Alright...I cannot guarantee how much I am going to touch on things here, as I dont have a ton of time.  So...let's say Tuesday is the bullet edition of the Monday Musings.

Football:

• I just do not like the gold jerseys.  Did not like how they looked in the store when someone on T-board broke them.  Did not like how they looked on our guys dry.  Did not like how they looked at the end of a game.
• Warrior-like effort from Chase Coffman.  I felt we did not need him to win.  Had other things been better, we probably did not need him...but if this is his last game, that was quite an effort.  And yes, that may be somewhat defeatist, but given his total lack of mobility after all of this time, I am not really confident he will see the field again.
• Similar effort from Maclin...I will be curious to see his mobility going forward.
• I have never seen a defensive secondary so out of touch with what their teammate was doing.  In game 1...OK.  In game 5, worrisome.  In game 12....absolutely mind-blowing.
• It is exciting to see some of the records MU players are close to breaking.  Would love to see Derrick Washington get 20 rushing TD's this season with his 1,000 yards.
• Exciting news for former OCDC...and shame on Mizzou fans who whined when they heard the news that Matt E. may not be a favorite for the position at Toledo.
• I think I am out of bullets for football
• I will be there this weekend in KC for the game against OU....I go in with only one hope...that the weather is good.
• Make that two hopes...that they are not wearing those jerseys again

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Been a long time since I was able to update this, but let's see how the record books shook out after the kU game.  With two games remaining on the season, there are still some pretty lofty heights Mizzou players are in position to achieve.  How close are they?  Click on through to the other side....

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I don't think it is any secret I do most of the Musings in whatever free time I have on Sundays.  However, after a lengthy trip to MN and getting back Sunday night, there just is not enough time, especially given what I walked into at work this morning.  Therefore, the Monday Musings will be pushed back a day, and I will still cover the FOUR dual meets (all wins by the way) Mizzou had in wrestling on Saturday.  Until then...congrats to DC on his new position and I will see you all tomorrow.

I just wanted to take a moment to put some thoughts together as we get close to the Thanksgiving holiday.  I am headed north for the duration of the holiday (starting this afternoon actually)  and probably will be on something of a media blackout to spend time with my family.  And it is not like I participate in the Mizzou football threads as it is :-)   But, I wanted to lay out some thoughts as I "celebrate" the first real full year of Rock M Nation.

For those of you who might now know, while not at all a Tiger fan since birth like many, I have been around the world wide web with the Tigers  since the pretty young days of Tigerboard.  I watched that community grow and made some great friends through it.  As the years went on and more and more people joined the net, the atmosphere grew and it became tougher and tougher to cultivate good discussion without a lot of other...shall we call...noise.

So in the end, I am thankful for The Boy and rpt getting together so quickly, easily and successfully and the type of atmosphere they have been able to cultivate here.  I have and shall continue to enjoy my role here at Rock M and really do hope I have been able to contribute just a little bit to what makes this site as great as it is.  I am exicted for what the new year brings and will always have my eye on growing the community, but never at the risk of the community itself, which I think is in a great place right now.

So whether it is BTBS, National Threads, Big Twelvelol (or whatever the hell he called it), Weekly Facebook messages, bacon, the little Asian kid, TruFlair or Professor Chaos Daniel, I have enjoyed it all and thank you all for how each of you have enriched my life this past year.

Happy Holidays to each and every one of you

Well, I do have to say I enjoyed much of the action of the games on Saturday...some good live blogging there I suppose.  It was almost nice to not have a game and just enjoy the afternoon (problematic shoulder not withstanding....though enough beer will make even that pain go away).

Anyway, all of that is neither here nor there as it pertains to this column.  Let's see how the week went for our Tigers, as they wind down the fall sports and crank up some of the winter action.

Football:

Yeah...um...I guess in order I will take Ttech, UT and then OU for our opponent in two weeks.  Really....that's all I have to say about that.  Good lord was OU just lethal.  That is all I can really muster about that....just scary how good OU was in that game in all areas.  Will they be that good in the rest of their games?  Probably not...but I am guessing they will be decently close.

Men's Hoops:

Pretty darn full week for the Tigers, with four games care of the Puerto Rico/On Campus ESPNU Tourament.  I went into the...um...Roundtable I think saying that I wanted 3-1 out of the week, and that is what we got.  No sense in reviewing each of the games since that would result in a LOT of paragraphs, so let's take the high-level look.

The team is sitting at 4-1 and has seen some very positive things so far.   The emergence of JT Tiller as a decent offensive threat (when he is on the court).  The energy (at the least) the freshman can create and add, especially on the defensive end.  The ability to win a game when Matt Lawrence is not on ( or really ever in the game).  Demarre Carroll is further emerging as a big scoring threat and our defense and numbers and energy seems to wear teams out around the 30 minute mark of each game.

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Mizzou had their first home action of the season, as the Pride of Hofstra visited Hearnes.  Hofstra was fresh off of an upset over highly ranked Penn State, and is known all throghout the wrestling community as being a giant killer in dual meets.  A big crowd would be on hand for the first annual Wrestlers for Wrestling fund raiser, with all the money from the dual going towards the endowed fund.  Let's take a look at how the Tigers fared.  Of course, if you were involved in yesterday's live football thread, you can go back through that and gleam some of my "live" thoughts.

