Man oh man oh man. Rarely has a Mizzou team in any sport made a statement like the one Mizzou Baseball made this weekend. In Rivals.com's National Series of the Week, Mizzou's starting pitching made #14 Baylor look like Toledo or South Dakota State. Aaron Crow, Ian Berger, and Kyle Gibson combined to give up ZERO earned runs in three games, and Mizzou swept the suddenly hapless Bears by scores of 7-0, 3-0, and 12-2. (The Post-Dispatch has articles on the Friday and Saturday wins.)
Baseball America had Mizzou #4 heading into the weekend. Let's take a look at how teams #1-3 did, shall we? I'm betting they didn't make a statement any more impressive than Mizzou.
#1 Arizona State: The Sun Devils played in the Bob Schaefer Memorial Tournament-Packard Stadium in Tempe, taking 4 of 5 from Northern Colorado, Florida International, and #5 UC-Irvine. Their 6-3 loss Friday night to Northern Colorado was their first of the season. They have yet to leave the state of Arizona this season.
#2 Arizona: The Wildcats went to LA for a three-game series versus USC...and got thumped, losing two of three. They also lost Tuesday night at Arizona and have lost 4 of 5 overall. They will drop.
#3 North Carolina: After easily taking two mid-week games from Princeton, UNC went to College Park and took two of three from Maryland. Their two wins (by scores of 14-1 and 19-1) were utter destructions, but they did lose Friday night.
So the three teams ahead of us all lost at least once. You can't take individual losses too seriously in baseball polls, though, so while I know we'll move ahead of Arizona, we'll probably have to settle for #2 or 3. Not sure. The Missourian, however, thinks a little differently.
Mizzou's other diamond-based sport kicked butt this weekend too. Mizzou Softball took two easy ones (9-1 and 3-0) from Oklahoma State to start conference play. The Trib and Missourian have more.
Inside Mizzou takes a look at Mizzou Basketball's 2009 recruiting plans...which direction they may go after missing out on PF's Demarcus Cousins and Tyler Griffey. Meanwhile, PowerMizzou has your football recruiting news, catching up with Strafford OL Tyler Evans. I got stranded in Strafford in a snow-and-ice-storm one time. Just sayin'.
Dave Matter has a nice article on William Moore and Chase Coffman and their lofty draft hopes for 2009.
Here are some articles about Mizzou's up-really-down-then-up-again weekend at the NCAA Wrestling Championships in StL: Tigers bounce back on mat (Trib), MU wrestlers salvage solid finish to season (Missourian).
Finally, the Missourian tells us about a study with conclusions we suspected: Football success = spike in applications. People love Mizzou now.