Spring game weekend. First one I've missed in years.

I love the spring football game.  I hated missing it this year but sometimes when we grow up things happen, and we have to do things that we don't love because we do things we just have to do.  By this time of year I'm pretty much in full withdrawal from football.  Basketball is ok, but the end of the season dramatics, courtesy of former coach what's his name, and it really wore me out.  I'm going to trust Mike Alden that we've picked the right guy, and I'm going to trust Frank Haith because it appears that he's made at least 2 home run hires for his new staff.  Baseball has started out great for us Royals fans, but it's a marathon, not a sprint.  I've seen enough quick starts that were followed by mid season collapses that I have no intention of investing too much passion right now. But we've got some history going with the football team now as they've won 48 games over the past 5 season.  So excuse me if I get excited reading practice reports and scrimmage statistics.

Maybe the biggest news of the day happened off the field as the Tigers obtained a verbal from Texas running back Jonathan Williams.  Williams rushed for over 2000 yards and 19 touchdowns as a junior and is ranked as the 33rd best player in Texas and the 3rd best running back in the nation.  It marks the 2nd year in a row that the Tigers have snagged a recruit rated inside the Texas top 50, (Last year both James Franklin and Tristan Holt were members of this club) and shows that Mizzou is a serious contender for the top Texas talent.  Jonathan is the kind of kid that starts a domino effect with other kids and does show why, during the feeding frenzy of conference realignment last summer, he really preferred that Missouri remain in the Big XII where he and his staff had spent years developing relationships.  It also shows that hick nation is now going to have to work a little harder if they intend to keep mining Texas for recruits.  Williams is exactly the kind of back they're looking for in Lincoln.

As far as the quarterback battle goes, James Franklin will now officially enter the summer months as # 1 at the position.  James had a good day, going 13 of 21 for 116 yards and 2 touchdowns to go with a 139.7 quarterback rating.  Tyler Gabbert however was 8 of 22 for 48 yards and a rating of 45.6.  This isn't going to end until sometime next August at the earliest, but I fully expect the competition to make both of them better.  For complete stats, Dave Matter has an excellent breakdown in his blog. So now we'll be reaching for football news, but it's going to be out there and I'll try to find as much of it as I can.  Stop by and see my current event section on my web page.

5 biggest moments of MU athletics this year. Well, so far.....

I'm officially sick of talking about Mike Alden and Frank Haith.  Not that both these guys aren't worthy of discussion.  It's just that there's nothing to talk about right now.  Coach Haith hasn't even hired his first staff member yet, or gotten his first recruit.  There may be something if he manages to salvage something from this recruiting session, which suffered from inattention to former coach mike anderson.    As for Alden, as I've stated before, he's very unlikely to be fired due to the profitability of the AD, and the fact that most programs are doing as well or better than they ever have during his watch.  What I'd like to talk about are what I consider to be the 5 biggest moments for the athletic department for 2010-2011.  We may yet see something from the baseball, and even more importantly the softball programs, but those will be topics for another day.  So here are my 5 biggest, in no particular order.
1. The Catch
No, I'm not talking about Montana to Clark.  I'm referring to September 18th of 2010.  The Tigers season appears ready to derail before it ever gets out of the station as they trail lightly regarded San Diego State 24-20 with less than a minute to go.  Suddenly, out of no where, Blaine Gabbert finds TJ Moe for a 68 yard touchdown to save the season.   Without that, who knows where the season might have gone. 
2. The Return

If TJ saved the season, the return of the opening kickoff from Gahn McGaffie set the stage and made Missouri a contender.  ESPN Gameday was in town and Tiger nation had done itself proud, showing up over 18,000 strong to set a new record.  But what remained was the game against the # 1 ranked Oklahoma Sooners, a team that head coach Gary Pinkel had never beaten.  The game opened with a lot of energy from the crowd, and the Tigers needed a good start to keep them in the game.  McGaffie supplied that with an 86 yard return of the opening kickoff and I've not been in Memorial Stadium where the volume was that loud since the 4th quarter of the 2003 game vs Nebraska where the Tigers ended 24 years of frustration.
3. Robin Pingeton hired 
I know.  Women's basketball isn't a major sport.  In the food chain at Mizzou, it ranks about even with golf and cross country.  But it was making a statement that the Tigers weren't giving up on any sports, whether it had a following or not. While I'm not sure I always agree with the philosophy, it is pretty much the mission statement of the athletic department, and I expect to see her bring women's basketball to a level of competitiveness that we just haven't see before.
4 Mike Anderson resigns
I probably shouldn't have capitalized his name, and I doubt that he's ever mentioned again, but the cowardly and deceitful way that former coach anderson left is something that I'm going to remember.  He did raise the bar of the program after the Quin Snyder debacle, but I hope that at some point he learns to tell the truth.  Frankly, I wouldn't believe the man if he said good morning.
5 Gary Pinkel's contract extended
This just happened today and I couldn't be happier.  Coach Pinkel signed a 2 year extension which means he remains in CoMO until 2017.  Coach signed the extension for the same money he was making, although he does receive an extra 100 k contributed to his annuity per year, and an extra 150,000 to be distributed among his assistants.  This may or may not be the last extension the coach signs, but I still expect to see a statue of him outside the stadium after he retires.   

