Ten Thoughts for Monday Morning
1) So Missouri beat Alabama on Saturday, the Tigers' third win over a top ten team this season. I took a fair amount of heat for my immediate reaction after the game. And that's fine. I don't expect everyone to agree with me. Part of the trouble with doing what we do now is this: The job is no longer to report what happened because you guys all know that. The job is now to react to it and say what it means. And to do it immediately. When you do that, sometimes what you think right after the game isn't what you think a day or two later.
My initial take was probably a little too negative. The headline is that Missouri beat Alabama, which is something nobody else in the SEC has done this year. That the Tigers remained in second place and remain the only team in the conference that has any chance (even though it's slim) to catch the Tide for the regular season title. That's the headline. That's the most important thing. Everything else is secondary. The fact that they nearly blew a 20-point lead in the last six minutes and that they looked disheveled and maybe even panicked doing so is part of the story. But it's not the most important part. It's in the second or third paragraph, not the first.
2) The win was important in the standings, but not because it means Missouri will move up. The chances of catching the Tide are still very remote. Alabama will be favored to win its last seven games. The toughest game Bama has left is at Arkansas, the second toughest is either at Mississippi State or home against Auburn. It is hard to see Bama losing more than one, MAYBE two. And even if Bama loses two, Missouri has to go unbeaten AND make up both the LSU and Vandy games and win both of those to win the SEC. So it's probably not happening even though Mizzou now has the tiebreaker.But the Tigers kept themselves ahead of Tennessee, Arkansas, Florida and LSU with that win (all four are 6-4 right now). Three of those teams are almost certainly going to get a top four seed in the SEC tournament and a double bye. Two of them won't. Beating Bama gives Missouri the head to head tiebreaker over Tennessee and Arkansas (even if Mizzou loses the next game against the Razorbacks) if it comes down to those teams for a seed. The tiebreaker with LSU and Florida would be determined by the head to head games with those teams (there are different rules for multi team ties, but just if it comes down to Missouri and that team being tied). So Saturday's win was huge in terms of getting that top four seed.
3) Missouri should have a whole lot of wins coming up.
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