was able to escape serious injury Friday following a house fire in Kansas City, Missouri.
Crews were dispatched around 12:33 p.m. Friday to the 8000 block of Euclid Avenue in Kansas City.
The one-story residence had “heavy smoke and fire” showing when firefighters arrived, per a press release from KCFD.
The fire department brought one person from inside the house to safety, and the individual did not need medical treatment.
City Planning and Dangerous Buildings was requested.
An investigation into the cause of the fire is underway.
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Missouri
Lawsuit aims to block Missouri income tax amendment from ballot
A lawsuit filed Wednesday, May 13 seeks to knock a proposed constitutional amendment off Missouri’s 2026 ballot that would give lawmakers new power to expand sales taxes to eliminate the income tax, arguing legislators bundled too many subjects into one proposal and wrote misleading ballot language.
The lawsuit, filed in Cole County Circuit Court by attorney Chuck Hatfield on behalf of a Missouri resident, challenges a proposed ballot question that would ask voters to amend the Missouri Constitution to begin phasing out the state individual income tax.
The measure, approved by the legislature last month, is expected to appear on the November ballot unless Gov. Mike Kehoe moves it to another election. Kehoe has made eliminating the income tax one of his top priorities, arguing it would make Missouri more competitive with states that do not tax individual income.
But the lawsuit argues the proposal is constitutionally defective and should be blocked from any ballot. In the alternative, it asks the court to rewrite the summary statement voters would see.
The lawsuits central legal argument is that the proposal violates constitutional limits on ballot measures by including more than one subject and effectively amending multiple articles of the Missouri Constitution.
“This is precisely the logrolling harm the multi-article rule was designed to prevent,” the lawsuit argues, contending voters who support eliminating the income tax could be forced to also accept provisions they oppose, such as expanding the sales tax or changing how road funds and local taxes are handled.
The lawsuit also argues the proposal would improperly expand the constitutional role of the state auditor by requiring the office to calculate reduced tax rates triggered by the amendment. The petition contends that duty is not related to auditing the receipt or expenditure of public funds, which the Missouri Constitution says is the limit of the auditor’s authority.
Instead, the lawsuit argues, the amendment would give the auditor a new rate-setting or revenue-modeling role, including authority to calculate changes affecting tax rates set elsewhere in the constitution.
A spokesperson for Secretary of State Denny Hoskins, who was among the named respondents in the lawsuit, did not respond to a request for comment.
If passed, the proposal would direct lawmakers to set a revenue baseline and triggers for phased-in reductions in the top tax rate. It also allows five years for the legislature to write a new sales tax law, which must be directly tied to cuts in the top income tax rate in a manner supporters hope will not increase or decrease revenue.
Currently Missouri has an income tax with a top rate of 4.7% for taxable incomes greater than about $9,200 a year. The sales tax is 3% for general revenue, but earmarked state taxes and local options stack on top of that, creating a rate that is 7% to 8% in most locations and can be as much as 12% in some special districts.
The sales tax applies to physical goods and excludes services. The Missouri Constitution prohibits lawmakers from applying the sales tax to real estate transfers and any goods or services not currently taxed, but those provisions would not apply to any sales tax plan passed as a result of the constitutional amendment.
Missouri gets about 65% of its state revenue from income tax, about 22% from sales tax and the rest from other sources including a corporate income tax. To replace the revenue from the income tax without expanding coverage of the sales tax would increase the tax rate by as much as 8.5%.
State law exempts residential utility costs, prescription drugs and groceries from all or a portion of the current sales tax. There are also dozens of other sales tax exemptions, mainly tied to business operations as an economic development tool.
The lawsuit also challenges the ballot summary approved by lawmakers.
The summary asks voters whether the Missouri Constitution should be amended to “phase-out the individual income tax based on revenue growth,” “reduce personal property and other local taxes when local revenues increase,” “modify the sales and use tax to eliminate income tax and reduce local taxes” and “protect local funding for public schools and other purposes.”
The lawsuit argues that language is unfair and insufficient because it does not tell voters that the amendment would allow lawmakers to tax services now protected from sales taxes, would temporarily exempt certain tax increases from constitutional limits on new annual revenue and would permanently bar lawmakers from reimposing an individual income tax once it is eliminated.
The lawsuit takes particular aim at the word “modify,” arguing it fails to convey the breadth of the sales-tax authority voters would be granting lawmakers.
“A voter reading ‘modify the sales and use tax’ would not be apprised that the resolution authorizes the state to begin taxing services such as haircuts, legal fees, home repairs, medical services, accounting, and any other service currently exempt from sales tax,” the lawsuit states.
It also argues the phrase “protect local funding for public schools and other purposes” is argumentative because the word “protect” encourages support for the measure rather than neutrally describing what it does.
“If the people are allowed to have a fair vote, they’ll vote this amendment down,” Hatfield said in an interview May 13. “But the ballot summary the legislature wants to show them is just not fair or accurate.”
The governor called on lawmakers in January to place an income-tax phaseout on the ballot, saying voter approval would allow lawmakers to act next session.
Supporters of the amendment have argued that eliminating the income tax would help Missouri attract residents, jobs and investment. During debate over the proposal, Republicans framed it as a long-term economic growth strategy and a way to let Missourians keep more of what they earn.
Opponents have argued the plan would shift the tax burden toward sales taxes, raising costs for people who spend a larger share of their income on taxable goods and services. They have also warned that the ballot language does not make clear that voters would be authorizing a broader sales tax in order to replace revenue from the income tax.
The lawsuit asks the court to permanently block Hoskins from placing the measure on any ballot. If the court declines to do that, it asks for a new summary statement that “fairly and accurately conveys the central purpose and probable effects” of the amendment.
This story was first published at missouriindependent.com.
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