Time (for me) is of the essence this morning, so here comes another quick and link-filled edition of the Musings. Many of the events of the past weekend have already been covered, and I will infuse some thoughts here and there as time (and job) allow. Let's get to it.
Men's Basketball:
To sum up before I even start: All credit to kU. Mizzou came out excited like you would expect and the game was even very early on through about the four minute mark. At that point, Tiller missed the lay-up and kU ran that beautiful transition game they torched us with all game long which led to a dunk of Aldridge and the route was on from there. kU took the first exploitable moment, snatched it, slammed the door on us, broke the knob off and then bricked up the frame. And when that happens, all I can say is all credit to kU. Collins was certainly the player I am sure kU fans believed he would be in our first matchup and they really did hand teams some interesting information on how to beat us. Yes, missed layups did hurt us, but kU took it too us so well I really dont believe it would have made any difference than on the final scoring margin.
New game and new opportunities for the Tigers starting on Wednesday. The team has bounced back with a pretty significant winning streak after each of their losses this season. I would be more than happy than to see another 4-5 game winning streak (at least) coming right here :-)
Women's Basketball:
Some information on the women's game against CU was located in the Saturday Open Thread, but the team had also played earlier in th week at home against #16 Texas. Mizzou kept the game pretty close through the first half, and cut the lead early in the 2nd half to 3 before UT was able to pull away for a 10 point win. They could not stop UT's Brittainey (talk about superfluous letters) Raven, who scored 31 on 10-14 shooting. Jessra Johnson had a double-double for the Tigers with 16 and 10, and Alyssa Hollins led the way with 18. Mike Anderson's daughter Yvonne had 3 and 3 in 16 minutes of action.
Saturday evening saw the Tigers get out early on CU and never look back. The early 13-2 lead proved to be more than enough cushion as the ladies took the road game 66-55. Four Tigers scored in double figures, withi Johnson leading the way with 19 (and 7 boards), while Shakara Jones added 12 and Alyssa Hollins and Raeshara Brown each poured in 14. The team now stands at 13-14 and 4-10 in conference. Their final home game is this week against 21-7/9-5 Iowa State before closing out the regular season on the road against 15-13/5-9 TTech. Mizzou is tied with NU and OSU at 4-10 with CU at 3-11, so plenty of positioning still left (kU and TTech are at 5-9).
Softball:
Let's get link-tastic!
- Extra inning win vs. Oregon
- Another win vs. Santa Clara
- First loss of the season vs. San Diego State
Seeing as The Boy was nice enough to bring the links home against #4 UCLA (walk-off wild pitch loss) and San Diego (easy win), that brings us to a close. I hate giving up that San Diego St. game, as the team was just not sharp at all, but better to lose them now than later. Hanging with UCLA like they did should certainly show them what they are capable of going forward. I dont know too much about the national landscape of softball, but I see an easy few games coming up before the Tigers get back to it at a tourney at Coastal Carolina in two weekends.
Baseball:
Well, I thought I had some links about baseball...but I guess not. Quite the struggle in the state of Arizona this past weekend, but that win against ASU could certainly turn the light on and get them on their way. The Boy makes a great point that the schedule certainly does set up nicely for them in the next couple of weeks where they might be able to get healthy and match up the good pitching they have had (Gibson and Tepesch in this last outing) with the good hitting (they HAVE scored some runs, just not in well-pitched games).
Gymnastics:
Quick link to the 29th Cat Classic is here
Tennis:
Tough loss to a ranked Wisconsin team to start the weekend by the score of 5-2. Senior Sofia Ayala and freshman Danielle Day won their doubles match, and the Tigers lost the doubles point in a tie-breaker in the Kaitlyn Richie/Jessica Giugiolli match. They would go on to get singles wins from Ayala and freshman Jamie Mera.
They opened Big XII play on Sunday, and for only the 2nd time in their history, defeated OU by the score of 5-2. Losing the doubles point again in tie-breaker fashion (with Ayala/Day winning and Ritchie/Giugiollli losing the tie-breaker) meant Mizzou would need 4 singles wins to take it. After #1 Mallory Weber fell in the first match, the Tigers would win out the next 5, with Giugiolli, Mera and Ritchie all winning in three sets for the Tigers.
The team is now 5-4 and 1-0 in conference. They will take the week off before taking on Okie State at home on the 13th.
Track:
First...a link to start about one of our Big XII Champions in Chris Rohr. Krishna Lee came in 3rd in both weight throwing events, and Andy Oaker took 5th in the shot put. Nick Adcock was not able to defend his pentathlon title, but 2nd place and an automatic berth to the NCAA's will certainly suffice. The teams had a very solid showing this weekend, with each coming in 7th (and more importantly, each defeating kU). Chris Rohr was joined by 800 meter runner Shannon Leinart, who became the third straight Mizzou runner to win the women's 800 meter (pretty much a tradition at Mizzou).
The team will have one last shot to qualify for the NCAA's at the Cyclone National Qualifier next weekend before a number of them head right back down to College Station (their THIRD trip this indoor season) for the NCAA's which will be held in two weekends.
Swimming:
I would say pretty simply that both the men and women met their team goal for the Big XII's, with the women coming in a solid third place, and the men topping aTm for the first time in the Big XII Championships to take 2nd place. All told, the two teams combined to set 31 team records, 85 top-10 times and 33 NCAA "B" cut times. Freshman Kayla Durnil was the lone champion for the Tigers (only the third in program history) in the 200 breast stroke.
The divers will be in action in a couple of weeks as a number of them look to make the NCAA's by competing well at the Zone Diving Meet, which will be held in their home diving well. The NCAA's will be down in College Station in 3 weeks.
Random Thoughts:
- Not to put too fine a point on it, but....yeah. Martin Brodeur is back and the NHL had better watch out.
- I like what the Jets have done on defense adding Scott and Sheppard and returning the O-line in tact with Tony Richardson at FB. Now all they need are a couple of WR's and someone to throw it to them
- I am curious to see how long this experiment of the Mets not batting Jose Reyes leadoff goes
- These are late, so I'll just hit post for now...