http://www.secjams.com/2012/03/your-guide-to-saturdays-in-columbia/

Your Guide to Saturdays in Columbia

With Mizzou being one of the two babies introducing themselves to the rest of the SEC in 2012, it is understandable that fans from all parts of the conference would come to the beautiful city of Columbia, Missouri to check out their new rivals. The campus is beautiful, the town is alive, and gameday will fit right in with other schools in the greatest conference in college football. Columbia has exquisite food and drink locations around town that will make both families and college students come back year after year.

If you are looking for the number one bar that you must attend in Columbia, look no further than Harpo’s: Great service, countless televisions, multiple bars, and cheap specials. The bar gained national attention after Mizzou students carried the goalpost from their upset win over #1 Oklahoma all the way to Harpo’s, where they distributed pieces to all of those who pitched in to the effort. The self-proclaimed title of "THE Missouri Bar" does not disappoint.

Another great place to stop in at in Columbia is Willie’s/Fieldhouse. This spot combines the personality of two bars into one location that will fit anyone’s needs. Willie’s allows you to sit down, have a meal, play some pool, and watch the day’s games. It is a great family bar. On the opposite side of the spectrum, Fieldhouse is made for one purpose, to drink alcohol. Two levels, three bars, and a large patio, it is the perfect place to come if you are out of a ticket for the game and want to enjoy it with a few hundred Tiger fans.

While not really a bar, a place to head to get your tailgating off to the right start is Tropical Liquors, or Trops as the kids call it. The carry-out alcoholic beverage store will get you moving in the right direction with drinks such as the "Tiger Paw" featuring peach snapps, Bacardi 151 rum, pineapple juice, and orange juice, all mixed perfectly into a slushie. The drinks are reasonably priced for the ample amount of liquor in each cup and nothing says college football like being buzzed at 10:30 AM.

Last but definitely not least, if there is anything that you have heard about CoMo food, it is most likely Shakespeare’s Pizza. Winner of Good Morning America’s Best College Hangout, this pizza joint is the perfect mainstay right in the middle of town. Featuring some of the best meat lover’s in the state and some good gameday drink specials, this is the ideal place to bring families for the game, assuming you can get a table. Two locations in town help alleviate the wait times, but this pizza is worth waiting for.

All in all, there is something for everyone to have a good time in Columbia and we look forward to meeting our future rivals in the coming years.

John Guminski @JohnGuminski

[Bumped to the Front Page.]

With a month and a half in the books, let's take a look at some of the numbers from the baseball team to date. Technically these stats are only through March 30, but I might not be motivated to do this tomorrow, so today's 4-3 win over aTm isn't reflected in what you see below. Overall, Mizzou is 16-10 and 3-2 in the conference, recovering nicely from an early 5 game losing streak(including a sweep at the hands of San Francisco). A win tomorrow to take the series from #7 aTm, in College Station no less, would set them up very nicely to keep themselves in the top half of the conference. On to the individual numbers.....

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So we're hearing a lot of whisperings about how the impending 4-team college football playoff will go down (I'm taking it as a given at this point that there will be 4 teams involved in some form of playoff/plus-1 starting in 2014). It appears that one of the most contentious issues on the table is whether to include a conference champion requirement (that is, you must be a conference champion to qualify for the playoffs). Several conference commissioners not residing in the former Confederacy favor the requirement. Mike Slive and Stewart Mandel (among probably a host of other sportswriters) oppose it.

Being from Missouri, the home of perhaps the most famous compromise in our nation's history, I am instinctively compelled to seek a middle ground in the face of any divisive argument. I therefore propose the following Brilliant Compromise (okay I'm kidding about the Brilliant part, but I actually think this is a pretty good idea)...

First off, I actually like the idea of requiring playoff participants to be conference champions. It moves the national championship one step closer to being settled on the field, and a step further away from being a beauty contest. It moves the criteria away from some subjective idea of who we all think the best teams are, and towards a set of objective requirements (win your conference championship based on clearly defined criteria in each conference). Of course it doesn't solve everything -- you still have to decide who the "best" four conference champions are (and you have to deal with Notre Dame), but that seems much less contentious than the current situation.

