A buddy of mine texted me to say he was re-routed about 30 minutes ago. He talked to a HiPo who said they were thinking about shutting down I-70 altogether about 2 p.m.

Not good news at all for us in KC.

This is from kmbc.com

Crash On I-70 Shuts Down Lanes In Cooper County
MoDOT Says Several Tractor-Trailers Involved In Wreck
UPDATED: 12:20 pm CDT October 8, 2009, 2009

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- A crash involving several tractor-trailers has closed both eastbound lanes on Interstate 70 near mile marker 90 in Cooper County, according to the Missouri Department of Transportation.

A westbound lane that had been closed was reopened just after noon.

Eastbound vehicles on I-70 between Route 65 and Route K will have to exit at Route K and are being detoured back to Route 65, according to MoDOT officials in a news release.

All eastbound vehicles prior to Route 65 are being detoured to southbound Route 65 and eastbound Route 50.

Emergency crews are at the scene and drivers are urged to avoid the area.

Sorry Bill C., but I couldn't wait for you to post this excerpt from Dave's Friday practice report at behindthestripes:

"His touch on the short, intermediate and downfield throws has been so impressive, I'm starting to believe Gabbert will be as good as his receivers allow him to be."

Damn if this last quote doesn't have me excited as hell for the upcoming season. Gabbert's inexperience is my No. 1 question mark this year and if he's as impressive as Dave says (and like I said yesterday, as long as I've known Dave, he's never been someone I'd call a sunshine pumper), then I think the overall team speed and athleticism will be enough for us to compete for the North title once again.

I've said all along that going 6-6 and to a bowl was all I wanted out of this season. But Gabbert's development (caveat: if Dave is correct in his assessment), might have me ramp up my expectations to 8-4 and a shot at the North title.

[Promoted for Front Page Friday!]

Check out the following article from my man Bradford Doolittle over at the Upon Further Review blog at kcstar.com (SIAP). Anyway, Bradford researches two of kU's basketball national title claims (given ex post facto by The Helms Foundation). Bradford has found that MU could in fact stake a claim to the 1922 mythical national championship. Turns out a college professor did similar research in 1993 and put Mizzou at the top of the 1922 season. How much different would it be if we had a "national championship" on our resume? Probably not much considering it was 1922. But at least it could be something to throw back in kU's face that we -- and not them -- actually won the national title.

The text of Bradford's entire blog after the jump (it's all his words, I didn't add anything):

Continue reading this post »

Continue reading this post »

[UPDATE: Bumped from FanPosts]

Pulled this from the comments section of one of Walentik's articles in the Trib. It doesn't look good in terms of getting Keith DeWitt to Mizzou:

The NCAA High School Review Committee has issued a decision to uphold the not cleared status for Charis Prep school in Wilson, N.C.

Charis Prep appealed the NCAA Eligibility Center staff’s decision in September 2008 that the school was “not cleared”, meaning core courses, grades and/or graduation would not be accepted when determining prospective student-athletes’ initial eligibility to compete in intercollegiate athletics. This original decision was upheld by the NCAA High School Review Committee after an appeal was held on Feb. 23.

During the spring and summer of 2008, the NCAA Eligibility Center staff reviewed Charis Prep’s curriculum, class schedules, teacher schedules quality control practices and enrollment figures. The review also included an in-person site visit.

Specifically, the review identified several areas of concern, including quality control and curriculum.

The school was notified of these and other concerns and given an opportunity to respond to the specific issues. The written appeal, supplemental material and the arguments made by Charis Prep during the appeal failed to sufficiently address the irregularities and deficiencies of Charis Prep identified by the NCAA Eligibility Center staff review.

Students currently enrolled for the 2008-09 academic year may have their individual academic records reviewed through the initial-eligibility process. A determination will be made regarding their NCAA initial eligibility status based on this review.

The high school review process was created after presidents from several NCAA member institutions raised concerns about the legitimacy of high school academic credentials presented by some incoming student-athletes. In response, presidents in Divisions I and II adopted legislation to provide for the review of high schools and individual prospective student-athletes records in the initial-eligibility process.

