Ten Thoughts for Monday Morning
1) Let's start with the most impressive thing to happen in Mizzou sports...ever. The Tiger wrestling team won the Big 12 championship on Sunday night, scoring 148 points to beat Oklahoma State (134) and Iowa State (131). Rocky Elam was Mizzou's lone individual conference champion at 197 pounds, but the Tigers had five seconds, a third, a fourth, a sixth and a seventh as all ten wrestlers finished in the top eight and will advance to the NCAA Championships in two weeks. Mizzou has now won 12 consecutive conference championships. That started in the Big 12, continued for nine years in the MAC and has continued with Mizzou's first two years back in the Big 12.
Missouri is one of just three programs in the country to have a wrestler automatically qualified for the national championships in every weight class. The Tigers were ranked ninth in the country before the weekend, though Iowa State and Oklahoma State were both ahead of them. Penn State is the absolute favorite for the national title, but another run at a top five finish is well within Missouri's reach. It would be great to see Brian Smith win one before he's done here. But whether he does or not, there should eventually be a statue of him or buildings named in his honor. I think he's right there with Norm Stewart in the argument for the greatest coach in Mizzou history.
2) Dennis Gates isn't quite in that conversation...yet. I kid. It's year one. But Gates wrapped up the regular season portion of his first year with a win over Ole Miss on Saturday that left the Tigers 23-8, 11-7 in the SEC and seeded fourth in the conference tournament. There's nobody that expected this. The players and coaches say they did. I'm not sure I believe them, but maybe it's true. Gates has talked from day one about playing on April 1 and April 3 (those are the dates of the Final Four). That still doesn't seem particularly realistic, but that Mizzou has locked up the opportunity to do so before the SEC Tournament begins is pretty incredible. I thought the ceiling for this team in the preseason was being on the right side of the bubble. Like, play in Dayton and I would have considered this a phenomenal debut. Missouri blew past that.
If I had a vote, I think I'd go with Gates as the SEC Coach of the Year. Buzz Williams has an argument, but part of that argument is that he took a team that was terrible in the non-conference season and made it great in league play. If the award is just for SEC games, I'd give it to Buzz. If it's for the entire year, I give it to Gates. Nate Oats would be the winner if basketball was the only thing that mattered. But I think there's more to coaching than that. Not allowing your program to be the butt of national jokes and not having the best season in school history become a secondary story because you had a player kicked off the team for being charged with capital murder which was committed after another player delivered the murder weapon and a third player was at the scene is part of coaching too. Oats failed that part miserably. I won't argue if Williams wins it, but I'd vote for Gates.
3) Missouri will not open SEC Tournament play until Friday. What makes the week in Nashville a success?
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