125:

Certainly going to be a learning experience for RS Frosh Troy Dolan at the start of this season.  From a team standpoint, having Pescaglia this weight would make us all the tougher, but we will get through it.  Dolan is still searching for his first win, as he fell in a 8-2 decision to Bonanno of Hostra.  The two were scoreless through the first and Bonanno started the 2nd on bottom.  From there, he earned an escape and then took Dolan down.  Dolan would start period 3 on bottom and earned the escape to get the match to 3-1, but Bonanno would take Dolan down two more times while earning the riding time point to finish the match the winner at 8-2.  This would put the Tigers down 3-0 to start.

133:

Tough matchup for sophomore Todd Schavrien at 133, having to take on a highly ranked Lou Ruggirello.  "Lou" would get the early takedown on Schavrien and immediately put him on his back.  Very quickly, as in 51 seconds, Schavrien would be pinned and Hofstra would do what they normally do against ranked teams...earn bouns points.  This would put them up 9-0.  While we could not expect a win here from Schavrien, you do hope matchups like this do not end in pin.

141:

Junior Marcus Hoehn would take the mat in need of a win for the Tigers, who had not even scored a takedown yet against the Pride.  Hoehn fought a tough first , scoreless first period until Justin Accordino took Hoehn down at the buzzer to end the 1st up 2-0.  Hoehn would start on bottom and get the escape in the 2nd, but Accordino would take him down again to extend his lead to 4-1.  Accordino was given the escape in the 3rd period, but Hoehn could not muster any offense and the match would end as a 5-1 decision.  This would make the score 12-0 and put the Tigers in a pretty desparate need of some wins.

149:

Mizzou would look to senior Andrew Sherry in the next match, and  pretty wild match it was with Paul Gillespie.  Sherry got out to an early lead, getting a take down and two additional points for near-fall to build a 4-0 lead.  But Gillespie would come right back, reversing Sherry for two points, and then getting two near-fall points himself to even the score at 4, still in the 1st.  Sherry would escape and finish the crazy first period up 5-4.  Sherry took neutral to start the second, a smart choice as he was able to score another takedown, finishing the period after a Gillespie escape up 7-5.  Gillespie would get his escape in the 3rd to cut it to 7-6, but could not muster any additional offense against Sherry.  With 1:27 of riding time, Sherry would bring home Mizzou's first win of the afternoon with a 8-6 decision, making the dual score 12-3.

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As always, make Rock M Nation your base of operations this morning with comments, observations, complaints, raves, etc.  We had a great time yesterday, so jump on it and cheer the Tigers on to their first win in "lovely" Puerto Rico.  Don't have an account? Sign up for one already!

Sorry for the late start everyone...what can I say.  The Boy and I probably get up at the same time each morning....I just come to work before I do the links :-)  But let's get to it...I have a feeling there are going to be a lot of them.

 Starting off...let's see what the locals had to say about our close loss yesterday

• MUTigers.com has the boxscore...a good place to start.  The good was the 2nd half shooting percentage (53.6%), turnovers (7), steals (16) and assists (18).  The bad was the 1st half shooting percentage (31%), fouls (30), Leo Lyons grabbing ONE rebound, and 2nd half FT shooting (35%)
• The Missourian says free throw problems lead to Tiger loss
• The Tribune says free throw shooting dooms Tigers
• The KC Star says Mizzou misses free throws, falls to Xavier
• The STL P-D says free throws produce foul results for Tigers
• The Worldwide Leader says Xavier learns from past mistakes

 The Tigers will tip today against the Fairfield Stags, who fell to Va Tech in the game preceeding ours.  We lean on the worldwide leader for the boxscore and game recap.  In action on the other side of the bracket, Memphis dispatched UT-C and Seton Hall upset #20 USC, meaning we very likely will meet the Trojans in our third game.

 Pat Knight....run and gun?  Are you kidding me?  167 points on 113 attempted FGs?  Did they play 30 minutes halves?

 Let's move to football, where a surprise trophy presentation leads to lots of links in an off week

• The Missourian has a nice picture of the bowl banners we hang in the practice facility if you have never seen them
• Dave Matter blogs about it being "Trophey Time"
• Mike DeArmond explains that Coach Pinkel wanted to get the formality of the presentation over with so the team could concentrate on the tasks at hand.
• Powermizzou has a great photo spread on the presentation
• STL P-D does not cover the award, but has some great tidbits on where some Tiger assistant coaches and getting interest from for head coaching jobs.
• The P-D also has a really nice piece of the durability of our offensive line
• MUTigers.com brings it all home with the release about Coach Pinkel being named the Missouri Athletic Club "Sports Personality of the Year".  He is only the third Mizzou coach in ANY sport to win this prestigious award...and well-deserved

 And finally...some general stuff

• Raymond Jordan of the Mizzou Wrestling team has been named a John Wooden  Cup Semi-finalist.  I will be honest in that I have never heard of this award, but if it has that man's name on it...well good for you Raymond.
• A reminder about the Wrestling Supporting Wrestling campaign this weekend as the #5 Tigers open up their home schedule aganist #16 Hofstra.  If you plan to go (and you should)...plan to arrive a little early.
• Color me impressed with the triple option at Ga Tech - 472 yards on the ground is an old-school beat down.

 

As always, make Rock M Nation your base of operations tonight with comments, observations, complaints, raves, etc.  Don't have an account? Sign up for one already!

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