Random thoughts

Billy Butler hit a 2 run homer in the bottom of the 8th inning last night to tie the game at 6, and the Royals completed the comeback in the 12th inning when Melky Cabrera scored Chris Getz and KC moved to 4-1 with a 7-6 win over the White Sox at Kauffman Stadium.  It's the 4th win for the Royals in their last at bat also, which is probably as many as they had last season.  I still am a long way from saying they'll be a contender.  Hell, I'm quite a ways away from saying they won't lose over 90 games this year.  But right now they're fun to watch and we're seeing some things from some guys that we need to compliment the young talent that's going to start coming in later this year, or I guess now since we have 5 rookies in the bullpen and one at first base.  The starting pitching is suspect, save for Jeff Francis who looked good in his first outing.   Alcides Escobar may be the best defensive shortstop we've seen in KC since UL Washington and may allow KC to move Mike Moustakas to 3rd base since I'm fairly certain Mike Aviles isn't going to be starting next year if he's in KC at all. 

If you happen to live or travel to the Los Angeles area and you see these 2 scumbags to the left, don't turn your back on them.  These are police sketches of 2 dreamboats that attacked San Francisco Giants fan Bryan Stow in Dodgers Stadium parking lot last Tuesday night.   Stow, a 42 year old paramedic was taking a dream road trip to watch his Giants and was beaten by 2 assailants that resemble these drawings so badly that he's in critical condition in a coma with a brain injury.  This has nothing to do with the Dodgers or LA residents in general.  This was a cowardly attack by 2 guys that need to be caught and put away.  My biggest hope is that they haven't already reproduced.  The gene pool isn't deep enough for a couple of bottom feeders like this.

New Missouri basketball coach Frank Haith may not have wowed the entire Missouri fan base with his first press conference as the head coach of the basketball Tigers, but he hit a solid triple.  I think that MU fan is willing to give him a pass until they at least see if he can recruit some solid players at this late juncture.  And for you guys that want to see Mike Alden fired for this.  While I've disagreed that he deserves to lose his job, I agree that he's really polarizing an already and always fractured fan base, it's not going to happen most likely.  The AD appears to be 14 million dollars in the black this year; one of less than 20 athletic departments in the nation that turned a profit.  He may get spanked by the curators sometimes but very few companies fire a manager that turns a large profit.  And one thing I'll say to Mike, and by the way I did email this suggestion...Leave Haith alone and let him run his program.  The guy graduated players from Miami and kept them out of the headlines off the court.  He deserves some latitude until he proves he doesn't.

I'll take coaches you've never heard of for $500.00 Alex...

This wasn't the hire I expected.  It wasn't what anyone expected.  A week ago we were talking about stealing Matt Painter from Purdue and now we wind up with a guy that many of us never heard of.  Now to be fair, I really don't recall hearing much about Painter either, but a lot of people that I respect think this is nothing short of a bad hire.  Since being hired as the head man in Miami Haith has compiled a record of 129-101 (43-69 in conference) in the tough ACC.  He's taken the Hurricanes to 1 NCAA tournament and frankly, appears to be mediocre at best.  The talking heads have been pounding AD Mike Alden over this hire, led by former Tiger great Jon Sunvold who's disliked Alden since Norm Stewart was relieved of his duties in 1999.

Not since the day that Mike Anderson was announced as coach have I felt like Alden's job was in more jeopardy than it is today.  I've always defended Alden.  I think he's improved the overall athletic department incredibly, but you know, sometimes it's just best to move on.  That time may be coming for Mike, and frankly, I don't know if it's a good thing or a bad thing.  He's be accused of micro-managing the sports programs and there are indications that has been true, at least as far a men's basketball is concerned.  I remember when the youngest Rush brother was deciding on which school to attend and Alden over rode then coach Quin Snyder and forbid him to come to Mizzou.  Rush went to ku and played on their last national title team in 2008.  The firing of Snyder was handled as badly as it could have been, and even an Alden supporter like myself can't defend that.  You never hear any complaints from Alden's cadillac hire, Gary Pinkel, but the fact is that in the AD heirarchy Pinkel is the 600 lb gorilla in the room.

