Wow was I ever in need of a bye week myself. Having been to all of the games so far, and with a crazy October on the way, the week off was lovely just for me if no one else. Crazy weekend though, not a great one for my favorite pro teams, but more on that later I suppose
Football:
So with the bye week for the football team, I guess I will spend a little time talking about the weekend that was both from a conference perspective and a national view as well. It was almost better that Mizzou did not play, for fear they would have been caught up in the insanity this past weekend. On the conference side, a few big wins were scored by the Big XII North with CU upsetting OU in Boulder and kSU further cementing their odd ownership of Texas. While it does bring some stature to the Big XII north, it also makes Mizzou’s road that much tougher as Atch pointed out in the comments yesterday. Being talked about all week from the view point of CU beating the #3 team, kSU beating a top ranked team, kU and MU still being undefeated and MU playing Nebraska in a prime time matchup is lovely for the oft-beaten down section of the conference. An interesting weekend is coming up with what may now be an elimination style playdown with MU/NU and kSU/kU with the winners sitting far better than the losers. Will be great to watch, that is for sure.
On the national side, I am not sure I have ever seen the type of movement in the polls like we saw this week. And yes, there were plenty of upsets to help that process, but there are still some inane moves going on in both polls. At the front of the line has to be South Florida, who just keeps winning, beat WVU at home on Friday night. That win, coupled with a number of losses got the Bulls moved from 18th to 6th. South Florida immediately becomes/is cemented as the feel good story of the season, much like Rutgers from last year. Only two currently ranked teams remain on their docket (Rutgers and Cincy), will be exciting to see where they end up. LSU overtook USC in the AP coming off of a win with a terribly sloppy half against Tulane. I guess that is better than the terribly sloppy game by USC in their win over Wash. A showdown for them is coming with Cal who did well with their matchup against highly ranked Oregon. Auburn picked themselves up off of the scrap heap and did a number on Florida, and I never thought I would see the day where S. Florida and Kentucky take up residence in the top 10. As The Boy texted me on Saturday, “Strange things are afoot at the Circle K”
Soccer:
Well, as The Boy posted about over the weekend, a tremendous effort by the team Friday in front of a ridiculously large (1,500+) crowd in Columbia for a thrilling 2 OT last second win over #4 aTm. I suppose with this win, coupled with the previous loss to #3 Santa Clara, we should be ranked #4 this coming week. J However, in the real world, I suppose this won’t happen. The ladies followed up that win with a great effort down in Waco and hung on for a 4-2 win over Baylor. Not too sure why the schedule now allows for split home-road weekends, but it makes for an even more impressive feat when a team can take both games.
Kristen Andrighetto is making a run at an All American spot with her play of late. Voted to the Soccer America Team last week, she followed that up with another amazing weekend. She scored her 8th goal of the season with just about 30 seconds remaining in the 2nd and final overtime on Friday night to take down the Aggies, and came back today with her 9th of the season in 10 games, with 6 assists and 24 total points. The sophomore will certainly be winning some additional honors this week, and keep an eye on Alysha Bonnick, the frosh who scored her 8th goal of the season against Baylor. Mizzou has already scored the same amount of goals they tallied all of last season, showing the offense has definitely been turned up. After their pending jump in the polls, the Tigers will head down to Lubbock on Friday night for their lone game of the weekend against Texas Tech, who have been so-so on the somewhat young season.
Volleyball:
Was there ever a doubt that if/when Mizzou won their first conference game that it would be in 5-set fashion? Mizzou did just that on Saturday night by taking down the #25 OU Sooners in Columbia in 5 sets, winning the last 15-13. The ladies made things harder on themselves than they needed to be, as they had 2 match points in the 3rd set, but could not capitalize on them before losing the set 35-33. After falling quickly in the 4th, they came out strong in the tie-breaker and never trailed before finally closing out the Sooners.
