MVN - Most Valuable Network

Mizzou’s stay in KC could be short

Oh long, forgotten MVN…how I’ve neglected you. I guess I thought that if I didn’t post for awhile this season would disappear along with my writing. Wrong.

So here we are, in Kansas City, for the first round of the Big 12 Tournament as it makes its glorious return to the City of Fountains—the city that gave birth to the competition and nurtured it through its adolescence, only to have it ripped out from its arms by the big bad Texans.

But whatever, it’s baaaaaaack. And this is downtown KC’s coming-out party, as the new Power & Light District will be introduced to thousands of people for the first time. The Sprint Center, if you haven’t been, is one of the finest basketball facilities in the country, and now there’s an entertainment district to match that.

Now to Mizzou. Something tells me that the Tigers will be in and out of KC before they even have a chance to stop and smell the barbeque.

As the No. 10 seed, Mizzou draws Nebraska for Thursday night’s game. I don’t like this matchup one bit. I think the Tigers would match up better against Oklahoma State or Texas Tech (both teams that they’ve lost to earlier this season), and that’s because of one reason: Aleks Maric.

Mike Anderson can’t find anyone to defend this guy. In the first meeting of the season, a shorthanded Tigers loss, Maric was held to just 13 points but also grabbed 13 rebounds. That performance was seen as a victory for Mizzou.

The second time around? Even though Mizzou won in overtime, Maric blew up with 32 points and 16 boards. Needless to say, playing in what could be his last collegiate game Thursday nigt, he won’t go down easy.

And I think the Tigers will.

No one wants this season to go on. Really. Underclassmen are already looking forward to seven fresh faces in the fall, and the seniors want the worst four years in Mizzou basketball history to just end already.

What would a win on Thursday do? If the Tigers aren’t in the NIT now, they won’t be with a win over Nebraska either. Does anyone really want to see the season end with a blowout at the hands of Kansas in KC? I don’t.

I’d almost rather go quietly into the night, forgotten and unseen, and hibernate until October. I can’t take this anymore; games aren’t fun to watch. But as long as they keep playing, I’ll have to keep watching. It’s the curse I was born into.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to the Sprint Center.

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 13th, 2008 at 9:48 am and is filed under Aleks Maric, Big 12 Tournament, Kansas City, Sprint Center, Nebraska, Mike Anderson. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.