(MIZ)—Missouri’s clutch victory over Ole Miss Saturday has earned the Tigers a double bye, meaning they won’t play until the Quarterfinals Friday afternoon. The opponent? It might be Tennessee or maybe South Carolina—or maybe Ole Miss again.
Ole Miss, the 13th seed, plays South Carolina Wednesday night. The winner faces a short turn-around before playing Tennessee, the fifth seed, on Thursday afternoon. The winner of that game plays Missouri.
Missouri has never reached the quarterfinals in the SEC Tournament—but their 11-7 conference record with tiebreakers over other 11-7 teams have put them there. They have finished the regular season at 23-8 and they have shown they’re dangerous as the clock runs down. They have outscored their opponents through their first 31 games by only 5.3 points a game, a number that might surprise some folks who look at a 23-win team.
The Tigers’ four-game win streak going into the post-season seems not to be as impressive to the coaches who do weekly rankings. Missouri is not one of their top 25 teams. The Tigers are 30th.
College Football News, which swings to roundball in the off-season, projects Missouri as a number eight seed in the NCAA tournament.
And the NCAA doesn’t list the Tigers among its top 25 either.
A trio of big questions for Friday: Will the Tigers come out a little rusty after the “long” layoff? Can they play hot for both halves? And will the failure of the coaches and the NCAA to think better of them be a motivator? (ZOU)
(BASEBALL)—The Kansas City Royals are the Cactus League leaders a full week into spring training. The Royals are 9-2, including all six road games. They’re outscoring opponents 85-61, the largest run margin in the league. The Dodgers were 5-2 after the weekend; the Cubs 6-4; the Angels and White Sox 5-4.
The Cardinals are fourth in the Grapefruit League, trailing Boston, Houston, and Toronto. St. Louis is 6-4
(BATTLING HAWKS)—Things got a little messy at the end of Sunday’s game between two of the unbeaten XFL teams—the St. Louis Battlehawks and the D. C. Defenders. It became the highest-scoring game of the three-week old season.
St. Louis trailed 34-20 in the closing minutes but scored a touchdown and a two-point conversion. That gave them an opportunity to maintain possession instead of trying for an onside kick. XFL Rules say they have one play from their own 25 to pick up 15 yards and keep playing. But Quarterback A. J. McCarron was sacked by D. C.’s Dalvin Bellamy, giving the Defenders the ball inside the St. Louis 20 as the clock ran down.
That’s when players from both sides went after each other. After a few minutes, order was restored and two Defenders were ejected from the last few seconds. D. C. linebacker Francis Bernard and Defensive lineman Rod Taylor were thrown out, as was St. Louis running back Brian Hill.
The Defenders go to 3-0. The Battlehawks now are 2-1.
RACIN’
All three big-time racing series are underway for the 2023 racing season. INDYCAR and Formula 1 got rolling with INDYCAR on the streets of St. Petersburg, Florida and F1 at the Bahrain Grand Prix. And NASCAR went to the Busch brother’s home town.
(INDYCAR)—Marcus Ericsson, the winner of last year’s Indianapolis 500 stayed out of trouble and, has started 2023 with a win in a wild race on the street course at St. Petersburg.
Ericsson, who started fourth, finished 2.4 seconds ahead of Pato O’Ward. Six-time series champion Scott Dixon took the last podium position. Romain Grosjean, who started on pole, was one of those who dropped out because of what is called “contact” in racing.
A scary crash at the third turn of the race that saw Devlin DeFrancesco’s car airborne in a flat spin about twenty seconds after the first green flag. The crash eliminated DeFrancesco and four other drivers—500 winners Helio Castroneves and Simon Pagenaud, plus Santino Ferrucci and Benjamin Pederson. The crash took out both Meyer Shank entries and both of A. J. Foyt’s team cars.
After other bumping, banging and visits to tire barriers that brought out four more cautions, Pato O’Ward appeared headed to victory when his engine briefly lost power, letting Ericsson through for the win.
INDYCAR will put the pieces back together to head to the high banks of the Texas Motor Speedway on April 2.
(NASCAR)—A race within the race made William Byron a winner at Las Vegas Sunday. Byron, who led 176 of the race’s 271 laps, beat teammate Kyle Larson off pit road on the last stop with an overtime restart coming up. He got the jump on the green flag and beat Larson to the finish line by sixth-tenths of a second. A third Hendrick driver, Alex Bowman, finished third. Hendrick cars dominated the race, leading 239 of the laps.
Missing out on the fun was the fourth Hendrick driver, Chase Elliott, who’s going to miss out on a lot more fun because he broke a leg bone in a snowboarding incident Friday before the race. He underwent surgery and will start rehab work this week. He is expected to miss several races, however.
NASCAR moves to Phoenix next weekend to wrap up its early-season West Coast tour.
(FORMULA 1)—Already there is some frustration being voiced in F1 circles that Red Bull driver Max Verstappen will so dominate the sport again that fans will become bored and some will turn away. Verstappen won the Grand Prix of Bahrain to kick off the season in defense of his 2022 championship. Teammate Sergio Perez finished twelve seconds back. Two-time F1 champion Fernando Alonso was third driving for Aston Martin, a full 38 seconds behind Verstappen.
(photo credit: Bob Priddy at Gateway (WWTR), 2022)