It is a key time for the ladies, as they have the chance now to string some wins together and begin to build back some of the confidence they surely lost with the pretty murderous start to their conference season. This week, they will take on CU, who is last in the conference at home on Wednesday night (on Fox Sports Midwest, which will be lovely). After that, they will travel back home to take on Texas Tech on Saturday. The time of that game has yet to be determined, but hopefully the AD will put it pretty early in the day so some of the early tailgaters (yours truly) can go to some of it during the afternoon before the football game that night. Hell, I say make it a dollar ticket or something and just let everyone come on in. At any rate, Tech is 2nd to last in the conference, so now would be the time for the ladies to get a couple of wins together and see what they can do about salvaging some of their season.
X-Country:
Both the men and the women participated in the Roy Griak Invitational, which is something of a pre-pre-national meet, with 26 teams participating and a very strong crop of schools. Mizzou had a pretty decent showing overall, with both teams taking 10th. The season continues to show a lot of promise, as the Tigers have many underclassmen making big contributions to the team and showing the future will remain bright for what is one of the steadiest programs at Mizzou. For the men, sophomore Dan Hedgecock led the Tigers with a 28th place finish. Junior Garret Jeffries and senior Billy Bell had great outings also for the Tigers, who came in 3rd among the other Big XII teams which participated.
For the ladies, junior Angela Portykus set a personal record and guided the women, and came in just ahead of freshman Kinsey Farren. Many of the lady harriers set great times where they also came in 3rd place among other Big XII schools participating. In the following weeks, the team will get a sneak preview of the course and site for the NCAA Championship, as they travel to Bradley University in two weeks for their Invitational event. That will lead right into the Pre-National meet not long after that. The X-Country season is a short one, but the Tigers have shown well thus far and will hopefully keep their season rolling along in the weeks to come.
Random Thoughts:
· Yes, my baseball team just completed one of the bigger flops/choke-jobs of all time this past weekend by getting blown out on the last day of the season and missing the playoffs entirely. The Mets will probably also miss out on having the MVP, though David Wright is a worthy choice, but I am just not so sure he will take it.
· Tony Romo is playing just fun football to watch
· That being said, WOW the Rams are bad. I believe their streak of offensive possessions without a TD is now over 30 straight drives.
· The Coors Light commercials with the football coaches and their PC’s used to be funny, but they are just trying too hard with the Bill Parcells’ versions.
· Holy Amazing Game on Thursday night with #11 South Carolina hosting #8 Kentucky. All told, there will be SEVEN games this coming weekend where both teams will be ranked. Looks like another crazy week ahead in poll movement
· Hockey season has started, though my team (the Devils) starts with a nine-game road trip as they await the completion of their new arena.
· Green Bay 4-0…strange
Monday, October 1, 2007
Monday Musings
Monday, September 24, 2007
Monday Musings
So The Boy stole my Appalachian State joke, so I have nothing to really lead this off with. I guess I will just throw myself right into this, but also with the caveat that if you care or want to respond to this, please always feel free. Better to know I have some people reading this and disagreeing with me at least than no one reading it at all.
Football:
We made it through unscathed for the most part…that is really all that needs to be said at this point. With the exception of Alexander’s injury (which did lead to the break out of Jeremy Maclin, so I guess it must be some sort of positive), we came through without too many lingering effects other than a 4-0 record and a top 20 ranking. Offensively, I cannot help but think we have regressed a bit in the last two games, or at least I believe Chase Daniel would tell you that. Tony Temple did top 100 yards in this game, and that was nice to see. I believe he has done better since the Illinois game and seems to be running with more confidence. However, I think the most important thing I saw yesterday was his catching the ball out of the backfield (other RB’s as well). This is a piece I believe we are going to need since I think teams will try to nullify our attack by bringing a lot of pressure.