As for the Haith hire, there's a BOC teleconference this evening, presumably to discuss the final language on his contract.  I expect it to be resolved and we'll hear Haith announced as the 17th head coach of Missouri basketball tomorrow.  But, it wouldn't surprise me if we hear later tonight that Alden has been terminated and now we're looking for a new AD as well as restarting the coaching search.  I don't really think it is a good idea, but you know, I don't know that it's all bad either.

Fire Mike Alden?

I knew it would happen.  After the Lyin' Mike Anderson packed his bags and scurried off to Arkansas and MU swang and missed on Matt Painter, the Mike Alden haters came out in full force.  If you read message boards, and I read a lot of them, you'll hear people bitching about how embarrassed they are that Alden is the head of the athletic department at the school they claim to love.  Now if you've read this blog often, or much at all for that matter, then you know I'm an Alden fan.  I've met him several times and have always been treated very well, and no, I'm not a huge $$$ booster by any means.  I just happen to believe that he's done a very good job at a place where it isn't easy to have success considering the financial restraints the university operates under.

Alden took over as athletic director on July 16th, 1998 after Joe Castiglione left for greener pastures in Norman, Oklahoma citing a lack of support from an administration that had deemed that athletics simply weren't important enough compared with the academics the university wanted to be known for.  It had been a problem since the 70's when then chancellor Barbara (Babs) Uehling basically ran Dan Devine out of CoMO, giving him zero support.  That started a 30 year slide of Missouri football.  When he arrived there was sort of a mini revival under then head coach Larry Smith, but that was dying just as he arrived, and some of the worst losses in memory happened during his last 2 years.  All Alden did was go out and hire an unknown guy from Toledo named Gary Pinkel to take over and he's going to be the winningest coach in Missouri history by the time he retires.      

Several things have happened, at least in my opinion that have turned a portion of the fan base against Alden.  The first was the firing of Norm Stewart after he spent 32 years coaching the Tigers.  Now I loved Norm.  He was about all we had during those dark days of the football program, but he'd lost his zest for coaching and it was really time for him to go.  It also brought a 25 million dollar donation from Bill Laurie toward the construction of Mizzou Arena, one of the finest basketball venue's in the country.  Sadly, it also brough Quin Snyder from Duke, who spent 7 years dragging down the program until, he was fired in a clumsy manner, that, again in my opinion was the lowlight of Alden's career.  A segment of the fans also blame him for the Big Ten expansion last summer, but anyone that really follows how these things work should know that was something being decided by people way over Alden's pay grade.

Right now, the basketball program is absolutely in a perilous position.  No coach and no recruits courtesy of Mike Anderson.  But the majority of sports are doing quite well, and Alden has made some good if not great hires in addition to Coach Pinkel.  I know it isn't a popular notion right now, but I have faith in Alden to make a good hire.  The fact of the matter is, that with the fan support, Missouri just isn't perceived to be as good a job as many of us feel that it is.  I hope things are going well, and want to thank you guys for reading.  I've been averaging over 2,500 hits a month on this blog and am starting to do better at my website, merlinsedge.com.  In addition to the stores, I've added a news and sports page titled current events.  It's full of articles and columns about Mizzou athletics by real writers like Mike DeArmond and his son Gabe who runs an excellent Missouri site, PowerMizzou, as well as guys like Bryan Burwell and Bernie Miklasz from St Louis today.  Please stop by and let me know what you think.  It's still a work in progress, but I'm actually pretty happy with how it's turning out.

Opening day and the search continues

Baseball season in Kansas City begins Thursday at 3:10 as the Royals take on the Los Angeles Angels at Kauffman Stadium.  Coming off a 95 loss season in '10, Ned Yost begins the season as manager and mercifully ends the Trey Hillman era.  But after you've sat through Bob Boone and Tony Pena, you're used to seeing scratch your head decisions.  Yost has experienced some limited success while managing the Milwaukee Brewers, going 512 wins against 574 losses from 2003 to 2008.  However, he took over a terrible team and brought them to respectability going with young players.  Ironically he was fired late in the season in 2008 with his team playing good ball.  I don't think Yost, at 55 is going to suddenly make you a world series contender, but he seems to do well with young players, and that's where the Royals are going to be, starting this season.  4 rookies in the bullpen, including former Missouri Tiger, Aaron Crow.  Luke Hochevar draws the opening day start.  I had pretty high hopes when he was drafted, but really haven't seen any consistancy from him yet.  I'd like to get excited but really can't.  Starting pitching is weak, some journeymen guys were acquired.  When the season starts to slip away, which could happen in May, I expect to see some young guys start to come up. 

