Mizzou Links: The Florida game was beautiful, and the women almost take down No. 1

What's On

Can I interest you in some season-to-date wrestling highlights?

More wrestling
MUTIGERS.COM: Wrestling Set To Begin 5-Dual Homestand This Weekend

Link of the day (hahahahaha)

SI listed the 10 worst games of the 2014 season yesterday. Mizzou made the list!

5. Missouri 42, Florida 13 (Oct. 18)

While the score may suggest the Tigers dominated, that simply wasn’t the case. Missouri gained just 119 yards of total offense, but that was more than enough to rout the Gators, who turned the ball over six times. The Tigers scored twice within 1:28 in the third quarter, returning a Jeff Driskel fumble and an interception to the house. Those two touchdowns were part of a rare defensive and special teams cycle: Mizzou returned a kick, punt, interception and fumble to the end zone.

Eh, that was damn beautiful if you ask me...

More from 2014
Stassen: 2014 Overrated/Underrated Teams
PowerMizzou: By the numbers

Fightin' Pingetons come close

MUTIGERS.COM: Tigers Hang Tough with No. 1 South Carolina
MUTIGERS.COM: Mizzou-SC Postgame Quotes

Head Coach Robin Pingeton

On tonight's game plan against South Carolina...

"I felt going into the game that I really liked where our players were at. I've been saying that for a while and we keep getting better. I see it because I'm in the locker room, practice, and film sessions with them and it doesn't always show up on the court. I felt really good about the growth that I've seen and continue to see in my players. I'm not surprised that it got to 44-41. I felt like we had a great game plan going into tonight. I told our girls before we started that you've got to play hard. You have got to go out and play with passion, toughness and grit. Typically when you do that then things will happen for you. I felt in the first half we were trying to play so hard and somewhat angry on defense. We were playing physical. On the offense though, we had to take a deep breath and have some poise. It's hard to make that adjustment from that aggression you have to play with defensively. Offensively, I thought that we had some good looks in the first half and weren't able to knock them down. I thought we settled in a little bit in the second half and had some looks that we didn't finish. Down the stretch we cut it to three points, twice. We got some stops then we had bad turnovers. It was a frantic pace there back and forth for a little bit. I thought our guards did a great job. That's really hard to guard. There are certainly some positives there. I'm not surprised we were in the game at the end there. That is what we are playing for."

On rolling the dice with South Carolina...

"Statistics are statistics and when you look at game prep, you try to look at strengths, weaknesses and tenancies. Certainly sometimes people hit shots that aren't supposed to hit shots, but overall I thought our girls were really assignment correct in what we thought was the best possible position to put ourselves in and I thought we guarded that pretty well. We got a little soft on (Tiffany) Mitchell a couple times and we talked about that at halftime. She would be a kid that would get them going there. We also talked at halftime that we wanted to make sure that we were the aggressors coming out at half. We wanted them to call the first timeout in the second half, be the aggressors and I thought we did a really good job. We just didn't make enough shots to be honest."

The Trib: Gritty defensive effort not enough for MU women, who fall to No. 1 South Carolina
The Missourian: Missouri women's basketball's Michaelis makes No. 1 South Carolina work hard for win
Garnet and Black Attack: Gamecocks survive Mizzou upset bid

Recruiting updates

Football
PowerMizzou: Updates on coaches on the road
PowerMizzou: Recruiting Mailbag: 13th Edition
The Trib: Tigers commit Strong to take JUCO route

Basketball
Fox Sports MW: It's not hype if you can do it, and Chaminade's Jayson Tatum certainly can

1 day to Tennessee

Post-Dispatch: Anderson on Kentucky loss: "We were nervous."
The Missourian: Missouri men's basketball tries to move on from blowout loss

KEEEEAAAANAUUUUU
Post-Dispatch: Post gives Mizzou long-awaited post presence

WHATNOT

All sorts of things going on in the non-football and non-basketball universe...

Track & Field
MUTIGERS.COM: Track & Field to Host Missouri Invitational on Friday
The Trib: Jackson makes splashy debut for MU women's track team

Softball
The Trib: SEC Network will televise nine MU softball games

Tennis
MUTIGERS.COM: Tennis Kick Off Spring 2015 Season With Texas Double Dip

And the scariest, most intriguing potential change to college athletics is finally on the way: autonomy. I have a couple of offseason post ideas about this, but for now...

Autonomy
MUTIGERS.COM: Sixty-Five Universities and Student-Athlete Representatives to Begin Era of Autonomy

My loyalties lie with Starbucks by default...

...but we'll see if/how that changes when DD comes back to town.

And yeah, it really is incredible how many DDs there are in Boston.

Eater: Starbucks or Dunkin' Donuts? Where America's Coffee Loyalty Lies

Meanwhile, in the non-caffeinated department ... you'll never guess what Missourians eat a disproportionately high amount of...

Deadspin: Map: Each State's Most Distinctive Cuisine