Tough Weekend

[ness]

BOO

You forgot the "HOO"

[Phil Lilley]

Marsha is KU alum. She'll be those seats second half. She' ll be in blue!

[joeD]

Reality check: Kansas has a NCAA championship title (in basketball, of course, the only sport the rivalry matters), they have won the Big 12 conference title almost every year for the past 10 years, and have beaten Mizzou more often than Tiger fans care to admit. Mizzou cannot claim that kind of success. Usually in college sports, rivalry games have a more "toss up" kind of feel. Where, in any given time period, the win/loss ratio is about even. Unfortunately for Mizzou, the win ratio is heavily tilted towards Kansas. This is not an opinion. Facts will prove this. Sorry.

When it comes to basketball, Kansas is number 1. Mizzou is an also-ran. A shoulda. Woulda. Coulda. In an odd year they might be better. But until Mizzou wins conference titles, wins NCAA championships, beats Kansas year in year out, they will always be looking up at their rival.

[ozark trout fisher]

I don't feel too bad about what happened this weekend at all. To go up by 19 at Phog Allen is something that no other team has done in a very long time, and probably won't again any time soon. Kansas just did to us what we did to them a few weeks ago, namely we got a big lead, fell asleep, and they took advantage. It does make things a little touchy as far as getting a 1 seed in the NCAA tournament. I think we will probably have to win out, and it would probably have to include beating KU in the Big 12 Tournament Finals. Even that could be a little dicey, but I think it would be enough. Got to start against a pretty tough Iowa State team on Wednesday. I'll be there!

As hard as it is to admit, I think Kansas is the slightly better team, but that has nothing to do with the result of this game. Goodness do we pose a match-up problem for them. Jeff Withey can't do anything against us, and it's something we ought to be able to exploit if we meet again in the Big 12 Tourney, as I hope we will.

[KCRIVERRAT]

I'm still proud of Mizzou and what they've done this year. Never thought we'd accomplish what we've done without Bowers. Aside from that, losing at Okie St. and not showing up for either K-State game sealed our fate.

[ness]

Yeah, and with a first-year coach. Pretty impressive. That was a helluva game.

Rat -- 4 AM post? You trying to wind down after the 500?

[Al Agnew]

The calls and non-calls really left a bad taste in my mouth about this game, which should have been about the best college game I've ever seen. I can understand the call on Dixon near the end of regulation...whether he really fouled Robinson or not, it looked to me like he did until the replay, and he should never have been in that position to foul...should have backed off. The only thing that could have tied the game was a three point play and Dixon had no chance of accomplishing anything.

The non-call on Robinson against Pressey doesn't bother me that much, either. Again, when it happened, all I saw was the block, and it wasn't until viewing the replay over and over again on various ESPN programs and highlights, and having so many impartial observers saying it should have been a foul, did I get a little upset about it.

The call that really burned my toast, though, was the foul on Pressey at the end of overtime. You can watch 100 NCAA games that were that close at the end of the game, going back however many years that would take, and NEVER see a touch foul called on an out of control drive like that. If Pressey fouled Taylor at all, it took some really good eyes to see it.

But even then Mizzou had a chance. If the game would have lasted one second longer, Denmon would have won it. And mainly, in the end, it was a stupid play that did Mizzou in. Why in the heck did Dixon just trot up the court after taking the in bounds pass? If he goes full speed up the court, he gets into the play two seconds sooner, Denmon hits the shot with a second left, and Mizzou wins. That was the other thing that really ticked me off about the Pressey foul...it fouled him out, putting the ball in Dixon's hands for the final play, and Dixon simply isn't the point guard Pressey is.

This was the game where the thing I've worried about all year finally happened. The problem with playing only seven deep will always be fouls. Lots of people are saying that Mizzou took its foot off the gas when they were up 19 and tried to run the clock. Well, when you've got three players in serious foul trouble, there's really not a whole lot else you can do. I could complain that a lot of the fouls called on Mizzou throughout the game were cheap ones, but that doesn't matter. You can't play effective defense when you are worried about picking up a fourth or fifth foul, and once Kansas started hitting threes and drawing even more fouls--at one point KU was in the double bonus and not a single foul had been called on them--I knew they'd come back and make this a close game.

Don't get me wrong, Kansas had some really questionable calls go against them, as well. To put it simply, the refereeing in this game wasn't up to the standards it should have been for such a big game...and I'd pretty much say the same thing about the game in Columbia. These are simply two excellent teams, neither of which matches up well with the other. Mizzou can't really handle the Kansas inside game, and Kansas can't really handle the Mizzou guard play. I'm really hoping they end up meeting one more time in the finals of the conference tournament.

[KCRIVERRAT]

Yeah, and with a first-year coach. Pretty impressive. That was a helluva game.

Rat -- 4 AM post? You trying to wind down after the 500?

Actually Time Warner had me stomping around the house like the AFLAC duck monday night. Cable went down and I missed seeing the race...

[snap]

Al, don't care if the y meet in the conference tournament finals......would like to see them meet in the NCAA finals though!!!!..wouldn't that be special???

[ozark trout fisher]

I agree with you about the calls Al and there were a few times I was about to go nuts as well, but objectively I think that's just home court advantage. We got the 50-50 calls in Columbia, they got the 50-50 calls in Lawrence. In each case those calls had about the same amount of impact on the game, so I just have a hard time feeling too cheated. know it doesn't make a great deal of sense considering that all of the refs come from the Big 12 conference, but if you look at the stats, home teams almost always get the better end of the foul situation. And the bottom line is that Mizzou never should have been in a position where a couple of bad calls towards the end could have much impact on the game, considering the lead we had. KU just outplayed us at the end, the same way we outplayed them at the end of the last one. I agree with you in hoping that we meet in the Big 12 finals...With it being played on a neutral court, that game could finally determine which team is really better, not to mention huge seeding implications. What a fitting way to end such an awesome conference rivalry that would be. Even better, I would like to see the two play in the national title game, though that's probably a pipe dream. But I suppose crazier things have happened........

Now to head over to watch us hopefully bounce back against Iowa State...We need this one to clinch second place in the Big 12 and stay in the 1 seed discussion, plus to turn the momentum around a little. ISU has been very tough lately, but I'm pretty hopeful we'll pull through.