Some guys had some nice stats during spring training.  Those really don't mean much but this is a big year for some guys that fans and the team had high hopes for when they were signed.  One of those is Alex Gordon, drafted in 2007 from hick nation.  He was a top 5 pick that has been pretty disappointing so far.  But I really like this kid and hope that he breaks open this year.  He's playing left field now, which has to be easier than playing 3rd base.  I still think this kid has the talent to hit .280 with 15 homers and 70-80 ribbies.  Billy Butler turns 25 on April 18th.  I expect him to DH more this year.  He's another kid that I'm hoping for a big improvement in.  But this starting rotation scares me to death, and we're counting on a lot of guys matching their biggest years ever, and that wasn't last year.  Mike Aviles is a great guy to have on your team.  He's not great when he's your starting 3rd baseman.  Early prediction...I go to more games this season than in the past 5.  The Royals fade early and we see young talent start to be brought in.  Probably looking at a record of 68-94 this year though, and Yost will be on a much shorter leash next year.

And switching gears, it's been a rough week for Missouri basketball fans as their # 1 target, Matt Painter of Purdue decided to remain after the Boilermakers upped his salary close to one million dollars over what he was previously being paid.  I assume that a portion of the fan base is going to blame athletic director Mike Alden for failing to land Painter, and for the fact that the news got out that he was attempting to hire him.  We'll also have a percentage of fans that will say Painter was doing nothing more than using the Tigers to garner a raise for himself.  I don't agree with either sentiment, but we're Tiger fans, so that's how it's going to play out.  Now Mizzou has to continue it's search, and I frankly have no idea where it goes, but I do know that regardless it's going to be ugly on the Missouri message boards.   

Missouri basketball. Where do we go now?

I was wrong.  I didn't expect to be writing this.  I thought Mike Anderson, in the end would have decided to stay in Columbia but now he's headed to Fayetteville to be the new head coach at Arkansas.  As would be expected, Tiger nation is in something of an uproar, while hog fan swarms to Missouri message boards to whoop "PIG SOOEY" to anyone that will listen.  I'm going to resist giving my opinion of  Anderson.  If you care about Missouri sports then I probably share yours.  We bought into his words about family, ethics and trust and were rewarded with lies.  But it's not the time to delve into cursing, moaning and tears.  The question is, where do we go from here?  You have a team that will feature 7 seniors next year and not 1 recruit coming in yet.  There's an excellent chance that the one guy you were in on, Otto Porter will now take his talent to kansas to play for Bill Self and the beaks.  It's sad times if your a Tiger fan.

So where does Mike Alden begin?  The program still has a shiny arena and some talent for next year.  It's important that a coach be brought in quickly that has some recruiting acumen.  There are 3 openings and precious little talent to be had at this point.  But next year, recruiting will be critical if the program is to continue the success that the last staff began.  There is Melvin Watkins, the associate head coach who's been considered to be the lead recruiter.  I know some believe he should just be promoted, since he brought some talent to A&M during his tenure.  But he also coached that talent to an 0-16 record his final season before he was fired.  In my opinion, Watkins would be the only guy I'd even consider keeping, but I think a new guy needs to be brought in, and he should be given somewhat free reign in bringing in his own assistants.  I think it would be better to just cut bait with the rest of the staff and move on.

I've got no idea where Alden begins to look.  It's Missouri, and as we've seen, we just aren't considered a destination job.  There doesn't seem to be the passion we have for football, and frankly there never was.  Even during Norm's heyday there were lots of open seats in Section D at Hearnes arena.  We were just blessed to have a good coach that bled black and gold, and was able to overlook the tepid support when the opponent wasn't kansas.  Will the Tigers be able to find such a guy?  I have no idea if any of Stewart's former players is coaching now, other than Kim Anderson at UCM, or Larry Drew who's currently an NBA assistant.  I might talk about some guys that are potential candidates, but I might not.  Frankly, the past week has kind of soured me on the program in much the same way I felt when Quin Snyder left.    
 

