A weekly list of fantastic stories (and quotes) you may have missed this past week at Rock M Nation dot com

Welcome to Rock M Digest, a weekly column where I, Madame Editor, share with you my must-read picks for the Rock M Nation content of the week. These stories made me think (sometimes too much), laugh, smile, cry… you get the picture. We’ve got a talented bunch of writers at this site, and since I have the distinct pleasure of reading all of it — I love reading it all, I swear — I want you, the readers, to know what you should be checking out if you don’t have time to read all the content. And that’s not including podcasts (which I’ve linked to below) and Rock M+ content, which isn’t found on the main RMN page.

At the bottom, I’ve gathered up my favorite quotes of the week presented them with no context. There is a link to the story included, and I highly recommend reading the stories that go along with them.

And, as always I’ve gathered all the podcasts for you and put all my fave photos from the Mizzou beats’ best photo team into a gallery for your viewing pleasure.

Enjoy! It’s kU game, bowl game, and transferportalmania-heavy this week.

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Rock M Recs

Study Hall: Mizzou 76, kansas 67

Those familiar with me know that Study Hall is the reason I came to Rock M as a reader many years ago. I found Sam’s use of analytics to be easy to understand and not overly intellectual, like he wasn’t trying to prove me he was the smartest guy in the room. But the Study Halls I have come to love the most, like this one here, is when he lets a bit of himself in there. That is where he shines, friends, and that is why this one, looking at Mizzou’s 12-years-in-the-making win of #1 kansas, is of his best Study Halls ever. You can tell that this one meant something to him, just as it did to so many of us. He said it best:

“I know this is a statistical analysis post. I’m a fan of analytics, quite obviously. But I don’t watch sports, and in particular, basketball, because of the numbers. I love this game. Numbers can tell part of the story, but they don’t account for Tamar Bates, Mark Mitchell, and Aidan Shaw being KCK kids facing off against their actual home state school. They don’t account for 15,000 people screaming their heads off when a skinny kid from Florida tips a pass into the air and ends up hanging on the rim after finishing a dunk. There’s no statistic for watching Dennis Gates call a timeout so Kansas players could exit safely knowing the court was about to be stormed.”

Just beautiful. An absolute must-read if you are a true Mizzou Hoops fan.

Mizzou Volleyball’s tournament run ends at hands of Kentucky

We are so lucky to have Matthew on staff, you guys. So lucky. He took this volleyball beat and has absolutely run with it, conducting 1:1 interviews with players and coaches in his Over the Net series, making video vlogs while out on the road at the NCAA Tournament (see below), and much more. It’s been impressive how much he’s learned about this team and the game in general.

In his final recap of the season, while out on the road with the team in PItt, Matthew offers one last glimpse into the team we’ve come to passionately root for. A team that, Matthew wrote, despite losing for the third time this season at the hands of the Kentucky Wildcats — they were swept by no. 1 seed Pitt in the Elite 8 if that makes you feel better — placed themselves on the national map and set themselves up to be a part of the SEC’s top tier for years to come. This team was special. These players were special.

Give this a read and see.

Mizzou’s Transfer Portal Quarterback Options: Part 1 & Part 2

In a two-parter from Dan, he examines some transfer portal quarterback options and attempts to categorize them into “fixer-uppers” like Michael Van Buren (MS State) and Maalik Murphy (Duke), “G5 Veterans” like Kaidon Salter (Liberty) and “Goldilocks options” like Fernando Mendoza (Cal). Since Miller Moss committed to Louisville on Saturday over Mizzou, this is a good read.

When happy chaos consumed Columbia

In Quentin’s sidebar — the first Mizzou Hoops sidebar of the year — he examines how this game proved this rivalry is not just “a regular game.” The civilians littered all over the court by game’s end proved that. The players’ comments leading up to, and afterwards, proved that. This is a true rivalry, and people like KCK native Tamar Bates now find themselves among the legends in its history— the Marcus Denmons, Zaire Taylors, Corey Tates and Lee Cowards.

Such a good read, and one I’ll definitely come back to.

Alternate History: Would Missouri have made the Playoff?

If we know anything at about Nate Edwards, it’s this— our guy LOVES numbers. Since there’s no game analytics, in this thought exercise, he examines the final CFP rankings and hypothesizes if Mizzou would have made the Playoff had they been able to beat South Carolina. In this scenario, he changes just one thing to give Mizzou the W— on 2nd & 4 from Missouri’s 15-yard line, Rocket Sanders catches the shovel pass but the first hit from Johnny Walker, Jr. knocks the ball out and Mizzou recovers. Everything else stays the same.

While it’s a silly exercise, Nate takes his typical in-depth and thoughtful approach to arrive at the same decision— no, Mizzou likely wouldn’t have made it, even WITH a UofSC win.