If he isn't just about the most likeable kid we've had at Mizzou in forever, then I don't know who is. Trying to pick up in the middle of the biggest game of your life. Gotta respect this kid's game (on and off the court). This is from The Trib's notebook today:

Midway through the second half, the Memphis bench was assessed a technical. This time, English sank both foul shots and smiled broadly as he jogged back down the court. As he waited to inbound the ball, he tried to chat up members of the Memphis dance team, but apparently they gave him an earful.

He turned and told them, “Be nice.”

TWISTED HISTORY: Speaking of English, he said Missouri wouldn’t be satisfied with merely making the Elite Eight.

“Do you know who made it to the Elite Eight in 1996, all eight teams? No,” he said. “But you could tell me who won it all in ’96.”

So, who won it all in ’96?

“Was it UConn? I think it was UConn,” English said.

It was Kentucky.

For believing in us when we didn't even truly believe in ourselves? I remember seeing kenpom's new projection system a little before the Illinois game and he had us at something like 24-7, with a 12-4 Big 12 record. I think that's what it was. He might have actually had us winning the Illinois game, with a 13-3 record for 26-5. Heck now that I think about it, it might have even been 27-4.

Regardless, he was way out in front of the Mizzou basketball bandwagon this year. I thought it was a stretch that we'd get to 23 wins, even with winning 13 games in the non-con. But kenpom was right on his prediction. I'll give him and his numbers all the credit in the world.

So on this beautiful Friday afternoon, can we give a little love to someone who believed in us when we didn't even believe in us? A bully for Ol' Ken Pomeroy!

[Promoted for Front Page Friday!]

[Editor's Note: Promoted from FanPosts. Solid work from our friend mitch cumstein.]

I'm going to channel my inner Bluto Blutarski right now and give this site a little pep talk. (not that this site particularly needs it, most of you are pretty levelheaded ... but I can't post on PM or TB at work, and I really need to give myself a pep talk ... thanks for letting me vent, and feel free to add on).

Was it over when we shot 25 percent at the line in the last five minutes against Xavier? Hell no. Was it over when Dmitri McCamy was raining threes and threading dimes all over the place? No. And it ain't over now!

Yes, yesterday sucked. Extremely. We sucked. kU doesn't suck, which really sucks. Basically, yesterday, we were the suckiest bunch of sucks that ever sucked.

But a couple points: (1) We still have a great opportunity on Wednesday; (2) No matter what happens on Wednesday, or Saturday for that matter, we're still dancing; and (3) If this were Vegas, we'd still be playing with house money. A lot of house money.

After an insanely hot run at the blackjack table, we're up five figures on the casino. Granted, yesterday was like trying to bluff a pair of eights against a nut flush, but you know what, we were smart and held 75 percent of our chips back in the room safe, just because we thought we might do something horribly wrong.

So now we're back in our room, regrouping, licking our wounds and getting a good night's sleep and getting ready to give the craps table a try.

None of us thought we'd be 24-5 at this point in the season. None of us thought we'd be 11-3 in the Big 12. And none of us thought we'd have a first-round bye locked up at this point in the year.

So, with all that said, let's not let one loss beat us twice. OU is going to be a tough challenge, no doubt. But let's give OU a little taste of what we experienced yesterday, a nasty crowd, an intimidating atmosphere and a barrage of transition buckets. (Oh, and if we do all three, we just might get ourselves a nice little 6-10 big man for next season too). Big game on Wednesday!

...

Continue reading this post »

Continue reading this post »

UPDATE: Promoted from FanPosts for Front Page Friday.

To me, the obvious answer is, of course, absolutely. But how much better would we be? He was our second-leading returning scorer, I believe. And he'd be the only guy on our roster who could consistently shake down a defender off the dribble and create his own shot (Denmon and Taylor can to some extent, and I guess you could say Tiller and Good Leo do as well, but none of those four are as effective at that as Keon was/is). Plus, he was a long-armed guard who was one of our best pressers. He wasn't necessarily all that great in half-court defense because of his strength issues. But he was good in the pressure game and getting in passing lanes.