Defensively, I still feel we kept a lot of our looks off the field and in hiding for conference play. We were better in this game than we had been in any of the other games, but we are still going to need to be able to line up and get pressure without the use of looks and stunts and blitz packages. I know it seems like I say that every week, I probably do. The only other concern at this point is starting to be the place kicking game. I will not say anything that has not already been said by people here and on other sites, but we are going need for Wolfert to be really solid inside of 45 yards as we go on from here. I know he can be, he was last year. Just need to see it again now.
Soccer:
It was a great effort by the ladies under the saddest of circumstances with the passing of their former teammate. It was quite the shock to all of us in the stadium when the result of their battle against #19 Cal was announced and that they had trounced the Bears 4-0 on Friday night. The women followed it up with a strong, but probably sloppy showing against TCU 6-2 Sunday afternoon. The Tigers got out to an early lead, but allowed the Horned Frogs to get it back to 3-2 before putting it away.
So, as has happened before, the ladies finish up the non-conference season very strong with two wins over ranked (At the time) teams and two other tremendous showings against top teams. But now it is conference time. And what a way to start it off, with #4 aTm coming to Walton Field on Friday evening. The triumvirate of Andrighetto, Collins and Bonnick, who have combined for 17 goals and 10 assists (and are 2 sophs and a frosh) will need to grow up some more and lead the team. Clearly Mizzou will carry a top 20 record into conference play, and could make a huge move by winning Friday and taking out Baylor back on the road on Sunday. Will be an interesting weekend, that is for certain.
Volleyball:
Well, there is no one in the entire country who has probably played as many five game matches as Mizzou has (five of them now if you are counting at home) However, winning barely any of them will really hurt come the end of the season when the team might come up a bit short of an NCAA berth unless some improvement happens soon. Dropping two five-gamers in conference this past week to Kansas and Iowa State. The loss of Klein has apparently made the ladies a little too one-dimensional on offense and we have yet to find the player who can step up and fill that roll as another go-to hitter.
In looking a little deeper at the stats, no one is jumping off of the page as either terribly great or just terribly terrible. What I think the problem has become is that if people are going to be solid from game to game on the team, we need more of them to be solid each game. I do not believe we can get by with only two good players in each game (and we seem to have singled out Na Yang and Wendy Wang as the two) but need at least one more to put us over the top each time. Amanda Hantouli and Megan Wilson are the candidates, time will tell if they step up.
The ladies will travel mid-week this week to play the Wildcats. KSU is looking solid with a 3-1 conference start and 11-3 overall record. The Tigers will return to Hearnes this weekend to take on conference leader (currently) OU. Tough week to say the least for the ladies.
Men’s Golf:
The men traveled to Zionsville, Indiana this past weekend (no….I have no idea where that actually is) to compete in the Wolf Run Invitational at the par 71, 7,195 yard course (that is a SOLIDLY long course, especially at par 71). Mizzou took something of a younger team, likely a mix of some of their experience in Peter Malnati and Bud Reynolds (junior and sophomore respectively) and then a triumvirate of freshman. If it means anything, they finished in order of experience, with Malnati coming in 24th in the tourney, and guiding the team to a 12th place finish.
Again, the fall season of golf is kinda funny, since there are never any tournaments which truly “count” for anything, just experience. I suppose at some point in these tourneys I would like to see us starting to play better, but I think we may also still be a year or two away. I do know that Coach Leroux has gained some decent recruits, and I imagine that should improve even more with the opening of the new home course. However, fall golf is the time you really won’t see that, so patience (I suppose) is a virtue here. The men return to the links at the Windon Memorial Classic in Glencoe, Ill. on Oct. 7-8.
Women’s Tennis:
The ladies were out in Maryland this past weekend for the Terrapin Invitational, and I believe really had another positive showing on their young season. This time, the team was a mix of many of the younger players who have come flying out of the gate, as well as some of the experience. The doubles team of Svetlic (senior) and Weber (freshman) took the doubles title, while freshman Maureen Modesto continued to impress by advancing to the finals of her flight before falling to the #2 ranked player in the field. Junior Racqual Wagner also made the finals of her flight before falling in a 3-set match.
