Make that 59.

On a glorious Thursday, it arrived. You know what I’m talking about. No, not the official return of the NFL — I don’t really care about that but Go Chiefs! Be great, Nicky Bolts! — I mean THIS.

First, a gif to express my joyousness

A day after we learned about the complete WBB schedule (more on that next week from your friendly Rock M WBB crew), we have a men’s hoops schedule. We covered it, of course. From Parker:

Only two back-to-back road trips

After having to hit the road for three back-to-backs last season, Mizzou will only have to do so twice this season. That will occur when the Tigers travel to take on Texas A&M and South Carolina on Jan. 23 and 27, and when they play Arkansas and Florida on Feb. 24 and Feb. 28. That is certainly a good sign for a team that struggled with consistency outside of Mizzou Arena last season.

Most Important Stretch?

You could make an argument for a couple of spots on the schedule, but that three-game slate of Tennessee (home), Arkansas (road) and Florida (road) to end February will be a pivotal point of the season. All three of those are Quad 1 or 2 caliber games, and at a time when each of these teams will be in desperate need of quality wins to boost their respective résumés, a lot will be on the line.

Going 2-1 in these three outings may be necessary for Gates’ bunch.

Per MUTigers, on the overall schedule:

Overall, the Tigers’ 31-game schedule includes 17 home games and 25 games against schools from the nation’s top seven conferences, including six games at Mizzou Arena versus schools that qualified for the 2023 NCAA Tournament.

And then later Thursday evening, this appeared, a beautiful reminder on the hellscape that is The Site Formerly Known as Twitter.

Unreal, isn’t it? That a month from Wednesday, mid-Mo residents will flock to the makeshift court in front of the columns for Mizzou Madness, and then a few short weeks later, there’ll be real college basketball to be played.

Sorry (marginally) for the brief out-of-season detour. I know football season has only JUST gotten started and we have so much left to watch and cheer for.

I did notice that for all of us disgruntled Charter/Spectrum users, Saturday’s game is showing on ESPN+ so I may get to watch it after all. Yay!

On to the Links! BEAT THE BLUE RAIDERS!

---

Yesterday at Rock M

• Dan’s dropped a new 3x3 for Week 2
• Costume Day! From Nate: This week Mizzou is uniquely equipped to beat a Conference USA program AND hack computer systems to detect security risks.
• Listen to/Watch a new Dive Cuts with Sam and Rocco Miller, who are talking non-con scheduling.

• Non-con previews continue with the Minnesota Golden Gophers, from Sam
• PRE-GAME TO DO LIST: Read Nate’s football preview before game time Saturday | Listen to/Watch the newest BTBS episode w/ Nate & BK, who are talking about QB1 | Read BK’s thoughts about Mizzou’s O-Line upgrades | Read the new Pregamin... which will be out today.

---

More Links:

Football

• St. Louis Post-Dispatch: 3 things to watch for when Mizzou football hosts Middle Tennessee State (Eli Hoff)
• Columbia Missourian: Tigers seeing instant impact of OC Moore’s scheme (Adam Ryerson)
• Columbia Tribune: Mizzou football not hiding anything as fast-paced MTSU comes to Columbia (Calum McAndrew)
• PowerMizzou: Watch the Thursday Live Show w/ Gabe & Jarod |
• Injury report:

• Listen to the new episode of the Inside Mizzou Athletics podcast.

Hoops

• Abracadabra. The SEC Conference slate:

• Columbia Missourian: Mizzou Men’s Basketball schedule set after SEC release (Christian Riley Dutcher)
• PowerMizzou: Opponent Preview— Seton Hall (Drew King) | Mizzou WBB releases schedule (Trevon Bobo) | Schedule release (King)
• Get to know Hilke Feldrappe!

Other Mizzou Sports

• SWIM & DIVE released their 2023-24 schedule (Megan Sundberg, Missourian) | Read more at MUTigers.com
• BASEBALL hosted its first ‘sport-ology’ event (Reece Candler & Seth Schwartzenberg, Missourian)
• GOLF competes at the Mirabel Maui Jim Intercollegiate in Scottsdale, Arizona this weekend, in a field joined by Auburn, Colorado, Fresno State, Georgia State, Little Rock, Mercer, New Mexico, Ohio State, Oregon, San Diego State, Santa Clara, SMU, Texas State and UNLV. The Tigers tee off at 10:50am CT on Friday. (MUTigers.com)
• SOCCER recaptured their version of Braggin’ Rights 2-1 on Thursday night after losing the last two seasons. LFG! You can read it about it here (MUTigers.com) or from Grant Salsman (Missourian)

• With this goal, it’s no surprise Jenna Bartels was awarded Player of the Game.

• Let’s hear from a member of Golan’s staff, shall we?

• Volleyball has arrived in Cincy for the Xavier Tournament.

• The new Tiger Style report is here:

NFL Corner

• I don’t catch many NFL games, but I thought I’d check this one out, and man... Chiefs receivers really out there Thursday night looking like a buncha J’Mon Moores, huh? (sorry). Anyway, enough about that. Just here for the Nicky Bolts highlights.

• Check out Mizzou in the NFL! Good luck reading the graphic, though. Not the creative team’s best work, IMHO. Wish the tiger-striped background was a bit lighter.

• Happy Chase Daniel Day! His YouTube show launched today with former St. Louis sportscaster Trey Wingo

• Please enjoy this local Nick Bolton commercial. I know I did. I love him so much.

• And finally, un-football related, but please enjoy this JC Instagram content. He killed it in the FIBA World Cup— scoring 34pts in his team’s 96-75 win over China in Group A. Per Forbes’ pre-FIBA coverage, JC is coming off of the best NBA season of his career, averaging 20.8 points, 4.4 APG and 4 RPG. I love our tatted king.

---

• If you’re looking to sign up for ESPN+, Rock M Nation now has an affiliate link: click Here for ESPN+ Now!
• If you’re looking to sign up for a new streaming service, you can try FuboTV: click HERE for FuboTV access — FuboTV now has ESPN, CBS, FS1 and more sports channels.
  (** RockMNation has affiliate partnerships. These do not influence editorial content, though RockMNation may earn commissions for products purchased via affiliate links.**)