But I also understand that any system that doesn't include the "best" two teams would be a deal-breaker for many, and in cases like this past season just wouldn't pass the laugh test.

So here's what I propose: take the top 4 conference champions, UNLESS the 1st or 2nd ranked team (using whatever ranking system is in place) is not a conference champion. In that case, the wildcard team would bump the 4th ranked conference champ. Note that this is different from having 3 champs and a wildcard. In this case the wildcard would ONLY be eligible if ranked #1-2.

I'd like to think this would satisfy most people on both sides of the issue. We're allowing for a wildcard, but that wildcard would have a higher bar to pass than in most sports. The conference champion requirement would be the rule and would apply in probably 9 of 10 seasons. The wildcard would be the exception and would allow for cases like Alabama in 2011. If the system were in place last year, Alabama would have bumped #10 Wisconsin.

There are other details to sort out. Would the wildcard get the seed corresponding to their ranking, or drop to the 4 seed as a penalty for not winning their conference? What would happen if both 1 and 2 were not conference champs (two wildcards)? How would you account for Notre Dame? I could also consider an argument for relaxing the wildcard ranking threshold (maybe include the top ranked non-champ if ranked in top 4, for example). But those are relatively minor in comparison.

I like it, it seems like a rational compromise, so of course it will never happen (unless Mike Slive is reading this on his way home from KC).

Bill's post on Monday morning gave me great joy, as nearly any post about Laurence Bowers is apt to do. Also giving me joy was the inclusion of the current frontrunner for greatest GIF in Mizzou fandom.

The best part about it may not be Flip, Cardo or Dixon, but rather Bowers crashing it on the left at the very end. But, as history shows after the jump, it's not the first time L-Bo has crashed the party.

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Recently, I posted about a study I am conducting regarding rivalry and realignment in intercollegiate athletics. In particular, I am interested in gauging rival perceptions of fans impacted by realignment. If you would like to give your opinion regarding your rival team in the current and future conference and have not had the chance to take the survey, please follow the link below.

Click here for survey

Thank you for your participation. It is greatly appreciated

I propose that basketball is sufficiently luck-driven that, like baseball, a single elimination tournament is a poor way to discover the best team.

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I will not get over this loss for a long, long time. This whole weekend I've tried to not think about it, and then I hear something that reminds me of the game, or see a game, and I just get depressed again. The cashier at HyVee today even brought it up and I about went off on her. But i was talking to my dad tonight, and we both agreed on a really good point: This is what makes sports worth it. I always ask myself after losses like this, "Why do I care so much? Wouldn't it be easier to just not care?" Yes it would be easier, but it wouldn't make my life any better. Its losses like these that make winning so much sweeter. Its losing to Oklahoma in football every year that makes beating them and rushing the field one of the best nights of my life. Its losing to kU countless times, that made this year's game in Columbia the best game I've ever been to, and still gives me chills today when i think about Denmon scoring those 9 points in the last 2 minutes. Sure I'd love to be UNC or Duke and be a 1 or 2 seed every year and have several championships, but that makes being a fan easy. I don't want easy. A lot of my friends here at Mizzou are basically casual fans, and while they get excited when we win, and are disappointed when we lose, they don't honestly care that much. Sure It would have made this weekend a lot less depressing if I were like that, but the joy I felt after beating kU this year, and being there when we won the Big 12, makes all of my sorrows of losing so worth it. Sometimes I hate sports, and they make my life miserable, but my dad put it best: The joy of victory, and even the agony of defeat, make you feel alive. So, as much as it may hurt sometimes, I will keep on passionately rooting for my Tigers, and when the day comes that we finally break through to the Final Four, or the BCS Championship, I will be there and be able to feel an incredible satisfaction knowing that I've stuck with Mizzou through all the tough times. I will always be a True Son because I love this team, I love this University, and I love sports.