Overall Coach Starkey sounds very upbeat and positive about the team, and from the looks of things, for good reason. The team appears to have good balance in terms of players' ages and experience, as well as young talent stepping up very early on. The ladies have shown very well by all accounts in their first two tournaments on the fall season, and will look to keep it going in a couple of weekends (Oct. 12-14) at the Mizzou Tiger Invitational.
Random Musings:
Monday, September 17, 2007
Monday Musings
There is just something about getting back from Columbia with sunburn; you know you probably had a great weekend if that happens. Still seemed strange to have the home opener on a weekend when the temperature struggled to get into the 70’s, but I will take that weather over what we have had before any day!
Football:
Having seen all three games, I am pleased with the progression we have made on most accounts. Like The Boy, I am anxiously awaiting the NU game simply to see if our thoughts on how the defense is not showing all their cards right now are going to be proven true. That being said, we still are not doing a great job lining up in the simple 4-3-4 and getting pressure, though we did a better job this past week (albeit against weaker competition). I think it will be important for the defense to gain more confidence over the next two weeks (with one of those weeks being a bye), but that is what I am looking for from them at this point.
As for the offense, not sure what else there is to say. I am a little concerned our passing game was a tad tilted this past weekend with Maclin and Rucker accounting for so many touches (18 of 30 receptions). Franklin and Perry are going to need to step up their game in coming weeks to continue to make up for the fact that Alexander is gone. 1600 yards on the season is pretty ridiculous when we continue to say the offense played decently but not great. Maybe our idea of great is getting somewhat skewed (like how we are all kinda disappointed in Chase Daniel’s 380+ total yard effort). I don’t look for much next week against Illinois aside from continued improvement by the defense and a nice amount of time for the reserves to play in the 2nd half. And good for you Chase Patton, good for you.
Volleyball:
Well, the fears were kinda confirmed this weekend that without Juliana Klein, Mizzou will struggle against top talent in the league. Does this mean their season is over? By no means, but it means they will have to work hard to continue to win the games they can win to keep the momentum of the program going while Klein recovers from her tough setback.
The ladies took on and took down the Roos of UMKC this past week, but fell and hard to UT down at Austin in straight sets, or three games, whatever you want to call it. The ladies take on ku at home in what should hopefully be the first of many well-attended matches on the season before heading out to Ames this weekend. These are matches where the team is going to need to grow up and come together to cover up some of the holes they may have now. Good news is that they have played tough matches on the road already this season and should be able to draw upon that experience as an aid. But it is going to be important for them to win the matches they can win to keep the season rolling along.
Soccer:
I had no idea what to expect out of the team this weekend on the road, facing the #1 and #3 teams in the country. Looking at the results, I would have to say I am pleased with them. The ladies took on #1 Stanford on Friday and tied the score in the 77th minute. Unfortunately, I am guessing talent won out as Stanford notched a late tally and took the game 3-2. Coming back yesterday, the ladies actually held the lead for a good portion of the match off of a goal from Michelle Collins before Santa Clara rallied for a goal late in the first and the winner late in the 2nd.
The ladies come back home this coming weekend to take on a decent Cal team (getting some love in the western regional poll as of last week) and a TCU team I could not find on the rankings. Win them both and I think you have to consider the non-con a real success for the ladies. Backtrack at all this weekend and you will start to hear the nay-sayers about the team and their past start coming out of the woodwork. Basically, keep the momentum going and hit the conference season and get some early wins and confidence.
Cross Country:
The women could not have asked for anything more, as they traveled down to Nashville and took the Commodore (Vanderbilt) Classic by 5 points over Georgia Tech and a group of 15 schools total. The high finisher for the Tigers was a 5th place taken by freshman Kinsey Farren…in her first collegiate race. That is quite the debut. The ladies also took 8th, 10th, 12th and 15th to round out their group and a really nice showing overall.
