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It’s going to be a talking point over the next few months, so we might as well rip the band-aid off here.
Florida fired Billy Napier yesterday, making it the second high profile coaching job to open up in the past week. Unlike Penn State, however, Florida has been heavily labeled as a contender for the services of one Eliah Drinkwitz. Hot boards from The Athletic to Sports Illustrated to fan blogs have all listed Drinkwitz among the contenders for the Gainesville gig, and you’d have to think that
the prestige of coaching at an institution like Florida would give Drinkwitz some pause. He’s been at Mizzou for six years, after all, and has done some really great things. Is it time for him to make a jump to higher class institution?
I’ll have a column on this coming later this week, but I’ll betray some of my thoughts here: While I think Drinkwitz would be foolish to not take the call, I don’t think Florida is as attractive a job these days as it used to be. And if Florida is going to spend the money it would take to hire Drinkwitz — something around $30 million upfront plus a raise on his $9 million salary, plus accounting for staff pool — you think the boosters might just want to spend a little extra to get a guy like Lane Kiffin or James Franklin.
We’ll see I guess. Nothing lasts forever, and it wouldn’t be totally outlandish to see Drinkwitz (still a young man as college coaches go) look for another gig at some point. For now, all Mizzou fans can do is hope the Tigers continue to rack up the wins and give Drinkwitz a reason to think he can build something special in Columbia.
Yesterday at Rock M and Rock M+
Contrast that game with what we watched last night, and… yeah they can’t all be pretty. But they can be ugly, and winners. I think winning is the primary goal each week, and the Tigers won. How they won is certainly open to interpretation, but they won. They went on the road and beat a quality team* which is no small feat.
As I said in Saturday night’s takeaways quoting Bill Connelly: “You just have to survive Auburn.”
“I was just doing my thing. You know, that’s me,” Young said when asked about his late-game performance, “Y’all will see a lot more of that as the games go on, y’all will see a lot more of that from Zion Young.”
Oh god, third-person-speaking Zion Young, we’re not prepared.
A win would do wonders for Mizzou. Back-to-back road victories, one against a ranked Vanderbilt, would put the Tigers in a great position to potentially make the College Football Playoffs. That being said, Mizzou’s schedule won’t get much easier as it’ll face currently Top 15 teams in Texas A&M at home and Oklahoma on the road.
Hey. What did we learn last night? Just win! Doesn’t matter how it looks. Though I’d prefer if it looked good.
- In which Kellie Harper has herself a weekend on the recruiting trail, locking up both Jada Maples and Khloe Ford:
Looking at the tape, Maples has high level dribbling skills, allowing her to weave through defenders to get to the rim. When she gets to the rim, she either has the vision to make a great pass to one of her teammates or having the strength to go up for the layup and finish through contact…
What stands out most when you watch Ford’s film is her defensive prowess around the rim. It’s more than just her height, using her speed and positioning to frustrate opposing offenses. In addition she is a high-level scorer and rebounder, with high-level awareness around the rim to put herself in some ideal spots.
Three four-star recruits in a week? Harper is cooking.
There also was quite a bit of action on the Olympic Sports front this weekend. Dylan recapped Mizzou’s four-set nailbiter against the Bayou Bengals.
Trailing 24-16 in set three with practically no momentum, Mizzou was staring down a 2-1 deficit with LSU on a roll. But Mizzou refused to quit, fitting off eight straight set points before eventually winning in extras 27-25. This propelled Mizzou to a win over LSU in four sets 25-19, 20-25, 27-25, 25-19.
It got a bit dicey there in the third set and everything seemed to be going wrong. But, the black & gold Tigers prevailed, and Missouri went undefeated on the weekend, which they needed to do. You can read Dylan’s Ole Miss recap from Friday here, and also check out Colin’s 3-game takeaways, where he went over Mizzou’s 2-1 week with wins over Auburn & Ole Miss, and a close loss to Florida on the road.
Goalkeeper Riley Wilkerson got the start in goal in favor of Kate Phillips solely based on the fact that she earned it, according to Golan. The Razorbacks had two shots through the first 20 minutes, both on goal, but the redshirt sophomore saved both attempts.
“I found out yesterday afternoon that I was going to get the start,” Wilkerson said. “Preparation looked the same as any other day. I didn’t want to make a big deal out of it.
Looks like the change was a good one, as Arkansas’ two shots on goal through the first 20 were saved. The Tigers are likely to be held out the SEC Tournament AGAIN this season, but I (Karen) wouldn’t consider this a lost season. There is some talent on this squad should they stick together.
- Over at Rock M+, our latest Mizzou Hoops player preview zeroes in on Annor Boateng, Billy Napier is out at Florida (and Eli Drinkwitz is being named as a potential candidate), and a few more preseason college hoops injuries to take note of.
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