General Mizzou Spring "Team" Sports Report (plus poll)

I am going to dispense with the "individual" report of Track and Field and leave that to the folks at www.mutigers.com.  I will be covering these sports in varying detail...Baseball, Softball, Men's and Women's Golf, and Women's Tennis.

All of this after the jump...

First off, my personal favorite sport...Baseball.  As many of you who actually pay attention to Mizzou in the spring (outside of the Spring Football stuff)  the baseball team has had a HORRIBLE go of it this year.  It started out bad in California and has not gotten better.  Even the players will admit it.  Currently the team is 16-23 (4-10 in the league) and sits in last place of the ten teams that play this diamond sport.  According to Warren Nolen (on Sunday at 7pm) Mizzou is 126th in the RPI which is 66 spots behind the next worst team (and that my friends is kU).  The new bats have had a DRASTIC effect on college scoring, pulling it DOWN across the board, but MU's bats seem to be the worst of the lot.  They sound dead.  Anyway, the team just did go down to Baylor and beat the Bears in 2 of three in Waco (BU is currently 7th in the Big 12 at 7-11).  The only other wins they have in league are home wins against OU (currently 3rd at 9-7) and kU (currently 5th at 9-9).  They were swept at UT(currently 2nd at 13-5) and OSU(currently 4th at 10-8).  THE MINIMUM amount of wins to make the Big 12 Tournament in OKC this year is nine.  They have 4 series left to do it in.  They host A&M this week (they are the current Big 12 leaders at 14-4), go to K-State (currently 6th at 8-10), then host Tech (currently 9th at 6-12) for their final home games of the year and then shuffle NU (currently 8th at 5-9) off to the Big 10 to finish the season.  Can this ball team do it?  I think they can but it will take a ton of work.

Softball:  Chelsea Thomas...that is all most people want to know about this team.  She is THE best pitcher on the team and possibly the BEST in the land (that is yet to be determined.)  But outside of this star pitcher, the team has had a balanced offense, good defense, agressive baserunning and some decent luck (which for most Missouri teams is not usual.)  The team is currently at 38-6 (10-2 in the Big 12 which is good enough for 2nd.)  The losses for this team are vs. Fresno State and Califonia in San Diego, vs. Alabama at South Florida, at North Texas, at Baylor (currently 4th at 7-5), and at Nebraska (currently 7th at 4-6) this last Friday.  If you notice a trend here, and you should, that means the Tigers have NOT lost at home. They currently have the Nation's Longest NCAA D-I Home Winning Streak at 32.  The remaining schedule for this team will be what determines the path to the WCWS for this team.  They host SIU-Edwardsville for one on Wednesday, then travel to Oklahoma State (currently 3rd at 7-4), host Western IL for a DH the next Wed. (5/4), host Texas (currently 1st at 11-0) and then finish up with Iowa State (currently 9th at 2-8) the next weekend to finish the home schedule.  Then, barring a COMPLETE collapse, host Regionals May 19-22.  Now many of you are saying at this point, what about the Big 12 tournament?  There is none, the coaches (along with some coaxing from the league I'm betting) decided to award the Autobid to NCAA's to the Regular Season Champ.  So, in order for that to MOST LIKELY have that happen to be Mizzou, the Tigers have to Sweep out.  UT's remaining league schedule is: At BU (1 game)(currently 4th at 7-5) on 4/27, vs. OU (currently 6th at 7-6), at A&M (1)(currently 5th at 6-5), at MU, and vs. BU (1 game) on the last Sunday of the season. As you can see, the schedule (outside of Mizzou) is not terribly daunting for the Longhorns.  But things are bright for this team in terms of Postseason.  They sit 5th in the NCAA RPI released on the 20th and still have strong games down the stretch to pretty much lock in to a host Regional.

Women's Golf:  The Women's golf team just finished hosting the Big 12 Tournament at Old Hawthorne in CoMO (as a side note, I REALLY wish I would've gone to this).  They came in third behind UT and A&M beating 5 other ranked teams along the way  (another side note: kU finished 11th just ahead of K-State, so chalk up 3 points to MU in the Border War standings.)  The postseason will be determined sometime this week.

Men's Golf:  They have their Conference Tournament starting Monday in Hutchison, KS.  They are expected to be one of the top teams in the tournament and are most likely going to Regionals.

Women's Tennis:  They finished their season Friday sweeping CU 7-0 in Boulder.  They were awarded the 8 seed in the Team Tournament this week and will face #9 seed Oklahoma State.  I do not think they will go to the NCAA's unless they win the Tournament.