An interesting and pretty impressive performance by the men this past weekend down in Nashville at Vanderbilt. The men came in 3rd to Belmont (who went 2-3-4-5-7) and Georgia Tech, but did so running all freshmen. All five runners for Mizzou were frosh of some kind (RS or true) and showed we have some good talent in the pipeline since this was a decent field of 15 schools. Overall, the men had four runners place in the top 20, with frosh transfer Ben Brammeier taking top spot with a 10th place finish.
Both teams will be off this week before heading up to Minnesota for their annual appearance in the pretty prestigious Roy Griak Invitational.
Random Thoughts:
Will be interesting to see what sort of tweaking is done to the Fed Ex Cup considering Tiger Woods won it going away and skipped an event entirely. And yes, while he went 2-1-1 in the other three, I do not imagine that was quite what the planners had in mind. The amount of money Tiger won this year got a good deal closer to what he gets from his endorsements, since I believe he won 10 million for the Cup and just over 10 million in regular winnings.
In back to back weeks I have a fantasy football team which has taken on Tony Romo and Carson Palmer
I just heard a “HOLY TOLEDO” from Gus Johnson on replay from last week in the NFL and got excited all over again…I don’t even know what the play was or the game for that matter, but damn that dude can make ordering drive-up food exciting.
Penn State was less than impressive against Buffalo with Michigan on the horizon.
Has there ever been a worse, more publicized start than Notre Dame?
Hopefully some teams will start clinching division titles this week in baseball. The Mets would have run away with it had they not had to play and lose to the Phillies all the damn time.
Monday, September 10, 2007
Monday Musings
Freshly back from The Grove from which I hope to have pictures later in the week (if I can figure out how to get them on here). Considering Mizzou won’t be down there again for quite some time, just go down there for a game, any game. And to make your trip even better, wear the colors of the opposing team. Trust me on this. But more on this later in the week, for now, back to the lecture at hand.
Football:
So each of the last two weeks I have prided myself on being able to bring you something The Boy could not (and in fewer words) and that is THOUGHTS OF SOMEONE WHO SAW THE GAME LIVE IN PERSON :-) Having skimmed the bolded posts (and more so from talking to him on the way back from MS) I know what the game sounded like. Here is what it looked like.
Pretty much the same :-)
Seriously though, I think if you polled most Mizzou fans who witnessed the Illinois game, the biggest priority for Mizzou going into this week was going to be the offensive line. Well, we certainly made some strides in that area this past week, with a stronger running game. The 2nd quarter was as good as I have seen the line since last season, evidenced by Daniel just taking apart the Rebels. The offense, almost 1100 yards into the season, still has some work to do for sure. The line needs to be more consistent, and our WR’s really do need to hang on to the ball more. I still do not have as big of a problem with the playcalling this season on offense as I do with the play execution. Dropped balls and poor blocking have hurt us at many points so far this year, and while they have not come back to bite us in the W-L column, they may at some point.
As for the defense, I do not really know what to say. BJGE tore us up and down the field. The d-line was being substituted en masse in the 2nd half, I am thinking to try to get some fresher bodies in there in the hopes of doing something productive. Van Alexander had a very nice game, but Spoon and Christopher were not called as much. And while we delivered AT LEAST 4 crushing secondary hits, it was only after we had dropped back too far and were aiming to make up the difference. The only thing I can think of is that while it is known that fully offensive packages are not typically installed until about week 4 or so, perhaps it is the same with the defense. I only say this because in the last two weeks, I really do not remember us blitzing…like at all.
A win is a win for me still. Western Michigan has not looked terribly good in their 0-2 start, and this will finally be the home opener, which will be nice. We still have a good amount to work on, but less than after last week on offense. Three more weeks until it all needs to come together. However I am already looking forward to 1pm when it should hopefully be 68 and sunny in Columbia.
