We’re a little frustrated today so we’re going to lead off with a basketball team that’s consistently exciting and consistently able to win. They’re ranked and the Missouri Tigers are continuing to play themselves into the NIT
(BILLIKENS)—The top-20 St. Louis Billikens sit atop the Atlantic 10 Conference roaring back from a 14-point halftime deficit to outscore second-place Virginia Commonwealth 55-22 in the second half and claiming an 88-72 win that featured a brawl in the last minute. The Billikens are now 25-2 and undefeated in seventeen games at home.
The Bills were sparked by 6-6 guard Kellen Thames, who had 16 points and five steals. Longtime Missouri fans will ask if Kellen is the son of Kelly Thames, who was a four-year starter at Mizzou whose greater prominence was limited by a knee injury. Yes, he is. Dad was his coach at Pattonville High. Kellen was the key in a 21-2 surge in the second half when he scored seven straight points, giving the Billikens an eleven point lead with seven minutes left. They never let VCU closer than seven points after that.
SLU guard Quentin Jones, his team 19 points ahead, was dribbling out the clock when VCU’s Nyk Lewis grabbed the ball and after a few steps launched a half-court shot just before St. Louis’ Bobby Avila shoved him out of bounds. VCU’s Barry Evans shoved Avila and the benches emptied. At the end, a bunch of players got excused from the court, enough that Virginia had only four players on the court when Evens hit all three free throws and the clock ran out.
(MIZZ)—Missouri played the 19 and 20 teams in the country last week and split—and they were lucky to get that.
Missouri led by 21 with nine minutes to play before 19th ranked Vanderbilt turned the game inside out. Only by the Tigers making five free throws down the stretch and the rim-out of a Vanderbilt Hail Mary shot as the clock reached zero did Missouri post a skin-of-the-teeth with.
Saturday night, Missouri was on the road against 20th ranked Arkansas. The Razorbacks made nine of their last ten shots to take a six-point halftime lead. Missouri, as has often happened this year, could not get a stop when they needed one, and Arkansas went on runs of 8-2 and 13-4 to win 96-84.
Missouri drops to 18-9 and 8-6 in the conference. They play Tennessee tonight in Columbia. Tennessee comes in 10-4, and 20-7, one of three teams in second place behind Alabama. Missouri is one of four teams tied for fourth. They finish the season at home against Mississippi State 5=9. 13-14), at Oklahoma (3-11, 13-14) and at home against Arkansas.
(CARDINALS)—St. Louis opened it spring training games with a weekend split, a 5-2 loss to Washington and a 6-5 win against Houston.
Matthew Liberatore and Dustin May seem to be headed toward being 1-2 in the starting rotation. Spring training will determine 3-5. Kyle Leahy had a strong start against Houston—18 of 29 pitches in the strike zone—three Ks, two groundouts and a popout. Leahy has been a reliever most of his career but the Cardinals want to stretch him into a starter during spring training.
Newly-signed Ramon Urias is in camp, a 2022 gold glover, likely to play second and third as backup for rookie second baseman J.J. Wetherhold and Nolan Gorman, who is tabbed to be the starting third baseman. Urias is returning to the Cardinals system. He made it to Triple-A before he was DFA’s in 2020. He was with the Orioles and the Astros last year, hit .241 with 11 home runs and 44 RBIs. He has a one-year contract with an option.
(Royals)—The Kansas City Royals seem to have their pitching rotation pretty well set as they start play in the Cactus league—Cole Ragans, Seth Lugo, Michael Wacha, and Kris Bubic seems to have the first four slots tied down with Noah Cameron a contender for the final slot. Sunday’s outing by Bailey Falter, who came to KC from Pittsburgh last year was a sold one, indicating Kansas City could be headed into the regular season with a solid long reliever for them.
Falter started, went two innings, gave up one hit but no runs. Falter made 24 starts for Pittsburgh and Kansas city last year—two starts and two relief jobs for KC.
The Royals took two of three to open spring training in Arizona. The Cardinals split their first two games in the Grapefruit League.
