By Bob Priddy, Missourinet contributing editor
(mizz)—All year long, the Missouri Tigers have had at least one disastrous scoreless stretch that robbed them a chance for a basketball win. One last time, they had another one. This time they broke their fans’ hearts by waiting until the bitter end.
They had taken the lead early in the second half, not an unexpected event given the trend all year, and the held it well past the mid-point—which WAS kind of unexpected. They fought off Georgia surges and went up by seven points when Sean East II scored off a rebound to make it 59-52 with 3:39 left.
Those were the last points of the season for the Tigers. Georgia ran off twelve unanswered points to slam the door on Missouri’s hopes.
Missouri scored just six points in the last 6:25. They missed their last seven shots and had a turn over on an in-bounds pass that was turned into a quick Georgia basket.
The season ends 8-24 with Missouri 0-for-2024, losers of 19 straight SEC games, including the conference tournament first-round exit.
Now we wait to see how the portal changes everything. (zou)
(AXES)—Travis Ford, briefly a Missouri Tiger before going back to Kentucky to finish his college basketball career, was fired by St. Louis University hours after the Billikens had lost to Duquesne in the second round of the Atlantic Ten Conference Tournament.
Ford’s team were 146-109 in his eight seasons. But they made it to the NCAA Tournament only once and were never seeded higher than fourth in the post-season conference tournament.. The Bills were 13-20 this year, 5-13 in the conference. He is the third-winningest coach in program history. He has been the highest-paid employee at SLU for several years at more than $2 million a year.
This might be the end of coaching for Ford, who’s been in the biz for 27 years. “The game’s been very good to me. Now it’s time to do something else,” he said after the firing.
Ford went to SLU from Oklahoma State where he also spent eight seasons before being fired.
He played a year for Norm Stewart, in 1989-90, where he made the Big 8 All-Freshman team. But he returned home to Kentucky to finish out his career with the Wildcats. His teams at five universities were 491-366.
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Another Ford also has been shown the door with a winning record—but not the right kinds of wins—Dana Ford at Missouri State, in Springfield.
The Bears were 17-16 this year but only 8-12 in the Missouri Valley and were knocked out of the Arch Madness Tournament in the quarter-final round.
His six-season record at Missouri State was 106-82 with a conference recordof 64-48. His team went to the NIT once.
Missouri State was his second head coaching job. He’d done four years at Tennessee State before moving to Springfield. His overall coaching record is 163-146.
(CARDINALS)—The Cardinals have tamped down a little of the speculation that manager Oliver Marmol won’t last by giving him a contract extrension, This season was to be the last in his original three-year deal. Terms haven’t been publicly announced but it’s thought his new contract is good through ’26.
The injury report is a mixed bag as opening day nears. Pitcher Sonny Gray has thrown off the mound for the first time since leaving his first spring training game with a hamstring tweak. He reported no pain in a 20-minute bullpen session. But Marmol says he will miss pitching on opening day. He says Gray might not require a stint on the injured list “and could potentially pitch later on the first road trip of the season.” The new opening day pitcher will be Miles Mikolas.
The news is less good for three other guys.
Word came out Saturday that Keynan Middleton, one of the off-season pickups to bolster the bullpen, has a strained arm and will miss opening day. Middleton who can throw consistently close to triple digits, spent last year with the White Sox and Yankees. He’s been in three games this spring, getting a couple of K’s and allowing two hits. He’s been shut down for ten days and might miss the first couple of weeks of the season.
Tommy Edmund’s rehab has been shut down for at least a week as he reported some pain in his right wrist as he took part in batting drills. If he starts the season on the IL, he could be replaced by rookie Victor Scott II, who is having a solid spring.
Lars Nootbar likewise might start the season on the injured list. Manager Oliver Marmol says he’s making progress with his injured ribs but his return to full play remains uncertain.
(ROYALS)—The Royals have named Cole Ragans as their opening day starter. It’s just nine days away. The Royals open at home against the Twins.
Ragans had a comeback year last season, returning from his second Tommy John surgery. He pitched strongly for the Royals, showing a fastball toughing 97 mph and posting a strike rate of 10.6 per nine innings. He was the American League pitcher of the month last August when he won three out of four, rang up an ERA of 1.72 and had 56 strikeouts in 36 2/3 innings. Only Dennis Leonard, in June, 1977, has had more strikeouts in one month than Ragans had.
Overall, he had a dozen starts and posted a 2.64 ERA.
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Three new names have been added to the Kansas City Royals Hall of Fame—two of them executives.