Volleyball:
Good week for the ladies on the record books, potentially a bad week on the injury report for them. The ladies travelled down to Texas and took out 3 teams to win the tournament. After sweeping UC-Fullerton, the ladies took down Houston 3-1, but lost top-scorer Juliana Klein in that game to a reported hyper-extended knee. Mizzou went on to beat Texas State 3-1 to move to 6-2 overall. No reported word at this time of the length Klein will be out.
The Tigers will finish out their non-conference schedule against UMKC this week, and then take on highly rated Texas in the conference opener on the road. Clearly they can get by the Roos without Klein, I cannot think they will be able to do the same against the Longhorns. In the end, a 7-2 non-conference record is decent given the 5-set matches they ended up playing. Mizzou has a sizable NCAA rep now and does not need to have the shiny record to make the NCAA’s (as proven last year), but they still need to make sure to close out Big XII games better than they did OOC games at times these past couple of weeks.
Soccer:
SECOND VERSE.....SAME AS THE FIRST!!!
The #23 Tigers are again off to a tremendous start as they defeated Iowa and Eastern Illinois this past weekend with matching shutouts, 2-0 and 3-0. In fact, they did not allow a SHOT against Eastern Illinois, getting 36 themselves. Honestly, I dont care who you do that against, keeping a team from shooting on net is impressive to say the least.
Freshman Alyssa Bonnick leads in scoring and assists at this point with 9 points (3 goals and 3 assists, goals count for 2 points in tallying statistics). Sophomore Kristen Andrighetto leads the team in goals scored with 4 (but does not start, seems strange to me, but whatever). The Tigers have only given up 20 shots on the season, and sophomore Tasha Dittamore has all 4 wins having given up just 3 goals. The ladies will obviously move up the polls later today when they are released, but their week coming up is going to be a tad tougher than their last one.
The Tigers will travel out to CA to take on Stanford and Santa Clara, two teams ranked currently in the top 5 in the nation. Needless to say, these games will provide the team with a bit better base to compare themselves against othertop teams in the country. In year’s past, Mizzou in OOC has even won some ofthese games before falling apart in the conference season. They have two more weeks before they will take on Big XII opponents, and hopefully this young team will continue to learn and grow (regardless of the outcomes this coming week)and be able to perform better in October and November than they did last season.
Men’s Golf:
Golf is a funny sport in college. There is a fall season, but it does not really count for anything. Of course, the actual season does not count for much anyway either, it pretty much all comes down to the conference, regional and NCAA tourneys later this spring.
In other news, Mizzou gets a hold of a new home course this year, moving away from A.L. Gustin to a brand new place called “The Club at Old Hawthorne” that likely one day will host some pretty nice tournaments. Head Coach Mark Leroux has been able to recruit off of this the past couple of seasons, as shown in a team this past weekend which was 2 juniors, a sophomore and 2 frosh. Interestingly, the frosh shot the best, as Tyler Hillis put up a 74 and William Harrold went with a 75. Overall, the team placed 4th of 6 in Purdue in a tourney that was cut to 18 holes total due to weather (kinda sucks to go all that way to not play more). They will head to Toledo this week to play at the Inverness Invitational.
Women’s Golf:
The ladies got all three rounds in of their tournament this past weekend out in East Lansing, MI and placed last to get the fall season started. Junior Chelsea Schriewer was tops for the ladies, placing a top 10 on the books. Senior Maddie Augustsson came in 16th, and a trio of sophomores rounded it out for the ladies towards the bottom of the pack.
In something of what I can only call a scheduling quirk, the ladies now have almost a month off before they tee it up again out in Manhattan, KS the first two days of October. The ladies will also have the honor of hosting the first tournament at Old Hawthorne this fall, and also get to play in Vegas later this fall,so they have got that going for them, which is nice.
Men’s X-country:
(good lord, I had NO idea everyone started playing this past weekend)
The men took on Murray State this past weekend in the annual romp around A.L Gustin called the Missouri Cross Country Challenge, which in the end is more about high school than college running. The men beat the Racers (ironic) 15-45 (low score wins) and took the top 5 places in the race (top 5 runners for each school are scored starting 1 and counting up until each school has 5 scored). For Mizzou, they actually had the top 6 finish, but only score 5 (1-2-3-4-5=15) and Murray State had 7-8-9-10-11 (=45).
