Mizzou Links, 6-17-08

Today's football recruiting links bring some good news and some bad news. First, Lebanon OL Justin Britt received an offer from Mizzou...and pretty much immediately accepted it. I guess he was impressive during camp time, and since Tyler Evans went elsewhere, I guess there was an opening? Either way, as Gabe at PM tends to say, if they offered him in June, they probably think he's pretty damn good, so I guess that makes this a good pickup! That's 11 commits for Mizzou...not bad for mid-June.

News wasn't all good, however. Not only did TX QB Jacob Karam prove me wrong by not becoming the first out-of-stater to commit to Mizzou...he proved me doubly wrong by not committing to Mizzou at all--he announced for Texas Tech last night. A spread QB committing to Tech? I can't say that's a bad decision on his part...plus, maybe he has an affinity for pirates...

In all, though, the big news was who did commit. Some folks are starting to wring their hands about us once again going for the 'sleeper' types instead of locking down a bunch of 4-star kids with our newfound success. I'll probably write a full post about this soon, but for now I'll just say this: a) we built a Top 5 program on plenty of sleepers (need I bring up Carl Gettis and Stryker Sulak and Sean Weatherspoon and Brad Smith again?), and b) it takes a lot of winning to start convincing a bunch of 16-18 year olds you're here to stay. As far as I can tell, we've gone after at least 10 guys in the Rivals 100 (two in-state), and between probably 4 and 6 of them are going to give us a mediocre to serious shot. Nail down three of those and a handful of lower 4-star or upper 3-star out-of-staters...yeah, it's not a Top 10 class, but it would be pretty damn successful.

Dave Matter continues to take a look at the upcoming Big 12 season, this time by checking out whose statistical leaders are returning and whose aren't.

In his latest MU in the Minors piece, trripleplay finds updates on Garrett Broshuis, Andrew Johnston and Cody Ehlers. Johnston in particular is doing quite well.

In basketball, the next round of Big 12/Pac 10 Hardwood Series matchups have been announced--Mizzou hosts Cal on Pearl Harbor Day, while rebuilt Kansas and Kansas State squads will travel to Arizona and Oregon, respectively.

Finally, the Trib has more on Ben Askren's Olympic turn (as does the P-D...putting the chin in China? Nice.). Who are we sending to Beijing to cover this, anyway? The Beef?