In the NY Times, Gordon Marino wrote this about Danish philosopher, Soren Kierkegaard..."Though he was a genius of the intellectual high wire, Kierkegaard was a philosopher who wrote from experience. And that experience included considerable acquaintance with the chronic, disquieting feeling that something not so good was about to happen. In one journal entry, he wrote, “All existence makes me anxious, from the smallest fly to the mysteries of the Incarnation; the whole thing is inexplicable, I most of all; to me all existence is infected, I most of all. My distress is enormous, boundless; no one knows it except God in heaven, and he will not console me….”

I know that many people are spewing out poetic articles that will convey their thoughts in a manner much more eloquently that I could ever sew together. Saying that, I believe it is cathartic if I allow myself to type away some of the angst that I am feeling as a tiger fan right about now.

I present to you the following song that I can't help but feel is appropriate currently. The title of the song is called "Marchin' On".

For those doubts that swirl all around us,
For those lives that tear at the seams,
We know, We're not what we've seen.

I know it's easy to doubt our team when we're down. However, we must focus on what we have in front of us in a broader sense. We must fight the urge to just say "What have you done for me lately?". The Tigers took the floor right out from underneath us - no doubt about that. However, they took the floor from under us that they built. These four year seniors (Denmoney, Kimmeh, Sutton, Steeeeeeeve) took a program that centered around a nightclub in downtown Columbia to a program that I am proud of. We are not a final loss, we are a group of Tigers that will do great things in this world - mostly off the court.

For this dance we'll move with each other.
There ain't no other step than one foot,
Right in front of the other.

We are where we are. We're low, I know. However, we have no choice but to move on. One part of the reason that I have stayed so optimistic as a Mizzou fan is because of the fact that we have to wonderful website that tries to stay level headed. We must keep moving forward and accept this for what it was, a blip on an otherwise extremely successful athletic program. There are very few programs out there that can hang in terms of well rounded success while doing it with a truly first class demeanor. We must keep moving forward with the faith that we are doing things in the right way. I do not want to become a Kentucky that is just a pit stop for the pros. I do not want to be a kansas that sacrifices all other programs to become great at one. I want to be Mizzou. I want to have players that absolutely bleed black and gold for life (Kimmy, Chase, Spoon, Brad Smith, and so on..). We must keep moving forward, the work has to pay off eventually.

We'll have the days we break,
And we'll have the scars to prove it,
We'll have the bonds that we save,
But we'll have the heart not to lose it.

As Missouri fans, we all have our scars. No doubt about it. Chalk O'Quinn up there with Tyus Edney, Junior Louissaint, The Flea Kicker, and the Fifth Down. However, we must maintain faith that we are doing things the right way, and when the day comes for that last winning point and we're crying and covered in beer marching around Harpo's.. we will know that you can't truly appreciate the highs without the lows. Remember how today feels, because one day - It will all be that much sweeter to enjoy.

Right, Left, Right Left... We're marching on.

Thank you for reading this attempt at writing from a simply accounting major. MIZ!

"They deserved better."

No matter how much further down the black hole of bourbon I plunge, my mind carelessly wanders back to that phrase.

Missouri didn't deserve to win on Friday afternoon. Missouri also didn't deserve to lose. Funny how that works out when two talented teams are given only 40 minutes to declare a victor. (And, of course, countless credit is owed to Norfolk State for playing a phenomenal game on Friday. Respect, y'all.)

We here at Rock M Nation have a very odd niche in the grander purview of college athletics, Mizzou Athletics in particular. To describe a typical Missouri fan as self-loathing would be an understatement of almost criminal proportions. Missouri fans are the most optimistic masochists you've ever met in your lives. They'll spend their lives preparing for the gut punch and let their guard down only as the blow is in mid-delivery. Bill and I have long since scoffed at the "Same old Missouri" mentality, and with valid reason hidden behind the thickened layers of cynicism. Beyond the blinding reflection of confirmation bias lies the fact that metaphorical bar continues to be pushed, a fact lost among those whose metaphorical bar somehow filters success through a colander that leaves behind only the black sludge of carefully handpicked moments of despair for use in our collective misery.

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