Now that I have that little lesson out of the way, the winner of the race was senior Billy Bell, and the other placers were 3 juniors and two sophomores. Bell beat anyone on Murray State by 3 minutes in an 8K....so needless to say, it was not close. Coming up next for the men is going to be a trip to Vanderbilt this coming weekend (lovely campus).
Women’s X-Country:
The ladies also competed in the Missouri Cross Country Challenge, also against the team from Murray State. The ladies won their matchup 24-31 with junior Amanda Potrykus taking the top spot and frosh Jessica Armstrong taking 2nd. Overall, it was 1-2-5-6-10 for Mizzou and 3-4-7-8-9 for Murray State (to further that lesson from before). The ladies will join the men in Vanderbilt and Nashville next weekend at the Vanderbilt Commodore Classic.
Women’s Tennis:
So the tennis team also enjoys a fall season....who knew?!?!
The ladies were in Iowa this past weekend for the Drake Invitational, and as MUTigers.com so aptly put it, they won just about everything you could win. Both flights of singles, the flight of doubles and the backflight (loser’s bracket) of one of the singles and the doubles. So...they did not win the backflight of the “B” group of singles....oh well...not quite the clean sweep :-)
A deeper look into the team shows no seniors at all. Champs of both of the ”winner’s” singles and the “winner’s” doubles were TRUE freshmen. All the more impressive since they have likely been on campus for maybe a month or so. Needless to say, an impressive start, the most impressive for Mallory Weber, who won the “A” flight in singles and then teamed with Kaitlyn Richie to take the”A” flight in doubles later in the day. And special kudos to Maureen Modesto, who played not one, but TWO 3-hour matches yesterday to finally come away the champ of the “B” flight. Again...all these women are true freshmen at this point.
Up next for the team will be a trip out to College Park, MD (one of The Boy’s favorite spots) and a few days at the Maryland Invitational, occurring in a couple of weeks.
Random Thoughts:
· I don’t even want to know the word count on this....good thing I started working on it Sunday night....but coming close to 2,000 words....oy veh. And let me just tell you how much it sucked to reformat this bad boy once I hit the wrong button previewing it.
· Great to see Keith Olbermann back doing sports stuff, working with the NBC Sunday Night version of PrimeTime. I always enjoyed his sports stuff, occasionally like his work on MSNBC (what can I say, am not really a political person) and it brings me back to his days on ESPN. My hope was that he would come back to do one last show with Dan Patrick,but I don’t know that we will ever see that.
· Another nice game by Penn State (the boyhood team of The Beef) this past weekend, their schedule holds home games against Ohio State and Wisconsin this year, perhaps giving them the inside track to the Big 10. However, it wont matter if they go undefeated because....
· WOW does LSU look good. So does OU. I only assume USC will go undefeated also....
· Jose Valverde has 45 saves...if you can tell me what team he plays for, you will get a shoutout in the next one of these :-)
· Never did think that Milwaukee would get back to first place in the NL Central, but good for them for not falling off of the map.
· More coming on The Grove this week....but just.....wow...again...is all I can really say.
Monday, September 3, 2007
Monday Musing
That's right...the country may be off today, but I am STILL WORKING for you....all 12 of my readers :-) So let's get to it!!
Football:
I was in attendance on Saturday, with some lovely seats compliments of the extra effort by the MU Ticket office (had to plug them there, they really hooked me up when I was simply late with my form). Most things have already been said about it, either by the Boy in his alarmingly long 2600+ word tour de force that was his live thoughts, or by his repeating what I said on the phone to him just after the game. To retract a bit, Chase was not MAD at his O-line, just frustrated, and deservedly so. The line looked nothing like what I would have expected in this game, even given the fact Illinois was supposed to have good LB's and a decent front four. In the end though, a game where we have a special teams TD, a defensive TD, 400+ yards of offense and a +3 turnover ratio is always going to be fine by me. I will also say I had relatively little problem with the play calling in this one, but a much bigger problem with the play execution, and that falls on the players. WR's....you boys need to catch first, then run.