(CHIEFS)—-The Kansas City Chiefs have created some more salary cap space by cutting loose defensive end Mike Dana, who has two Super Bowl rings. Dana was drafted by the Chiefs in 2020 and would have made about nine million dollars this year, his final contract season.
The Chiefs have been working hard to create more cash heading into the free agent signing season in about two weeks. A few days ago, the team restructured Patrick Mahomes’ contract to lower the amount that applied to the salary cap by about $43.6 million dollars.
Dana was credited with 21.5 sacks in his six years with the team, along with six pass defenses and a half-dozen forced fumbles.
The Chiefs are expected to shed some other veteran players in coming weeks to increase their salary cap space.
This week, Chiefs coaches are in Indianapolis for the “meat market,” the scouting combine workouts that might help decide who to draft out of college.
(HAWKS)—The St. Louis Battlehawks’ UFL season starts in a month—March 28th to be exact, when they play the DC Defenders in the dome. St. Louis Public Radio reports the co-owner of the league, Mike Repole, has suggested the Hawks abandon the dome and play its games in Energized Park, the home of the St. Louis pro soccer team.
Repole thinks UFL games in a big stadium don’t look good on TV because crowds aren’t big enough. St. Louis averaged a league-leading 30,000 fans last year, more than double the crowds at the second most popular team. The soccer park, however, holds only 22,000 fans. He says talks with the soccer club about using its stadium are only preliminary.
Six of the eight UFL teams will play at soccer parks this year.
Repole needs to do a selling job on Battlehawks coach Ricky Proehl, one of the stars of the St. Louis Rams, who says he understands how Repole wants to see full stadiums. But he hopes to grow crowds in the Dome to 40,000 this year with the tailgating atmosphere that would still be available at the Dome continuing to build the team’s culture.
The Dome at America’s center was spiffed up two years ago with new turf and lighting upgrades.
Now—people to whom 100 mph isn’t anything special.
(NASCAR)—Aerodynamics are important to NASCAR competitors, especially on super speedways with their high banks. Cars that are damaged by bumping and grinding or by track crashes are supposed to lose their competitive edge.
—which is why Tyler Reddick’s win at Atlanta Sunday was something of a surprise. Look at his car:
Reddick was part of a nine-car crash 36 laps from the scheduled end. He dropped two laps back while in the pits for repairs but charged back to 27th place for a win in two overtimes that he pronounced as “crazy.” He’s the first driver to win the first two races of the season since Matt Kenseth did it in 2009. It has happened only four other times.
The 260 lap race saw a record 57 lead changes among fourteen drivers. More than one-fourth of the race laps were run under caution because of numerous crashes.
(INDYCAR)—The people who don’t use fenders are speeding closer to the beginning of their season with road course and oval testing, the latter on the Phoenix oval.
The winner of the 2016 Indianapolis 500, Alexander Rossi had the hot laps in both the morning and the afternoon sessions, topping out at 174.542 on the one-mile oval. Rossi, who hasn’t been in victory lane since August, eight years ago, is driving for Ed Carpenter Racing now with teammate Christian Rasmussen, whose third place finish at Worldwide Technology Raceway was his first IndyCar podium finish, followed by his first win later at Milwaukee.
The test drew all 25 drivers expected to start the season next Sunday on the streets of St. Petersburg, Florida. They’ll be back at Phoenix for a race on the following Saturday, March 7. The race will mark an IndyCar return to Phoenix. The series last raced there in 2018.
Other highlights of the test: Penske’s Josef Newgarden was second-fastest overall with new teammate David Malukas close behind.
The tests were important to former F1 driver Mick Schumacher, who was the top rookie on the speed charts. He ran seven miles an hour faster on day two, topping out at just under 172.
The most active driver was Will Power, who drove 259 of the total 4,853 laps turned in by all drivers. He’s getting comfortable with his new ride for Andretti Global.
(Photo credits: Thames–St. Louis University; Dana—Kansas City Chiefs; Reddick—Dirk Bizub, Racing America on SI; Rossi—Bob Priddy at WWTR 2025)