A new week. A new crop of thank yous.

Since Thanksgiving is right around the corner, I’d thought I’d continue my thankfulness thread started last week, and take a few moments to shout out some of the people I’m thankful for this season (and this week) in the Mizzou sports universe. In the first edition of what I’ve decided is my month-long Friday post, I expressed my gratitude for Nick Bolton, Xavier Pinson, Mario McKinney, Jr., Amber Smith, and Elle Brown. Who makes the cut this week? Let’s lean back, kick your feet up, grab a frosty Schlafly Pumpkin Ale and find out who was included. If you want to get involved and let us know which Mizzou players YOU are thankful for this week, leave a comment.

To kick things off, I’m thankful that Mizzou Football is HOME again, the one place they seem to excel at this season (side note: please to not make me regret making that declaration... I beg you)

I’m thankful that Tiger fans, for the most part, seem to be pleased with the basketball team thus far and have faith in Cuonzo Martin. Don’t worry y’all, even if you don’t believe, I have enough faith in him for EVERYONE. By the way, if you haven’t signed up for Fan Pulse, which right now is still also tracking football, you can certainly do so, and we encourage it. Visit this link to sign up! https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/YK726PN

I’m thankful for Dru Smith, because who wouldn’t be?!? I mean, seriously.

I’m thankful for Josh Taylor, newly named head volleyball coach. He’s done a really great job this year stepping in for the retired Kreklows, and officially removed his “interim” tag today. Congrats, Coach!

Now, on to the links we go.

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Yesterday at Rock M

• Ryan wrote about the need for the entire offense to bounce back, not just a healthy(er?) Kelly Bryant.
• Matt examined the signing of big man (literally), Jordan Wilmore, and explained the state of recruiting as a whole for Cuonzo in a very informative and fascinating piece.
• Nate tackled the Florida defense in part 2 of his weekly opponent preview post. The Florida defense doesn’t necessarily need to be elite to stop the Tiger attack, but unfortunately for us, they are elite.
• Sammy wondered how, if Barry Odom can’t get it done with this talented group and this schedule, when will he? Will he ever? It’s an excellent question.
• Podcast- Resident hoops savants Sam & Matt teamed back up for a new episode of everyone’s favorite hoops podcast, Dive Cuts. In it, they shared their thoughts on the Xavier game, gave opinions on the first three games of the season as a whole, looked at the schedule ahead, and talked Signing Day. It’s fantastic, as always, and you should listen. You can also read the recap here (not as good as listening, I promise).

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More Links:

Football

• DeMarkus Acy and Jonathon Johnson will play alongside some Tigers in the East-West Shrine Bowl. Congrats, DeMarkus & JJ!!

• Columbia-Missourian: Liam Quinn wrote a nice piece on how the road troubles have confounded everyone, even the players.
• St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Matter did some score predictions for Mizzou and others in “Matter’s Picks.” He also wrote how Connor Bazelak’s Georgia cameo has given us a glimpse into the future.
• STL Today: Dave also held his weekly chat on STL Today, and posted another episode of The Eye on the Tigers pod with BenFred, which tried to decide if the Tigers can find their “bite” at home.
• KC Star: Souichi Terada wrote about how the team plans to repair the dreadful offense and block out the noise.
• The Athletic: Peter Baugh examined how Tyree Gillespie has embraced being Missouri’s last line of defense. This is a great story (for subscribers). If you haven’t tried out The Athletic yet, here’s a link to a seven day free trial— http://theathletic.com/freetrial. I highly recommend it, and NO, I don’t get a kickback. If I wanted that, I’d give you my subscriber link ;).
• Sports Illustrated/Gator Maven: Zach Goodall did a Q & A with PowerMizzou’s Mitchell Forde to preview the Florida matchup and grab some intel.
• PowerMizzou/Rivals ($$): Lots of tidbits for subscribers Wednesday— probably because they have some sort of deal going on currently to lure people in. Mitchell wrote about the perfect 2020 class, version 5.0 after Mizzou added two new commitments on Tuesday, and examined how the class could be impacted by the potential NCAA sanctions. (side note- any day now, NCAA. Any.day.now.) Sean Williams did an analysis of new commit, Tyler Jones. He also took a look at where the projected starters and stars of the Mizzou-Florida game ranked as HS/JuCo recruits.

Hoops

• St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Hochman wrote about Mizzou’s “new” Dru in a delightful little piece.
• The women’s team will travel to Green Bay on Saturday for a 1pm tip-off against a familiar opponent. Looks like it’s only available to stream via ESPN+, but you can always listen in the MU Tigers app.

• Just a reminder that Mizzou returns home to face off against the Wofford Terriers on Monday. Also, this is just realllllly cool.

Other Mizzou Sports

• Volleyball: Shannon Belt of the Maneater wrote about Mizzou’s matchup with Alabama, in which they had SEVENTY-THREE KILLS, the most for the program in a single match in nine years. Caroline Steifbold wrote about their recent 3-1 victory over Georgia.
• MUTigers.com did a Mizzou Volleyball Insider piece on RS senior, Riley Sents, and how she is juggling being a student-athlete with being a grad student in the famous J-school. Impressive!
• Swimming: The Mizzou men have moved up the rankings, now to No. THREE in the CSCAA TYR Top 25. Coach Grevers and his team is killing it, y’all.

• Wrestling: #TigerStyle faced off against Illinois, and wow, Brock Mauller. He... mauled a dude. However, the Tigers lost another match, going to 0-2 for the first time since 2011, wrote Anderson Kimball from the Columbia Missourian.

• Track & Field announced the signing of perhaps the greatest Mizzou player name of ALL TIME, Angus Beer.

Former Mizzou Player News

• MUTigers.com did a Hall of Fame feature on former #TigerStyle wrestler, and current MMA fighter, Tyron Woodley.
• MPJ News: Chris Kirschner of The Athletic wrote about Mike having a front row seat to Trae Young’s epic night. It’s a really good piece and I highly recommend it, but sorry... you’ve got to subscribe.
• Drew Lock News: Joseph Zucker of Bleacher Report said Von Miller has compared our former QB to Aaron Rodgers & Tony Romo— lofty comparisons! However, Drew shouldn’t get a big head JUST yet, as Chad Jensen of SI’s Mile High Huddle countered that Vic Fangio said Drew Lock’s time away helped him be a “little better QB.”
• Sheldon Richardson news: Ellis Williams of Cleveland.com wrote that Sheldon, among others, are helping to set the tone upfront defensively for the Brown’s 2-0 start.
• Markus Golden news: Earlier this week, Markus took part in an “interesting” Q&A with Steve Serby of the New York Post.
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