Women's softball picking up steam.

I know I said I was going to talk about men's basketball but really, you can't write about the end of a season if you aren't sure you still have a coach after it's ended.  I think that Mike Anderson is staying at Missouri, but I certainly wouldn't bet the mortgage on it.  And frankly, you don't, under any circumstances pay him more than you're paying Gary Pinkel, who's won 48 games in the last 5 seasons.  You just don't.  It's a tight rope that Mike Alden is walking here and seeing that it's the third year in a row he's had to walk it, I imagine he's getting pretty damn tired of it.  Mike Anderson has done a lot of things right, but I'm not going to pay him like you would a Bill Self, Roy Williams or Coach K yet.  I imagine if you were privy to Alden he'd tell you there are a million things he'd rather be doing than going through rumors every year that his basketball coach is being pursued by others with open check books.

One thing I know he'd like to talk about right now is the women's softball team and their coach Ehren Earleywine.  The Lady Tigers currently sit at 21-3 and on a 18 game winning streak.  After the 3-3 start which was made up of mostly warm weather teams while the Tigers were forced into training inside, they've been on fire.  The conference season will be starting soon and we'll get a better look at how the ladies stack up against some pretty good competition.  But the pre-season hopes of a conference title and a long run in the college softball world series look possible once again.

Chelsea Thomas and Kristin Nottelmann are both appearing to be unhittable right now and the Tigers are averaging over 6 runs a game with Ashley Fleming, Rhea Taylor, Jenna Marston and Nicole Hudson leading the way.  It's going to be really interesting to watch from this point, as the team at this point appears to be serious contenders to go all the way with their balance and youth.  And while I'm not that big a softball fan, it's a hell of a lot more fun to talk about than basketball.     

The state and strategy of the Missouri athletic department.

Mike Alden, a man with a tough job.

It should be hate week as the Tigers prepare to close the regular season in men's basketball against kansas, but I just don't feel the burn.  The season has been a bit of a disappointment and I'm certainly more of a football guy, but playing the beaks in hoops has been something of a losing proposition since Norm Stewart roamed the sidelines at Hearnes.  Instead, I've been thinking about the athletic department as a whole and how I feel about the success.  To start off, if you've read this blog for long you know that I'm a big fan of Mike Alden.  He's hired the people that, by in large, have kept Mizzou competitive in most of the 20 programs that the university supports.  Yes, he's last in league titles, but that doesn't paint the entire picture.    While receiving approximately 53 million dollars in funding last year, revenues were dwarfed by such departments as Texas at 120 million, Okie Lite at 88 mil, ku at 86, OU at 77 and A&M at 74 million.  How hard can it be to be successful when you're operating with that kind of financial advantage?   

The beaks pack the house.

An obvious solution would be for the Tiger fans to step up to the plate and donate more money, but frankly, I don't believe that's realistic in this economy.  I'm keeping up with my annual TSF donation, but with so much uncertainty I can't justify giving more.  Hell, the gas pumps and Price Chopper are taking all the more.  If there was some sort of consensus on allocation then it would make Mikes job easier.  kansas made over 30 million dollars more than Missouri last year but outside of mens hoops, where's their success?  One thing you can always count on is kansas fielding a national contender in basketball.  That's where their passion is and that's where they get their identity.  Oh, they may bitch about how bad their football team is, and they love to boast that they've played the all time series tightly against MU, but other than that, they aren't willing to demand a better football program or even to support one.  They'll let every other program die on the vine as long as mens hoops is appearing regularly on Big Monday.  I'm not saying it's right or wrong.  It's just their strategy.  Meanwhile, in COMO the strategy is to finish in the top 3rd of the conference in all sports.  Compounding the problems is the fact that Missouri offers more programs than Texas, who brings in more than 65 million dollars more in revenue.

Do you know which squad this is?

If I was running the show, which of course I'm not, I'd be figuring out how to whittle down the number to the minimum required, which I believe is around 14.  I don't want to seem like I'm picking on programs but come on, when was the last time you went out to watch a swim meet?  For that matter, what about womens gymnastics, golf or cross country by either gender?  Yes, they are legitimate sports and I'm glad that kids have an opportunity to earn a scholarship for activities they've excelled in, but sooner or later you have to be able to pay your own way.  I'd probably cut it down to 5 sports for men, with football, hoops, baseball, wrestling and track and field, and however many I could cut on the womens side to keep Title IX compliance.  And frankly, it may come to that.  And like I say, if your son is a great golfer and you were hoping he'd get a chance to play for the home school, I don't mean this as an insult.  But don't complain that the basketball team isn't doing as well as you'd hoped.  They simply are having to share too many funds with teams that don't begin to contribute anything to a strapped athletic department.

