"Thoughts on Mizzou/Georgetown, Gary Pinkel and Big XII Football"

Anyone who knows even the slightest thing about me knows how much I love college basketball, and how passionate I am about my Missouri Tigers. While last nights game was not a make or break your season game, it was never the less a tough to handle, heart breaking loss. Like they’ve done every game through this early part of the season, the Tigers got off to a slow start and trailed the Hoyas of Georgetown by as much as 18 in the first half before trimming that deficit to 7 by the break. An incredible display of basketball in the second half by this young Tiger team showed how good this team can be coming all the way back to take the lead. However, the last minute and a half of regulation also showed they still have a lot of growing up to do. Frustrating stuff. It really came down to free throws. With a four point lead, Bowers missed both. Georgetown came down and scored. With a 2-point lead, Dixon made the first and missed the second, and on the last possession of regulation, the Hoyas buried an open three pointer to send the game to overtime on a broken play (Note to Kimmie English: never, never, never try to save the ball under your own stinking basket). As tough as this loss was to take, I know that many bright days are ahead for this team, and this program Mike Anderson has going at Mizzou.

To the real point of this post, I’m going to back off my Gary Pinkel dislike somewhat. Not totally, but somewhat. Coach Pinkel has the football program at Mizzou at a place where, growing up, I never thought it could be. The team, by many standards, actually over-achieved a bit this season by going 10-2 (winning 10 games for only the 4^th time in school history, 3 of those times under Pinkel) and nabbing a share, such as it is in the era of “lets give everyone a trophy”, of the Big XII North title. Still, there was that frustrating loss to Texas Tech that was full of questionable to downright poor coaching decisions, and it was that game that ultimately kept Mizzou from playing for the conference title in a year that it really seemed possible for a North team to end the South’s dominance. Still, Pinkel has raised expectations in Columbia to a level not seen really since the end of the Dan Devine era. Each year, you can more or less reasonably to expect the Tigers to compete for the North title, though starting next year in the new 10 team format, there are no divisions, and expect the team to go bowling come seasons end. Bowls, division titles and such were few and far between prior to Pinkel’s 5^th year at Mizzou. All that is well and good, but the important goal still remains of winning the league. Missouri hasn’t won the conference since grabbing a share of the Big 8 title in 1969. Until that drought has ended, Pinkel still cannot be credited with brining the Tigers all the way “back” and putting us truly on the map. Until he does that, as my good friend Nathan Yount said last night, the best one can say about Pinkel is “He’s alright”. He’s not bad, but he’s not great, and is on the brink between “alright” and “good”.  Starting next year, it will conceivably become more difficult to win the league. The new round robin schedule where everyone plays everyone will have Missouri playing perennial powers Oklahoma and Texas every season. Year after year. As nice a position that Pinkel has brought the program to, one has to wonder: if he couldn’t win the conference in the old Big XII, can he actually win one in this upcoming new version of the league? That remains to be seen. It’s ok to expect more. The program has been around for a long time, and Pinkel just completed a decade at the helm. At some point, if he hasn’t accomplished this goal, the university is going to have to move forward with someone else. Gary Pinkel has done some great things for the University of Missouri, but at some point he’s got to break through the glass ceiling. If he doesn’t in the near future, it’s time to give a chance to someone else to do so.

Finally, as a side note, I wish fans would be more educated about the bowl selection process and stop wining about where the Tigers go in their bowl game. I’ll grant you that there is a strong argument to be made that the Tigers got screwed in not playing in a BCS bowl in 2007 (the Orange Bowl), but since then one has no real beef. This year in particular, when you have four teams at 10-2, five teams that went 6-2 in the conference (the fifth being Texas A&M who went 9-3) Mizzou fans shouldn’t gripe. We didn’t play for the league title, and in a somewhat down year for the Big XII, it’s unreasonable to just expect to get two teams into the BCS. So with the winner of Saturday’s league title game between Oklahoma and Nebraska* locked into the Fiesta bowl and Texas A&M being chosen for the Cotton, there’s really just three other bowls of the leagues 8 potential bids that Missouri can grab. A&M got the cotton bowl because their fans travel insanely will anyway, and the game is pretty close to College Station. The loser of the title game will more then likely go to the Alamo bowl, which this year picks third, behind the Fiesta, and the Cotton. That leaves the insight (picks 4^th) and the Holiday (picks 5^th) as realistic landing spots for Missouri. While the Holiday was a good bowl last year, it’s not as good this year due to the shuffle in the selection order, so it would be better if Mizzou could nab the Inisght, but it will come down to Mizzou and Oklahoma State who are both 10-2. It’ll be interesting to see who get’s the call.

*I think all Mizzou fans should be rooting for Oklahoma in the title game this Saturday, based solely on the fact that Oklahoma isn’t the team leaving the conference. I don’t think it’s in the Big XII’s best interest for Nebraska to win the league and then bolt to the Big 10. I know to all you new Mizzou fans that Oklahoma has been the number one source of pain over the past few year, but Nebraska has inflicted just as much or more on the Tigers in the long history of the conference, and it’s foolish to think that Mizzou has a better rivalry with OU then with Nebraska, because we don’t. In football, besides Kansas, Nebraska has been Mizzou’s main rival, and they’ve beat us. A lot. So again, I hope the Sooners win for the sake of the conference more than anything else. Lastly, I think this is a fitting way for the Big XII era to come to an end. Nebraska and Oklahoma have been the leagues two best teams going back to the Big 8 days and before. They had an incredible, intense rivalry that took a hit when the Big XII was formed and they couldn’t play every year. It’s fitting that Nebraska’s final game in the league is against their ancient rival. I hope it’s another exciting chapter in what was once one of college footballs greatest rivalries. Now, for the first and last time in my life…Boomer Sooner.