Mizzou Links, 2-10-10

For whatever reason, it was a GREAT day for links yesterday ... good Mizzou basketball profiles ... a nice scholarship breakdown from Matter ... a nice look at Pinkel and his dad ... and a ton of great non-Mizzou links about money in college football, Houston-Louisville '83, Herschel Walker, etc.

Mizzou Basketball Links

• Post-Dispatch: Mike Dixon has become fast learner

  A 6-foot-1, 175-pound guard from Lee's Summit (Mo.) West High, Dixon is the lone first-year player in MU coach Mike Anderson's 10-man rotation. He's averaging 7.9 points, 2.0 assists and 1.3 steals in 17.8 minutes a game.
  
  He should be producing more, Dixon insisted.
  
  "I think I'm doing OK for the most part, as far as helping the team and things like that," he said. "But individually, I think I'm playing a little under what I could."
  
  In addition to adding some muscle and working on the "mental game," Dixon said he's targeting two specific areas:
  
  — "Trying to get a better feel for moving without the ball on offense."
  
  — "Putting myself in the right position on defense."

• The Missourian: Zaire Taylor calming force for Missouri
• KC Star: Marcus Denmon doesn't force shots -- he makes them

  Denmon, a sophomore guard from Hogan Prep, has hit 20 of 41 for 48.8 percent. His 20 threes made ranks sixth — and the five Big 12 players ahead of him have taken 11 (Oklahoma’s Tommy Mason-Griffin and Oklahoma State’s Obi Muonelo) to 31 (Kansas State’s Jacob Pullen) more attempts than Denmon.

  Well, that may leave you wondering why Denmon isn’t launching more shots.

  "I don’t force much," Denmon said. "I just try to let the game come to me.

  "If it’s a shot that’s there, I try to take it. Sometimes other guys have it going. I’m not the kind of player where I want to be like a ball hog."

  Denmon, on the way to a career-high 22 points in Missouri’s victory Saturday at Colorado, hit six of nine shots, including four of six from three-point range.

  So Missouri coach Mike Anderson doesn’t want to change anything about Denmon’s game.

  "Marcus is doing fine," Anderson said once, twice and three times in an emphatic row.

• PowerMizzou: The Starting Five
• Clone Chronicles: Missouri preview
• The Trib (Steve Walentik): Anderson a character to new Nolan Richardson book

  When did you start working on the book?

  Three years ago. He got fired seven or eight years ago, and I just was thinking about it. I'm supposed to be a fiction writer, but it was just too good of a story to pass up. It's very much rags-to-riches and against-all-odds kind of stuff, but also it's a strange thing about his life that his life sort of represents, at the same time, it simultaneously represents the incredible possibilities of growing up in America but also the limitations. How can someone's life represent both possibility and limitations? Well, Nolan's seems to do it.

  And you know, Mike is a big part of the book, although his photo got cut. I guess he's in it as an NIT champion player in the group shot, but Mike's a big part of the story. When Nolan's daughter (Yvonne) died, that was obviously a crucial part of his life, but I wanted to be able to tell the story without being overly sentimental and tell it from fresh eyes. So that part of the story is told through Mike Anderson's eyes because he was driving her back and forth to the hospital a lot at that time.

Project for the summer: a Rock M Book Club. First up: the Nolan Richardson book listed above.

Big 12 Links

• Texas Tech 72, Oklahoma 71
  ESPN.com: Texas Tech hangs on to sweep season series vs. Oklahoma
• KC Star: Kansas edges closer to perfect history
  KC Star (Upon Further Review): KU's chances to run the Big 12 table
• Rush the Court: Messing With Texas -- What Happened Here?
  Dallas Morning News: Kansas Coach doesn't understand why Longhorns are playing so poorly
  

FOOTBALL

• The Trib (Dave Matter): An early glance at MU's 2010 roster
• KC Star: Father's death sparks memories for MU coach Pinkel
• PowerMizzou: [DeSmet junior-to-be Durron] Neal 'loves' Mizzou
• Denver Post (Blog): Darrell Scott to Boulder Camera: I'm not coming back

Other Mizzou Links

• Mizzou Women's Basketball
  The Missourian: Male practice squad a plus for Missouri
• Mizzou Track & Field
  The Missourian: Missouri track star Nick Adcock won't stop after graduation

Other

• The Trib (Joe Walljasper): More isn't better in March
• Dr. Saturday: Welcome, Pac-10, to the hypothetical expansion parade
• Tomahawk Nation: What It Takes to be Consistently Successful in College Football
• ESPN.com: E-ticket: Jamfest For The Ages (written a couple of years ago by my FO colleague Rob Weintraub...great stuff that I I missed the first time around)
• EDSBS: DECONSTRUCTION FUNCTION: SEPTEMBER 6TH, 1980 (I had completely forgotten this run took place in Herschel's DEBUT...)