That's right...it's a weekend edition!
- HUGE win for Mizzou Baseball yesterday. Nothing better than snagging an extra-inning road win by nailing a runner at the plate to end the game. The win moves Mizzou (13-6) to within 2.5 games of Texas (17-5) for first place. Catching the 'Horns might be too much to ask, but Mizzou remains two games up on OSU (11-8), who won a tight Bedlam battle last night in front of 11,184. MAN that's a lot of fans for a college baseball game. They're also 2.5 games up on ATM (11-9), who's playing Dallas Baptist this weekend.
- For Mizzou Softball, it all comes down to this. Sweep Nebraska, and Mizzou (12-3) has its second ever Big XII title. Split the 2-game series (or get swept), and OU (14-4) wins the title. I love all this important baseball/softball Mizzou's playing, but...it can get a little nerve-wracking!!
- Finally, I intended to post link this yesterday, but forgot (I forget a lot of things at 5:45am). Bill Simmons wrote a nice column about how certain fans in certain arenas can truly will a home team to victory. It's pretty difficult for a Mizzou fan to read this and not think about Hearnes Center vs Mizzou Arena. It's super difficult for me because I've only been to a handful of games at Former Paige, and never for a huge game. As time goes by, my memory starts, I'm sure, to inflate the impact the Hearnes had on certain games, but...man, I just know the fans had an impact in that place. I knowingly think back to all those late-'90s Kansas games (especially the Corey Tate game in '97 and the 81-59 game in '00), I even more knowingly think of the '00 OSU game, which I documented here:
..."An inordinately long injury timeout followed, and the fans remaining in the half-full Hearnes Center began a “Let’s Go Tigers” chant that stretched throughout the entire timeout...and out of nowhere there was an unbelievable buzz in the Hearnes Center. Mizzou was down 13 after Alexander made 2 FT’s, but then...Jeff Hafer makes a 3...then Clarence stole the ball...then Rush made a 3...and after a Desmond Mason 3-point play, Gilbert made a 3...then Kareem Rush stole an inbounds pass and canned a 3 to make it a 4-point game with 50 seconds left. Even though Hearnes was half-full, the pop after that 3 went down was about the second-loudest I’ve ever heard (the loudest, of course, being the alley-oop to Paulding during the 2001 Mizzou-Iowa game...of course, there were roughly 35,000 people crammed into the Hearnes at that time, so that’s almost cheating)—all 7,000 people remaining in the building just knew Mizzou was going to win. Of course, then OSU broke the press, got a dunk, made FT’s, and coasted to a 12-point win...but that “Let’s Go Tigers” buzz was something I’ll never forget."
So to all you readers out there who have been to a number of games at Mizzou Arena, what do you think. Have there been many "willed to victory" moments there, and if not...is that because of the arena, or just the years of mediocrity?
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