Mizzou women fall in The Other Columbia

There was a lot of potential drama headed into Monday night’s game between Robin Pingeton’s Missouri Tigers and Dawn Staley’s South Carolina Gamecocks.

Two programs with a history of frustrations, accusations and lawsuits. Two Top 25 ranked teams. Two passionate fanbases dedicated to booing the ever-living hell out of each other’s players.

Fortunately, nothing really spilled over into the game — the two teams even met at half court before the game as a show of moving forward. The officials kept a close eye on both teams, but never had to worry too much as the Gamecocks maintained a steady lead before closing out a 79-65 win.

Officials seemed to call the game tighter than most, possibly to keep tensions from escalating between the two teams like in years passed. At halftime, Missouri had four players with a pair of fouls including Cunningham, fellow senior Cierra Porter and starting forward Hannah Schuchts.

It was a good game for Sophie Cunningham — 24 points despite foul trouble — but she didn’t get much help outside of Amber Smith and Akira Levy (16 and 12 points, respectively.)

The Tigers were slightly short-handed on the bench as well, after announcing the transfer of freshman Grace Berg just before game time. That’s a tough loss for the Tigers, as Berg was a highly-touted recruit out of high school. She hadn’t seen much of the court lately, but had good size and skill combined with above average athleticism. The future is still bright — Pingeton has a Top 10 class coming this year — but it would’ve been nice to see how Berg could contribute. Best of luck, Grace!

The Tigers head to No. 15 Kentucky on Thursday.

Barrett Bannister gets a scholly

In good news, Monday marked a major life update for one of Mizzou football’s surprise contributors from the 2018 season.

The rising redshirt sophomore only had eight catches during the 2018 season, but had a knack for showing up at the right times. He caught three balls for 37 yards during Missouri’s Liberty Bowl loss for Oklahoma State, and should be a nice chunk yardage option for Kelly Bryant next year.

His teammates were pretty happy to find out about his scholarship as well.

Congrats, Barrett! To see how Bannister’s announcement affects Mizzou’s scholarship chart, head over to PowerMizzou, where Gabe DeArmond broke it all down.

Yesterday at Rock M

• Missouri football adds JUCO OT Angel Matute
• Mizzou Women’s Basketball announces Freshman Grace Berg will transfer

More Links:

• Saturday Down South laid out five “realistic goals” for Mizzou football in 2019 including chemistry between Kelly Bryant and his receivers and developing some new leaders on defense.
• Dane Brugler at The Athletic ($$) examined some of the biggest Senior Bowl storylines. Drew Lock ended up quite high on the list.
• Speaking of the Senior Bowl, one of Missouri’s representatives will no longer be playing.

• And speaking of Drew Lock, it seems like he is bursting with confidence heading into his big showcase on Thursday.