As for next week, I will once again be in attendance as we head down to Oxford. In a quick look at the stats of Ole Miss's 23-21 win at Memphis shows the Rebs getting outgained by over 200 yards, and scoring on a blocked punt and a ZERO YARD Int return...I guess Memphis threw a screen in the endzone or something. Memphis had a shot to tie and missed a late 2pt conversion. Even with our play and our injuries going into this week, I am not too concerned....but I hope we get the crap kicked out of us in practice this week.
Soccer:
Well, I suppose it should surprise no one we come firing out of the gate, winning on the road at #20 Illinois 3-1 on Friday night before overcoming a terribly sloppy first half at home on Sunday before finally beating Western Michigan 5-2. The team with no seniors is getting good play from their juniors and their frosh, and while Western Michigan is picked to finish last in MAC soccer, the ladies showed some decent mettle to outscore them 3-0 in the 2nd half. This week, they play another road Big 10 game Friday at Iowa before returning home for another home Sunday matchup, this time against Eastern Illinois. I am sure they will get some additional love this week in the regional poll for their win against Illinois, and as always, it will be interesting to see if they can keep the momentum they typically build in the non-con through the conference season.
Volleyball:
I will let The Boy get into the stats of volleyball and trends you can gleam from them, but all I know is the team is a bit Jekyll and Hyde right now, crushing Notre Dame on Friday night in 3, then crushing Florida International in the first 2, before losing the next 3 and the match to them. Some how, by double-secret probation method of scoring, they were named tourney champs, but at 3-2, I don't think it will much matter to the Kreklows. The ladies are back on the road this coming weekend down in TX to take on CS-Fullerton, Texas State (FIGHTING ARMADILLOS!!) and Houston. Simply put, this team will need to learn how to close games out, these 5 setters early on (THREE in five games) is just going to be too much for them at some point.
Random Stuff:
Monday, August 27, 2007
Monday Musings
So, I suppose in my own effort to keep up with The Boy and Atch...I figured I would try to start a weekly thing for myself, if for no other reason to compell me to write more here. I will try to use it each Monday to go over my thoughts on the week that was in ALL Mizzou Sports (sort of like my all-sports report from back in the day). And of course...next week's will be on Tuesday since I don't work on the holidays :-)
It is game week for Mizzou Football, and the excitement is slowly building. Truth be told, summer is my least favorite season. Not a big fan of the heat, and not a big fan of only one sport (baseball). We have covered the pre-season and the hype, so no need to go back over that. And I am not big into prediction pieces, so I will just say from what I have read, the offense of Illinois does not scare me all that much, and I believe our defense will show better in this game than people think. Not that I am EVER a betting man on anything Mizzou, but the 5 to 5.5 points here seems VERY inviting, as I think we win by 17+ points.
Volleyball got off to a decent start this past weekend down in Oxford, MS at the Magnolia Classic. TWO five-set matches in about 18 hours had to be tough, but the ladies showed some gumption in the second of the two to pull out the win. Weiwen Wang had a great debut, but the ladies will need better production from Amandan Hantoulli and likely better team digging production (Tatum Ailes not withstanding) to improve on last year's effort. Home tourney this weekend.
Finally for today, the soccer team. Not worth repeating what life of nine Bryan Blitz is on, but as they typically do, the ladies have looked good to start the season. SLU was an NCAA team last year, and to play them in STL and tie them is a nice, however uncounted finish. The team has zero seniors....ZERO. I guess that likely buys the coach another year if this year does not turn out positive, but we shall see...they open with Illinois. Remember last year Mizzou tore through their non-con....will see how it goes this year.
Short report for this Monday...have a great week everyone.
