Mizzou Links, 4-23-09

Well...not a good day for Mizzou on the diamonds.  First, Mizzou Softball only managed a split versus Iowa State instead of the preferred sweep.  Game one of yesterday's doubleheader--a 5-0 win--couldn't have gone any smoother, but ISU tripped Mizzou up 4-3 in game two.  The Missourian has more.

Here are the current Big 12 standings:

Missouri 11-3
Oklahoma 11-4
Texas 10-5
Baylor 10-5

With a sweep, Mizzou would have had at least a small chance to clinch the conference title this weekend, but oh well I guess.  They still hold onto a half-game lead with Oklahoma coming to town this weekend for a HUGE series.

Now to baseball, where...well...the Rachel Phelps Watch didn't change last night.  Mizzou took a 3-1 lead into the sixth inning last night against Kansas at Kauffman Stadium, but after 2 2/3 strong innings of relief, Ryan Clubb got lit up.  Preston Land hit a 3-run homerun, KU scored four in the inning (and added two more in the 8th), and KU won, 7-3.  The KC Star has more, and the Missourian has a good write-up and photo gallery of the fun event...which would have been a helluva lot more fun with a win.

The NFL Draft is on Saturday, meaning press outlets are taking advantage of writing about some of Mizzou's 2008 seniors one last time.  The Trib takes on Chase Coffman, PowerMizzou takes on William Moore, and the Post-Dispatch takes on Chase Patton.  From the (free) WillyMo article...

"I'm so proud of him. A guy that ends up being all Big 12, going to be drafted in the NFL, he's got his degree, he's voted captain, one of the great honors," Missouri coach Gary Pinkel said. "To think that this guy that came in here and started where he started, and where he ended up. That's why you coach football."

Simply to get to college, Moore had to overcome all that is Hayti, a town in which 48% of the people (according to city-data.com) did not finish high school. He knows he would not have done it without football.

"As hard as it is to say, probably not," he said. "It's hard to look at what I would have done if I didn't get that scholarship. My whole community, the guys I graduated with, is back here. It's hard to say what I would have done, but I couldn't afford school. That was out of the picture. Academics wouldn't have gotten me in. I don't know.

"If it wasn't for football, there was nothing else I could do here."

This rumor has been floating around for a day or two, and now it's legit enough for The Trib to write about it: looks like Melvin Watkins is one of the finalists for the Appalachian State head coaching job, well, sort of anyway...he denies he's talked to them, but FoxSports.com says he's a legit candidate...whatever.  Losing Watkins would be a little bit of a blow--clearly he fits in well with the staff, and he makes good pictures great--but despite his recruiting prowess, he really hasn't brought in any All-American talent to the program (we thought the world of Keon Lawrence, but that didn't work out), and I'm pretty sure Mike Anderson could replace him with a young, hungry coach if the cause arose.  But here's to hoping he's not going anywhere.

And finally, I couldn't link to this funny column by Joe Walljasper about the Mel Kiper/Todd McShay "rivalry"...if for no other reason than he compares Kiper's hair to Eddie Munster's...