Opinion: Why are you so obsessed, Mizzou?
On Sunday, it was announced Kansas softball would head to Columbia, Missouri for the NCAA tournament. The Missouri Tigers are hosting the regional and could even play the Jayhawks. It would be the first athletic contest between the two universities since Mizzou bailed from the conference less than two years ago.
“I know they’re kind of scared to play us in football and basketball, so it’s good that we can keep tradition going and hopefully let them know who’s boss and who will always be better in the rivalry,” Missouri shortstop Corrin Genovese told PowerMizzou.com.
Genovese, who grew up in New York, played just one year in the Big 12 and apparently she’s an expert in the rivalry.
Please.
And scared? Let’s be honest… Missouri left the conference. If they really wanted to play Kansas all the time, they shouldn’t have left the Big 12. If anyone is scared of playing the other team, let’s look at the university that bailed on over a hundred years of history.
Secondly, it doesn’t even benefit Kansas to play Missouri. In basketball, Kansas can make deals with teams that consistently make the NCAA tournament and make money off of those teams. For Kansas to do a series with Mizzou basketball, they’d likely have to split the gates at the Sprint Center or do a home-and-home series. Who does that benefit? Allen Fieldhouse always sells out, regardless of the opponent. Missouri’s basketball attendance in 2013-2014 dropped 22 percent from the year before. A KU-Mizzou game in Columbia would sell out in 10 minutes or less. That benefits Missouri.
Missouri didn’t even make the NCAA tournament in 2014. That’d hurt KU’s strength of schedule. Self likes to schedule teams he know will give his squad a challenge.
Between Missouri and Kansas basketball, the Tigers should be the team that is scared.
As far as football goes, what is the point? Until Charlie Weis can get his team to a 6-6 record, it’s obvious which team would win in a renewed football Border War. There’s no doubt Missouri’s football team is better than KU’s but that’s not really saying much at the moment. The last Border War football game that got national attention was 2008 and 2007 was the pinnacle of the rivalry. Until it can get back to that level, there’s no use in scheduling a game.
If that makes KU scared, then so be it. But Kansas isn’t the side dwelling on it.
And it’s not just the softball players that are bringing up football. Missouri head coach Gary Pinkel recently ripped Kansas on a Google+ Hangout:
“We want to play Kansas again. It was a great rivalry we had all those years,” Pinkel said. “It’s been an open invitation. There’s some pouting going on still.
“It’s unfortunate, but it will happen again someday. It will. It would be great for our fans. In every sport, it would be good. We’ll see what happens.”
No one in Kansas is pouting, Pinkel. In fact, no one is even suggesting it happen on this side of the state line.
On Tuesday, KU softball players responded to Genovese’s comments. I thought Alicia Pille, a KU pitcher, put it best.
“They’re going to say what they’re going to say. They’re just trying to get a rise out of people. You can’t not be mad when someone says something like that, but there’s no reason to say anything back to it. It doesn’t help the situation,” Pille said. “It’s not really the most mature thing they could have done. We’re better than that.”
But we all know that Missouri isn’t exactly known for the maturity.
Before the announced potential matchup in softball, Missouri’s athletic director had this to say about Kansas:
“We said we wanted to be able to play. We continue to say that. But at some point, we’ve got to keep moving forward, which is what we’re doing,” Mike Alden said. “Our hope, someday, is that the University of Kansas – which we have a large regard for – is going to say, ‘Let’s go ahead and play again.’ They know we’d love to be able to do it. Hopefully it’ll happen. We’ve reached out and we continue to reach out to them to hopefully make that happen.”
It’s time to get over it, Mizzou. It’s like breaking up with your high school girlfriend to go off to college and then constantly begging her to come back to you. It’s over with. Kansas has moved on to better things.
The softball game will be a nice way of bringing back the old times. But it’s just a brief visit. Then Mizzou and KU will go their separate ways again… until the NCAA pits the two against each other again. Maybe it’ll be in the NCAA basketball tournament or perhaps maybe in the new college football playoff. No offense to the outstanding student-athletes that play softball for Kansas, but that’ll be more memorable and will have more bearing on the rivalry.
And there’s still a chance Kansas and Missouri might not even play this week in the NCAA softball tournament. First, Kansas has to take on a formidable opponent in Nebraska. Missouri needs to take care of business against their first opponent, too. But even if they do square off, this isn’t going to lead to eternal bragging rights between the two fan bases.
Sorry Missouri… but we’re still not getting back together. And we’re really really okay with that.
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