Missouri fans, recruiting and other tidbits...

Well, the football regular season is over and we're working our way toward basketball season.  Nothing to do now except wait for the bowl games to begin, (1st 3 being on December 18th, just a few short days away) finish up with this years recruiting class, get out and support the basketball team, and, being Missouri fans, bitch like hell.  I hate to say that about a fan base, especially one that I consider myself to be a member of in good standing, but it's true.  I frequent a lot of message boards and am constantly amazed at the negativity our fan's.  The Tigers, by most were considered to be, before the season about an 8 win team, 9 if some things broke correctly.  Now, following a 10 win season, the third time in four years the Tigers have reached double digit wins, a large percentage of our followers choose to focus on the negatives.  Yes, we should have beaten Texas Tech.  And if you want to nitpick then yes, we probably also fell a couple of bowl games below where we could, note I said COULD have been selected, although our following the last couple of seasons probably doomed us there.  I choose to be happy myself about the fact that since the day Chase Daniel took over as quarterback in 2006, the Tigers have gone 48-18.  Folks with a bowl game to be played, Missouri has averaged over 9 wins a season.  Folks, the first Missouri game I can remember was played January 1st, 1966 in a 20-18 win over Florida in the Sugar Bowl.  Trust me on this one, these are the "good old days".

Now Missouri has the opportunity to send off our players to a great warm weather destination for a bowl game against a good, if somewhat underachieving Iowa Hawkeyes team from the Big Ten, the conference we hoped to be a member of this summer, yet we're complaining that we were passed over by the Cotton and Alamo bowls.  I get the snub from the Cotton Bowl and understand why folks are a bit pissed off by said snub.  They took a Texas A&M team that the Tigers throttled 30-9 at College Station a few weeks ago.  However, since that time the Aggies reeled off 6 straight wins, including victories over both teams that represented the conference in the title game, Nebraska and Oklahoma.  There is no way to say they weren't the hottest team in the conference down the stretch.  Their last trip to the Cotton Bowl was after the 2004 season, they have a huge fan base that's going to travel and put butts in the seats.  We forget that, outside of the BCS title game, the rest of the bowls are mostly concerned with showing a profit and making themselves look good.  While I don't agree with it, I get it and think they probably made a good choice.  As far as the Alamo Bowl, well Okie Lite finished with the exact same 10-2 and 6-2 conference record as the Tigers and the teams didn't play each other.  It's perfectly within their right to select the Cowboys.  And frankly, if you asked the Missouri players, I imagine they'd all prefer to spend a few days in Phoenix as opposed to Dallas or San Antonio.  Hell, the Insight Bowl even has a bigger payout than the Alamo so that's more travel money for Mizzou.  We need to get over the victim mentality and get behind this team.  The Tigers only lose 5 starters this year and the future indeed looks bright.

Another whine fest that I'm growing tired of is the one currently going on about the state of Tiger recruiting.  Yes, we currently lost 2 kids in Anthony Pierson and Sheldon Richardson that were our highest ranked recruits, but Big Shel has been uncharacteristically quiet since announcing he was flipping his commitment to USC while Pierson is reportedly heading to CoMo this weekend for an official visit.  I wouldn't write off either of these young men quite yet.  And even if they do both wind up elsewhere, why not concentrate on the kids we do have, such as Gerrand Johnson, a 270 lb defensive tackle that will graduate high school in December and enroll early at Mizzou.  Yep, he's only a three star kid, but take a look at his offer list.  The Tigers beat out such teams as Arkansas, Ol' Miss, Nebraska and Tennessee for his services.  He looks like the kind of kid that's going to pair with last years DT prize, Lucas Vincent to give Missouri a nice pair of tackles to build around once Dominique Hamilton and Terrell Resonno graduate next year.   

In short, it's time Missouri fan grew a pair and decided to get behind the sports teams at our university.  Mike Alden has hired a couple of quality coaches that have established winning programs and graduated their players.  I, for one am going to do what I can to support them.  You can either continue to whine and bitch, or you can open your checkbook, buy a bowl ticket, get out to watch a top 15 basketball team and make a wrestling match, volleyball game or do a bit of hot stove work taking a look at what could be very good softball and baseball teams this spring.  Frankly, it looks to be a much better way to spend your time as opposed to the glass half empty approach.  But hell, that's just me.  

