Missouri’s underclassmen are in the spotlight

Much like the game itself, the Mizzou beat on Super Bowl Sunday was a bit of a snoozer.

It’s probably not the worst thing in the world, though. As we all learned this week, offseason news is often bad news. It also gives us an opportunity to bask in the glow of the weekend victory over Vanderbilt. And with the non-football content streams all dried up, most reporters chose to focus on the most encouraging narrative out of Saturday’s win — the success of the underclassmen.

Geist, a 6-foot-2 point guard has been Missouri’s leading scorer and saving grace, but next season that burden will be on other players. Missouri’s underclassmen seemed to get the message Saturday, with 57 of the Tigers’ 77 points being scored by freshmen and sophomores... Watson tied a career-high with 12 points, fellow freshman Javon Pickett had 12 and sophomore Jeremiah Tilmon led MU with 19 points and eight rebounds.

Schiffer also mentioned Xavier Pinson and Mitchell Smith, who each chipped in their own big plays. It was a game indicative of the Tigers’ season, full of offensive mountains and valleys, but the late-game heroics of Jordan Geist and Jeremiah Tilmon — along with Vanderbilt’s many weaknesses — were able to buoy the Tigers to their second SEC win.

The game also shined a light on one of the most encouraging trends for the team as of late: the play of Jeremiah Tilmon.

“He’s really progressing, just going straight up with (the ball), not playing around and just putting it in the basket,” point guard Jordan Geist said. In recent weeks, Tigers coach Cuonzo Martin has had discussions with the SEC office about Tilmon and officiating, proving you can change the way games are called without ranting and raving on the sideline.

And, as Garrick Hodge pointed out in the Columbia Tribune, continuing the perfect Rally for Rhyan streak was the perfect way to end a pretty miserable week for Mizzou athletics overall.

...the Rally for Rhyan was what really made Saturday a special night. Former Missouri assistant Brad Loos made a passionate speech at halftime on behalf of raising money for pediatric cancer research, and well, Mizzou Arena got a little dusty. It’s hard to be upset about all the BS in college sports after listening to a passionate speech about what really matters.

I’m running out of things to write about a game that happened more than 36 hours ago. So I’m going to stop now.

Yesterday at Rock M

• Study Hall: Mizzou 77, Vanderbilt 67

More Links:

• Sean Williams at PowerMizzou took a closer look at Mizzou football’s recruiting penalties from this past week, breaking down each of them in detail ($$).
• Robin Pingeton’s Tigers are back at it tonight in Baton Rouge, where they haven’t beat LSU since 1988.
• OFFICIAL SUPER BOWL THOUGHTS: As a native St. Louisan, I was pretty relieved that the Rams didn’t win, but it was still a soul-suckingly bad game (and halftime show!)

Still, there were a few commercials I thought were pretty well done. I enjoyed the first T-Mobile spot with the long-winded texter, as well as the Chance the Rapper and 2 Chainz commercials. Easy vote for worst commercial goes to Stella Artois’ Big Lebowski and Sex in the City crossover. I’m all for more of Jeff Bridges’ seminal character, but they literally made him say, “The Dude abides,” like the person who wrote it had never seen the movie.

Anyway: what were your favorite and least favorite commercials? Happy Monday, y’all!