I felt remarkably good on Sunday given the Saturday a few of you might have read about in the comments portion of the live thread. At any rate, it was another crazy and somewhat surreal weekend as Mizzou football kept it going, and Mizzou basketball started up. We’ll try to keep this short since the seasons overlapping means a LOT of paragraphs to write. Here we go...
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Football:
Once again, there are few things (if any) out there which have not been said yet about the game and the team. I don’t really know where to start when describing the caliber of football we are seeing from this team, and how they are KILLING The Boy’s fancy numerical predictor numbers (really? You missed by FORTY on the game?). Anyway, I did expect a little more out of CU, but got all of what I hoped from MU. Chase Daniel certainly the Buffs pay for their cover 1 and cover 2 plan. Though no runner was terribly GREAT (all good), we still racked up a nice, comfortable amount of yards on the ground, and Derr Washington (game attendees will understand this) continues to assert himself as the leader for next years featured back. The defense continues to improve and stepped up nicely after the game vs. evidently improving ISU.
As for this week, everyone is saying aTm is dead in the water with a lame duck coach and a team that has quit on him. I won’t use the cliché of "believing it when I see it"....I believe it. I don’t feel aTm can really do much anything on offense at this point. Stephen McGee is a one-man show at this point, and it is not a great show right now. Clearly aTm can be thrown on, as OU displayed with Bradford throwing for 5 TD’s, and I would expect about the same from Chase. What I will also expect is not only a Mizzou win, but with another day like that for Chase, more serious talk about him moving into top 5 status for the Heisman. And to just think about it...with up to five games to go (aTm, kSU, kU, OU and Bowl game), Chase will pass 3,000 yards in the first quarter of this coming game. 4,500 yards is a VERY attainable number for the season with 35 TD’s. (at 23 currently) That would certainly make him a favorite for next year.
Basketball:
I did not watch a lot of the game on Saturday against UMSL, but took a second to look at the box score. I was pleased to see the offensive rebounding from Leo Lyons and the extended play of Justin Safford. He has nice moves for a big man and good quickness...would love to see him a little thicker, but that will come with time. I feel like I know what to expect from Hannah and Lawrence-squared, and believe Tiller has improved. Carroll seems to have impressed. Not sure what to make the increasing enigma that is Marshall Brown, but we shall see. I think we SHOULD be a little better than we were last year, but I also know the schedule is a good deal tougher this year, so hopefully that will not bite us with a perceived "Step back".
Volleyball:
The Boy has already commiserated plenty about the lost chance we had in volleyball Wednesday night up at Nebraska, but it was nice to see the ladies bounce back at home against a decent Baylor team and....of course....win in 5 games...again. I know that is their 10th 5-gamer of the season, and I believe we are 6-4 in them. With the mid-week bye, they will next play a 1 win in conference TTech down in Lubbock next Saturday. That should get the ladies back to .500 at 8-8, and they will then need to win 3 out of their last 4 to get them back to their record of last year, which was good enough to get them into the NCAA’s. (not saying it will this season, just something to shoot at). 2 of those games are at home, and the toughest is at OU. The others, (home vs. ISU and CU and at aTm) are winnable.
Soccer:
Well, the ladies have stumbled considerably down the stretch, as they fell at Lawrence against kansas, who used the win to propel themselves past MU in the standings to the 3rd seed in the upcoming tourney. MU will take the 4th seed and play Wednesday afternoon against #5 TTech. On the season, Mizzou went down to Tech and beat the Raiders 2-0. Moving on, they would (likely) play aTm in the semis, which they also defeated this season in a 3-2 2OT classic.
For the regular season, Mizzou finishes 12-6 and 6-4 in conference. Hopefully a few wins in the Big XII tourney will propel them to a higher NCAA seed and some continued success. Leading scorer Kristen Andrighetto was held scoreless in the season finale, but finished with 12 goals and 8 assists. Right on her heels was sophomore Michelle Collins with 11 goals and 4 assists, as well as frosh Alysha Bonnick with 9 goals and 8 assists. Of course, all these fine players will return for at least 2 more years, so the future remains bright for Mizzou soccer.
Swimming:
Both the men and women started off their weekend real well, with the men coming out on Friday and taking down Drury and Southern Illinois by similar scores of 96-52 and 90-57. Moving to Saturday, they came right back and took down SMS by around the same score of 97-51, using their depth to take down the Bears. On Sunday, coming back to the pool to finish the weekend was a good Va Tech squad, and the Tigers finish the weekend with a hard fought but important win over Va Tech for the sweep. For the season, the men now sit at 1-0 in conference and 6-1 overall, and could look to possibly be ranked when the new polls come out this week.
For the women, they started their weekend in style with big wins over Southern Illinois 115-52 and 124.5-42.5 over Drury. They parlayed that result into some REALLY convincing wins on Saturday, destroying SMS 124-24 and Illinois 124-45. Finishing it off, the 20th ranked women took down the 25th ranked Va Tech Hokies on Sunday by the score of 148.5-98.5. The women now stand at 6-1 overall and 1-1 in conference, and should certainly look to move up the rankings this week to their newest program-high. The men and ladies will now have a couple of weeks off before taking on Purdue Nov. 16-18 out in West Lafayette.
Women’s Golf:
The women finished their falls season with a ninth place finish at the Las Vegas Showdown. Topping the scorecards for the ladies was once again sophomore Julia Potter, who finished 23rd along side junior Chelsea Schweirer. Senior Maddie Augustsson took home 35th and sophomore Michelle Morgan finished just outside the top 40 in 41st. A very solid fall season completes for the ladies, which saw them take home a tournament and saw Julia Potter do very well in many tournaments. They will next hit the links on Feb. 18th and 19th down in Florida.
Starting next week:
Wrestling
Women’s Basketball
Random Musings:
- I mentioned this the other day, but Penn State will be an interesting team to watch next year. They will need to replace their QB, but will return a TON on defense (only losing soon to be top 10 pick Dan Connor at LB) and they lead the nation in sacks.
- Am still struggling with the fact we are SEVENTH in the country right now....
- Colts vs. Pats in Super Bowl 41.5....the end of that game lived up to the hype, but wow must the Pats be good to play that badly and win.
- Adrian Peterson at Minnesota....wow...
- I found it interesting that the Mizzou AD sent out the bowl preference ticket form last week, and it included BCS games (not that it should not have, I just found it interesting that it did.). However, of ALL the games on there it did not include, the national championship game was not one of them. Just funny...
- The Jets had a 4th quarter lead...but blow it to keep pace with the Rams and Dolphins.
- Brett Favre....still getting it done. That was a great 4th quarter to watch yesterday between KC and GB.