My final, and I do mean final thoughts on expansion for now. The losers.

We're now withing 9 weeks of the beginning of football season.  We got a nice reprieve with all this conference expansion talk but I think that's dead for the foreseeable future.  However, the last time I talked about the winners in all this, so today lets take a look at some of the losers.
1. Missouri.

No one had their reputation more battered than the Tigers in my opinion.  We were portrayed as the cheap hooker who was willing to do anything in our effort to join the Big Ten.  Mike Alden took a hit in this when I don't believe he did anything other than keep his mouth shut and soldier on.  It was apparent that Coach Pinkel preferred to remain viable in the state of Texas for recruiting purposes so I imagine it was a mixed blessing for the AD.  Unfortunately for Mike he's going to be the point man for athletics, even when something like this occurred that really was over his job description.  The onus now falls on him as well as Mike Anderson and Gary Pinkel.  This thing is just taking a breather for now so it is imperative that Missouri continue to win, and win big.  And while Missouri would have to listen if the Big Ten were to call again, I don't think a little flirtation with the SEC would be a bad thing.  Just keep it behind the scenes and for the love of God, tell Jay Nixon to keep his mouth shut this time. 
2. Texas A&M & Oklahoma.

Now how were these guys losers you may ask.  Yes, they will receive more money for the new television deal that is still nothing more than a promise from Fox Sports.  But A&M apparently was negotiating a possible move to the SEC without Texas, (and possibly bringing along Mizzou as a partner) but for whatever reason, it died that fateful Monday morning.  Whether it was Texas politics, less enthusiasm from the SEC once they determined that landscape changing was in the process of happening, or just the realization that they'd be splitting up 100 years of Texas tradition, they caved and are firmly back in the fold.  And Oklahoma?  They have football tradition that can compare with anyone, from Bud Wilkerson to Barry Switzer to Big game Bob Stoops.  Congratulations guys, you've now earned the wing man label forever.
3. Big Ten and Pac 10.

Ok, imagine you're Jim Delaney.  On Tuesday you heard Deloss Dodds state that Missouri didn't matter and the Big XII could function as long as long as Nebraska remains in the conference.  So within 72 hours who is holding a press conference but the University of Nebraska announcing they will be joining the Big Ten.  So it's Friday and to celebrate you decide to go out for a few drinks with that cute little intern from Wisconsin.  Next thing you know you wake up Monday morning in a Motel 6 in downtown Lincoln in bed with Larry the Cable Guy.  You just added about 4 to 5 million dollars a year in subscription fees to the Big Ten network and now have to hope that the huskers add a lot of advertising revenue or you just cost the other 11 members of your conference quite a bit of $$$$.

And if you think that Delaney was the guy that was going for the home run and wound up with a seeing eye single, how about Larry Scott and the Pac 10?  He was going to help change the face of football and add 4 teams from the south division of the Big XII.  So what did he get?  That's right, Colorado and Utah.  That's pretty much like the guy attempting to bunt a runner over to 2nd base and wind up having the ball bounce up, hit him in the nose and turning into a double play when the runner is caught off at first base.   There are plenty of folks that were fitted for clown suits here and right now Larry has the reddest nose.
So now we can forget about conference expansion for a while.  I really don't know what I'm going to talk about other than this time it's probably going to actually be football related.  Unless of course something new breaks in lawrence and lew perkins is led out of his office in handcuffs.  It's been a nice diversion, but now it's time to get the eye black together and get ready for the season.  Have a great week folks.

I love my university and team and all

But why is it that sometimes we look like a bunch of monkey's trying to fuck a football?  For the last couple of months we've heard that Missouri to the Big Ten was a "done deal".  Now at about 3 ticks before midnight out of no where comes hick nation swooping in to take the first bid.  And to add insult to injury, the Nebraska chancellor, Harvey Perlman and the athletic director, Tom Osborne take the opportunity to toss Missouri under the bus as they make the announcement that they've applied for Big Ten membership. 
You'd think that as a Missouri fan I'd be used to this.  It's not like this is the first time we've watched as we inexplicably managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. We've seen fifth downs and bicycle kicked balls turn games that were won into just another horrific chapter in the history of what it's like to follow the Tigers.  And then, what could have been the worst part of all of this was the response of our leadership; yes I'm talking about Brady Deaton and Mike Alden saying that they'd been in no discussions with any other conference.  WTF?  I don't know if this is true or not, but if it was then they'd better be on the phone today, and I mean right fucking now trying to contact the commissioner of the SEC, unless they have a written agreement with the Big Ten that this is the way things had to shake out in order to collapse the Big XII and our membership will be announced next week when the conference completes it's implosion.  I don't know about you, but winding up in some makeshift version of the Big East or ACC does absolutely nothing for me.

