With all the podcasting and live threading which has been posted over the weekend already, not too much going to be added by me this morning. We all know what went down at Faurot on Saturday and many of us have been brought up to speed on your Big XII Championship Women's Soccer program. Will get to the rest of the action and some random thoughts and call it a morning.
Football:
For pretty much all of what I thought about the football game after it completed (not safe for work I suppose if you have the volume up high)...give a click here
For what I did not say on Saturday evening, or perhaps to repeat it again...thank you seniors and yes...winning 8 games seems to have become old already, even though this is only the third season in a row we have done it. That in and of itself is a tribute to the program-turnaround this class achieved. Clearly, they are not done yet and matching the total of 12 wins last season is still in play. Iowa State will be a tough place to play at 5:30 p.m. on Saturday evening, but I believe the stats will show we should be fine. I also think that Chase and Co. probably still have a bad taste in their mouths from their sub-par effort of two seasons ago...consider it one of the few lingering demons to exorcise.
And to belabor a point from the podcast, but the time away from the end of the game has not softened my view of Ron Prince. Do the college football world a favor and just disappear.
Soccer:
Great team effort...not just by the Tigers who took down UT, kU and CU to win their first Big XII Championship in soccer, but by Rock M Nation to cover it :-) We had the first game live thread here in their 3-1 win over UT, then Wooderson taking the reigns to cover their PK win over kU (which by the way gets us additonal points in the Border Fracas) and then finally here for their win over CU to take the title. Gutty performance by junior Kristen Andrighetto who missed action on Friday due to illness and was barely hanging on by the end of the game on Sunday. Tasha Dittamore has been an unsung star for the squad this year and did what needed to be done to get the clinching shutout. The defense of Crystal Wagner, Kat Tarra and Megan Pfeiffer cannot be underscored.
We will have more on Mizzou's post-season action later this morning when the tournament announcements are made. Stay tuned, but once again, congrats to Coach Bryan Blitz and the entire program. It would appear giving him one more season (just like Pinkel and Jamieson) has really paid off for the program as he has turned it on the past two seasons and has started to turn Mizzou into the regional and national power so many believe they should be (and should have been to not put too fine a point on it).
Volleyball:
Looks like the bye-week came at a good time for the volleyball squad, as they had only one match this week, a nice home win over OU yesterday afternoon in straight set fashion in what might have been their best match of the season. The team hit .300 on the afternoon and was paced by junior Lauren Nuckolls who had 19 kills on a .436 percentage. Lei Wang had 39 assists (a more fitting number) and 14 digs, and Caitlyn Vann once again topped 20 kills for the match.
The Tigers move back to .500 on the season at 12-12 and sit now at 6-8 in conference. They will have two matches this coming week, both on the road. The first one is pretty much unwinnable against powerhouse NU, but the 2nd is against CU, who is also 6-8 right now. With three out of four at home to close the season, who knows...perhaps they can finish around .500 in conference and stranger things have happened with the NCAA tournament selections :-)
Men's and Women's Basketball:
Yeah...um...not really going to go much into exhibition games. We already talked about the men's win, and the women took down Southwest Baptist 80-50. Guard Alyssa Hollins led the Tigers 21 points. She was 9-18 overall and 3-10 from behind the arc. Forward Jessra Johnson added 17 and forward/center Shakara Jones kicked in 12.
The Tigers shot 47 percent from the field, which I believe is about 10 percent above where they shot last year. If they can keep that type of shooting up, they will do a better job and win more games. However, only 5-20 from the arc still means they need to find another shooter or two. Lots of youngsters saw some time and hopefully a few will step up to assist the squad.
This week for the teams will be a Friday game for the ladies against South Dakota State and the men will take on Missouri Southern on Tuesday in exhibition before playing Prairie View A&M on Saturday afternoon at home.
Men's Swimming:
The squad headed out on the road to swim against SIU-C and came away with a resounding win by over 70 points. Sophomore Spender Lauver posted his career best time in the 1000 meter freestyle (always a good sign). Junior Martin Cemanski won two races in the breast stroke, and won multiple races along with senior Gilad Kaufman and sophomore Jordan Hawley. Freshman Jan Konarzewski won another event already this season in the 100 freestyle while junior Greg Destephen swept both diving events with Dante Jones right behind him in both.
Both squads (men and women) will now head to Louisville, KY for a (strange) two-day event this coming weekend.
Wrestling:
The Black and Gold meet was held this past weekend, and I am going to get into it later this week...for those of you who are new to the site, I take a special interest in wresting stemming from my few days as a high school wrestler. Therefore, I will have a review of the action and preview of the season later on this week when I have a little more time to put fingers to keys.
Random Thoughts:
- So...the AFC east...yeah...no one saw that one coming. And for the job the Jets have done this year (bolstered in an unsung manner by the great improvement of their O-line so Thomas Jones can be one of the best RB's in the league), more credit should go to Tony Sporano down in Miami. He has done a tremendous job with little talent and he is just fun to watch at work.
- Oh...my poor Penn State...sounds like Iowa did more to win the game than PSU did to lose it, but tough break for them. Hopefully they can recover and get to the Rose Bowl.
- But speaking of Penn State...friggin Kerry Collins is leading Tennessee right now to being 9-0...strange world we live in.
- Well, life without Martin has started for New Jersey. Kevin Weeks will man the pipes with likely goalie-in-waiting Jeff Frazee seeing some time. If they can still be around by the time Brodeur comes back, they could have a shot in the playoffs only because he will be so well-rested, which has not been something that has happened in past seasons.
- Ron Prince is an idiot
- What do you think the run up and hype will be like for the OU/TTech game in two weeks?
- Congrats again to the soccer team. I will always be on record in believing Mizzou has done the correct thing in this day and age in keeping all of their sports instead of cutting any of them to reposition the money. As a result, it might be believed (and perhaps is true) that they were not ever able to have a lot of champions because of it. Not that this prooves any theory right or wrong, but Alden deserves some credit and should enjoy this championship.
- Big shout-out to my boy Jed Clampitt...thanks for reading