The women’s basketball rivalry between South Carolina and Mizzou took a slightly positive turn yesterday, after on-court rivalries spilled into the courtroom earlier this year.

Jim Sterk apologized to Coach Dawn Staley for comments he made about Staley and the atmosphere in the South Carolina game, which suggested she may have encouraged the hostility.

“Following a very spirited and intense game I attended in late January between the nationally ranked Missouri and South Carolina women’s basketball teams, I made comments in a local radio interview that were construed to suggest that Coach Staley promoted the negative experiences of racial epithets and spitting,” Sterk said. “I do not believe Coach Staley would promote such conduct, and I sincerely apologize to her for those comments.”

- Missouri Athletic Director Jim Sterk

Staley spoke afterward with a local TV station about the entire situation. You can click that link and judge for yourself how the it’s all portrayed, but having very recently worked in television news, I found this entire segment to be...well, let’s just say fascinating.

I don’t want to editorialize too much. I do think Sterk went too far with his comments, and I’m glad he apologized. However, I also think this whole build up (pre-lawsuit, I should clarify) was handled poorly by most everyone involved. I’m glad it’s ending on what appears to be a pretty civil note. The University acknowledged there was a problem and did something to fix it. I’ve come to really like Coach Staley’s fire and style, and whatever gets this all back on a positive, competitive track is good with me.

Yesterday at Rock M

• 8 sneaky important players for the 2018 Missouri Tigers

David’s piece parses a lot of what I’d been thinking about in terms of next year’s roster. It feels like there are a wealth of players who could potentially break out, and Missouri will need a few of them if they’re looking to get back to the top two or three teams in the SEC East. He mentions a few names I’d thought of and even more that I hadn’t. Check it out.

• IF Jontay Returns... What does that do for Mizzou Basketball?

If you haven’t voted in our poll yet, do so. It’s very scientific.

More Links:

• Dave Matter did a Q&A for readers at STL Today and answered questions on St. Louis recruiting, Jontay Porter, the South End Zone Project, and budgeting! Hurray for budgets!
• Mizzou is, once again, not part of the Big XII/SEC challenge. It’s disappointing, but Aaron Reiss’ explainer at the KC Star is helpful in understanding the process. And as Matt Harris points out...

Here are the other matchups if you’re interested.

• A few bits of recruiting news. 2019 point guard target Rocket Watts is set to announce his top schools in the coming week.

Also Terrence Hargrove Jr. is out here living his best life.

• Mitchell Forde has a really interesting breakdown of Mizzou’s biggest recruiting rivalries over at PowerMizzou. Also in the Rivals network, Eric Bossi wrote about how Jontay Porter’s potential return would affect the Tigers’ 2018-2019 season.