And so now, we as fans can do nothing but wait.  We have no idea if we were in on this as part of some master plan or if we were just being used by poker players that were far better at this game than our guys were.
When you get down to it, I'm not actually crying for myself or for any of our fans.  Hell, most of us have been at this long enough that we never open a newspaper or log on to the internet without first making sure that our nut cups were firmly and comfortably in place.  The guys that I feel bad for are coaches Gary Pinkel and Mike Anderson who put their faith in the Missouri administration and have worked their asses off to put a product on the field that the university and fans could be proud of.  They, above any of us fans deserve better than what they're getting now.

A last look at the basketball season

I'm pretty much a football guy.  Always have been even when basketball was enjoying more success.  Shortly after my own college experience ended, Missouri wound up with one of the best recruiting classes in the nation when Norm Stewart brought in 2 of the highest rated high schoolers in the nation, Steve Stipanovich and Jon Sunvold.  All those guys did was win 4 Big 8 titles during their careers.  They were never able to get to a final 4 however which sort of taints our memories of them.  It was a different era however and Norm Stewart put much more emphasis on winning the conference, in part because there were fewer teams in the NCAA's then and winning conference was the only way you could be relatively sure of even reaching the tournament.  Plus, Norm had an almost Don Fambroughish obsession with beating kansas.  Just without the obvious wide eyed fanaticism.

I pretty much quit paying attention to basketball during the last 3 years or so of the Quin Snyder era.  Talk about an unmitigated fucking disaster.  He was considered to be the next "can't miss" guy by most of the pundits and frankly a whole lot of Missouri fans, including myself.  To watch him gradually circle the drain following the Ricky Clemon's episode, along with my enthusiasm for the program was disheartening to say the least.  But we did get a really nice arena out of the deal I guess.  
But then, in yet another of the weirder days in Missouri sports history, and if you know anything about Missouri, you know we've had some really bizarre incidents in our past. (5th down anyone?)  On March 26th, 2006,  Mike Anderson was to be announced as the new head coach of the Tigers following the termination of Snyder by Missouri play by play announcer Gary Link.  Seriously.  No need to make up stories about Missouri, we can do weirder shit on our own just by accident.  Anyway, the press conference was delayed while the Board of Curators was holding a meeting on whether or not to fire athletic director Mike Alden for the botched firing among other things.  So we have television cameras and reporters but no athletic director and a coach sitting in the back wondering whether the contract he'd just signed was going to be worth the paper it was printed on.  When push came to shove, Alden was able to hold on by the skin of his teeth and Mike Anderson's hiring was complete.

The first couple of years was tough for Anderson as he had to work with kids he'd not recruited and didn't have the sort of discipline and dedication you need to succeed in his "Fastest 40 minutes of basketball" system.  Unexpected losses, player altercations and a general belief that Anderson would never be able to get it done marred those first 2 seasons.  Then in year 3 it came together for him and his team as transfer and nephew Demarre Carrol and former Quin recruit Leo Lyons led the Tigers to the Big 12 tournament title, a 3rd seed in the tournament and an elite 8 finish.  Losing those 2 players plus fellow graduate Matt Lawrence made most of the experts again doubt Coach and the team was picked 7th in the league pre-season with little chance to be successful.  However, all that prevented them from another top 4 finish was an injury to junior Justin Safford which contributed to a late season swoon.  They did manage to notch one win at the dance before falling last Sunday to a good West Virginia team coached by that bastion of virtue, Bob Huggins, who was considered for the job when Anderson was hired.
The future looks bright for the Tigers again.  A good portion of this years team were just sophomores and he's bringing in his best recruiting class to date including high flyer Tony Mitchell and point guard Phil Pressey, son of his lifelong friend and college room mate and former NBA player Paul Pressey.  While Coach Anderson may never enjoy a stretch of league titles that Coach Stewart did, his system is built for the NCAA tournament and I firmly believe Missouri's first final 4 appearance will occur sooner than later.  Between he and Gary Pinkel, people are finally realizing that Mike Alden is a pretty damn good judge of coaches when he's not also being charged with finding 25 million dollars for a new arena. 
A few things to talk about concerning spring football and that's what I'll be getting to next time.  Have a good week.