The only downsides to Keon were his apparent lack of mental stability/toughness. We'll never really know how much effort it took from Watkins/HCMA/Cleveland/Zimmerman and his teammates to try to keep him happy (I thought that once Hannah was off the roster that Keon would be happier, but apparently that wasn't the case). The other problem is just finding enough minutes for everyone. Keon probably pushes either Tiller or Taylor out of the starting lineup (or maybe Goose doesn't start this season, though he was a starter the last two years, so I don't know why having Keon would make that much difference to MLaw).

The promises of filling Keon's schollie with a higher-profile recruit aren't all that great at this point in time. I would imagine we'll try to find a juco big man to fill out one of the two remaining scholarships and we might even bank that last scholie for next year. Though Anderson's recruiting seems to be a little more on the DL than Quin's. So maybe he's got something cooking that we don't know about.

All in all, I think having Keon on this team would be a wonderful problem to have. I'd sure love to have him still. With him, I think it's a realistic expectation that we beat Xavier and Nebraska. Not sure anyone short of Michael Jordan could have helped us against Illinois.

I mean, we're doing all right without him, but since we did a couple "What Ifs" last week, I thought I'd throw that thought out there today. Your thoughts?

Continue reading this post »

Continue reading this post »

I'm going Saturday, but I have two extras (not sitting by me, thankfully) that I'd love to get in the hands of a Mizzou fan. Section FF, Row 56, so not exactly primo seats. But they are for the price of: ON THE HOUSE!

Let me know quickly before I post something about this to the heathens on Tigerboard or Powermizzou.

E-mail me at scott@bbbskc.org if you're interested. I guess by this point, I couldn't mail them to you, so I'd just have to meet you outside the stadium.

I know that there's still hopefully six games left to play in '08, but I just wanted to get an early start at peeking into '09 (especially since our '08 national championship ride has taken a very significant detour). Plus, I was having this discussion with a buddy this weekend and thought I'd bring it over the the intellectuals here on RMN.

We'll be down next year, no doubt. We're losing a lot on defense (3/4 of the DL, one, maybe two starters at LB and 3/4 of the starting secondary). We have been playing quite a few younger players a lot: Jacquies looks good, Resonno and Hamilton look serviceable at worst. I'm excited about Ebner. I think Hobson and Rutland will be fine as they progress. Safety, however, does have me concerned.

And offensively, obviously we'll be breaking in a new QB, who only has to replace the most prolific passer in our program's history. We're also going to lose the best tight end in college football and one of the best WRs as well (not to mention a couple of key role players on offense). But other than that, we're fine. :) Thankfully, however, D-Wash returns and we'll bring back quite a few O-linemen. So hopefully we can ease the transition from Daniel to Gabbert with a stout running game. The WR/TEs should still be solid with a healthy (hopefully) 'Nario and Perry being the leaders. But I'm really hoping one of Jackson, Kemp, Woodland, McGaffie are able to take a big step forward and become a playmaker. Jones will be fine at TE, though expecting him to replace Coffman/Rucker production is not logical.

Continue reading this post »

Sorry everyone, but I'm bored at work and was thinking about a question I'm not sure I've ever seen discussed.

Realizing of course that there's not a damn way to prove it, but do you think J-Mac's injury in the summer of 2006 was the difference between Mizzou's "good" 8-5 season (should have been 10 wins even without J-Mac) and the breakout season of 2007? I guess what I'm saying is this: would a healthy and difference-making J-Mac in 2006 have meant Mizzou would have broken out in 2006 instead of 2007?

It was basically the same schedule (probably an easier schedule in 2006, to be honest ... OU wasn't as good, nor was kU, Colorado or Texas Tech ... there was no Illinois on the schedule in 2006 ... TAMU is probably the only team that was appreciably better in 2006 than 2007). Most of the same talent, albeit a year younger than 2007. Anyone's thoughts?

With the likely difference in field position, as well as the extra dimension he brought to the run game, I'm thinking our offense would have been even more productive than it was in 06. Now granted, Chase D was only a sophomore in 06, but even at that, he was pretty good.

Sorry if you guys have discussed this before, but I'm antsy for this evening's game (and tomorrow's too) and wanted to discuss something Tiger football related.