Outfielder Bo Jackson, dare we say “legendary” outfielder?—is joined by General Managers Cedric Tallis and John Schuerholz on this year’s list.
Jackson is considered the greatest two-sport athlete in pro sports history with eight years in MLB (five with the Royals) and four partial years in the NFL, not playing until baseball season was over. He was a .250 career hitter with 141 home runs (32 one year for KC) and an arm that people still talk about. His most famous play was a one=handed grab of a ball off the left field wall, a turn and throw from the warning track that stunned everybody:
(7) KC@SEA: Bo Jackson’s cannon gets Reynolds at home – YouTube
Nobody was more surprised than Reynolds:
(7) HAROLD REYNOLDS: THE BO JACKSON THROW – YouTube
Before a hip injury ended is NFL career, he played 38 games for the Raiders, averaged 5.4 yards per rushing attempt and 73 yards-plus per game.
Tallis was the Royals’ first General Manager when they were formed as expansion team. He acquired the players who were the foundation of the Royals first great generation—Brett, Otis, Patek, Rojas, Mayberry, McRae, Wilson, Leonard, Busby, and Splittorff, among others. He also created the Royals Baseball Academy that produced Frank White and UL Washington. He died in 1991.
The Royals took Schuerholz away from Baltimore to help develop the Royals’ farm system. He took as GM in 1981 and added players such as Saberhagen, Danny and Bo Jackson, Seitzer, Appier, Montgomery and Tartabull. He went to Atlanta in ’91 after building the team that won Kansas City’s first World Series championship in ’85, and was the architect there behind five pennants for the Braves. He was elected to Cooperstown in 2017.
(EXMIZZ)—Drew Lock has become the latest Missouri football quarterback to become a journeyman signal-caller in the NFL. He has signed a one-year deal with the New York Giants, his third team in six seasons (three seasons in Denver, the last two in Seattle). He’s been in 28 games during that time, started 23, is 9-14 as a starting quarterback, 28 touchdowns and 23 interceptions. He has a chance to start if expected starter Daniel Jones hasn’t come back from ACL surgery last November.
He joins Blaine Gabbert as the only Tiger quarterbacks in the NFL. Gabbert has built a ten-year career, mostly as a backup after he fizzled as a starter at Tampa Bay. Gabbert has played for six teams and won his secnd Super Bowl ring this year with the Chiefs (he won his first one as Tom Brady’s backup with the Buccaneers). Gabbert has been in 69 games, 49 as a starter with a 14-35 record. 51 TDs and 50 interceptions.
The third Missouri quarterback to build a long career in the NFL as a backup was Chase Daniel, won a Super Bowl ring with the New Orleans Saints. Daniel played 74 games for for six teams and was 2-3 as a starter with nine TDs and seven interceptions. He was out of the NFL last year. (EXZOU)
(FOOTBALL)—We already know something about the way the first season of the new United Football League will finish up.
In St. Louis.
The United Football League has announced its first championship game will be played in St. Louis at the domed stadium June 16.
The announcement is a reward for St. Louis Battlehawks fans who led the league in attendance last year with more than 35,000 fans per game. The Batlehawks came up one game short of playing in the XFL championship last year. The XFL and the USFL merged during the offseason. The league’s first game will be March 30.
—Blessed are those who go around in circles, for they shall be called wheels—
(NASCAR)—“I’ve never run a race like that. I hope I never have to run a race like that again,” said fifth-place finisher Kyle Larson after Sunday’s race on the short track at Bristol. He wasn’t alone in those feelings because the concrete surface seemed to eat tires.
A spokesman for NASCAR, senior VP for Innovation and Racing Development had a different take. He called it “one of the best short-track races I’ve ever seen.”
The difference in perspective might be the difference between watching and driving.
The record 54th lead change of the race belonged to Denny Hamlin, who passed teammate Martin Truex Jr., in the closing laps. Only three other drivers finished on the same lap as Hamlin and Truex, the smallest number of cars on the lead lap since Dover, twenty years ago. Sixteen drivers led at least one lap, tying a track record set in 1989.
The racing during the stages and in the final run for the checkered flag became a tire management contest as tire wear was far worse than Goodyear had predicted. It was so severe that NASCAR decide midway into the race to give every team an additional set of tires.
The win is Hamlin’s 52nd, tying him for 13th on the wins list.
Goodyear admitted after the race that tire wear was not up to standard. A spokesman said the fall-off in tire wear was ‘too drastic.” He says Goodyear will do extensive research why so many tires failed or were showing threads when changed during pit stops.
(FORMULA 1 AND INDYCAR BOTH HAD THE WEEKEND OFF.)