Missouri chooses its 3 representatives for SEC Media Days ... which are NEXT WEEK!

Holy smokes, SEC Media Days are next week. Time flies.

Our own Ethan Triebsch will be there to document the proceedings, but on Wednesday we learned who would be headed to Hoover to represent Mizzou: Eric Beisel, Drew Lock, and J’Mon Moore.

Mizzou Football senior LB Eric Beisel (Fenton, Mo.), junior QB Drew Lock (Lee's Summit, Mo.) and senior WR J'Mon Moore (Missouri City, Texas) will join head coach Barry Odom at next week's SEC Media Days in Hoover, Alabama. Mizzou is scheduled to run through the annual media affair on Wednesday, July 12.

The Tigers are set to begin their day with the media at 9:05 a.m. (CT) at the Wynfrey Hotel and are scheduled to meet with the local and national media until 12:05 p.m. (CT). For the third-consecutive year, SEC Network and ESPN will have live, on-site coverage of SEC Media Days.

Gotta say, that’s a pretty engaging, thoughtful trio of athletes. Beisel and Moore are two of the most interesting personalities on the team. And of course, Beisel will get a chance to talk Arkansas smack.

By the way, when the SEC media polls come out, and Missouri is inevitably predicted last in the East division, remember that this is normal. And that, despite the last couple of years, Missouri is still one of the steadiest overachievers in the country compared to preseason rankings.

Despite receiving almost no preseason love during his tenure in Salt Lake City (ranked 19th in the 2009 preseason poll), the Utes have racked up 49 points in the postseason AP poll over five ranked finishes. Missouri, with four conference title game appearances since 2005, is a close second and former mid-major TCU ranks third. It is interesting to note that the top three teams in this metric all upgraded to better conferences during this time period.

So there’s that, at least.

I’ll get into this in far more detail later on, by the way, but the SEC East is going to be fascinating this year. Kentucky, Georgia, South Carolina, Vanderbilt, and Mizzou all return a ton of last year’s production, Florida just added a decent graduate transfer quarterback (Malik Zaire), Tennessee gets to fly under the radar (but has still recruited well), etc. It’s possible that at least five of the division’s seven members improve this year. That’s not necessarily good for Mizzou, but the Tigers should be able to compete.

And then, in theory, the division gets even better in 2018.

So you’ve got that to look forward to, huh?

More Links:

• Former Mizzou coach Gary Pinkel sat down with ABC 17 (which has been landing all sorts of good interviews lately) to talk about health, retirement, Barry Odom, etc. A clip:

• PowerMizzou’s Brian Austin took a look at what the Danny Gray commitment means for Mizzou.
• Michael Porter Jr. is one of six finalists for Gatorade Male High School Athlete of the Year.
• Former Mizzou hoops assistant Emanuel Dildy has joined the Valparaiso staff.
• We know two more former players involved in the Carroll & Bowers Alumni Game now: Zaire Taylor and Travon Bryant. (The updated list to date, I believe: Laurence Bowers, Bryant, DeMarre Carroll, Justin Gage, Marcus Denmon, Jimmy McKinney, William Moore, Rickey Paulding, Ricardo Ratliffe, Martin Rucker, Taylor, and Sean Weatherspoon.)

• And speaking of old times, I’m so here for an SEC Network documentary on 1997 (i.e. my first season in Columbia). It will air during Mizzou’s SEC Network Takeover day later in July. Yes, yes, yes.