Mizzou routs LIU, eclipses win total from last season

It wasn’t so much that this was a memorable game — it wasn’t — but not having a hangover from the epic kU win was so, so important, and per Quentin’s recap, Missouri has now won more games in just over a month (9) than it did all of last season (8), and it marks just the second time since the 2014-15 season that the Tigers started a season 9-1. What I also liked was that it was yet a different Tiger leading the team in scoring this time, Trent Pierce, who scored a career-high 17 points in the first half in JUST 8 MINUTES and finished with 22.

Special Border War Addendum:

“When you look at former coaches, former players, former students, former employees, their memories of Mizzou basketball revolves around this game,” Gates said on Friday. “Our guys understand it from a historical perspective.”

“After the game, we was telling each other ‘this is what we came here for’,” Bates said. “For kids in the next generation that’s coming to college next year, we just trying to show them that you don’t got to go far to play big-time basketball and win big-time games. You can come play for this guy (coach Gates).”

“Our guys never severed, never went in different directions,” Gates said. “They stayed connected, they stayed true to the scouting report, and they challenge each other and those that were challenged responded the right way.”

Quotables

“For the first time in program history, Mizzou will play not one, not two, not three, not four, not five, but six home games to start the season. The Tigers won’t leave Missouri until the weekend of Oct. 18, when they play Auburn at Jordan-Hare Stadium in what will hopefully be a less clunky contest than the one in 2022.” —Quentin Corpuel, Mizzou Football 2025 schedule takeaways

“The transfer portal is a fickle mistress. In this new age of college football, the one thing that can be counted on is that nothing will stay the same. That especially goes for rosters from one season to the next. One year’s massive recruiting win can be next year’s massive transfer loss.” —Nathan Hurst, Nwaneri transfer news

“Missouri needs to beat Kansas. And I’ll tell you why: because I don’t remember what it’s like to beat them. I remember the game, I watched the game, I’ve re-watched the highlights a million times. But it was 12+ years ago. I’ve lost the feeling. Someone recently asked me if I could only pick one game to win between the Border War or Braggin’ Rights and I said, out loud, Braggin’ Rights. The reason I think is I remember winning Braggin’ Rights.” —Sam Snelling, Pourover: It’s well past time to beat kansas

“The team rebounded this year from the depths of their nepotism-driven offensive nadir. Kirk’s son Brian was offensive coordinator for far too long. In his last two seasons calling plays, the Hawkeyes finished 118th in 2022 in offensive SP+ and 129th last year. That’s horrifying — that is Akron bad, UMass bad, Louisiana-Monroe bad. Both years the defense finished in the top three.” —Dan Keegan, Meet the Opponent: Iowa Hawkeyes

“The crowd’s introduction into the game by means of Mizzou offense incited poor possessions repeatedly for kansas’ offense. kU amassed a gargantuan 13 turnovers in the first 15 minutes of play, with the majority of them coming on jumped passes, mistakenly touching the out of bounds line, and passes to nobody. The crowd’s factor was a contentious subject for the visitors. ‘We just played bad,’ kansas forward KJ Adams Jr. said. ‘The crowd had nothing to do with it.’” —Adeen Rao, MU-kU recap

“Many young special teams returners catch the ball and take off as fast as they can immediately. Fowlkes, on the other hand, is great at patiently waiting for blocks and holes to open up, leading to (what seems like at least) dozens of long returns on special teams. He also shows similar skills on jet sweeps and other touches outside of the deep passing game.” —Nathan Hurst, DeMarion Fawkes Recruiting Reset

Hot Shots

In this week’s hot shots, we’ve got plenty of kU shots from Cal, and a shot from Matthew at the NCAA Tourney in Pittsburgh.

Listen Up!

Here’s what you may have missed podcast-wise on the Olympic Sports, hoops and football fronts.

• Majority Rules is back and the group shares their favorite Olympic sports memories of 2024 and their holiday plans before chatting about the progress we’ve seen under Robin Pingeton’s squad and the awesomeness of Mizzou Volleyball (so many awards!), before checking in on a former Tiger at the US Open, a couple distance runners competing at BU,

• Matthew explored Pittsburgh in a special Over the Net Sweet Sixteen vlog. Super fun!

• Dive Cuts is back, and Matt & Sam are celebrating Mizzou’s win over #1 kansas.

• Matt Watkins’ The Verdict is free this week so that we can all re-live the awesomeness of the kU game.

• Before the Box Score this week with The Nates features x

Mizzou Sports this Week:

• Sun, Dec. 15: WBB vs. Lipscomb, 3pm
• Tues, Dec. 17: MBB vs. Jacksonville St., 6:30pm
• Wed, Dec. 18: Gymnastics Black & Gold, 11:30am | WBB vs. Oral Roberts, 6:30pm
• Sun, Dec. 22: MBB vs. Illinois (Braggin Rights), 12pm | Collegiate Wrestling Duals, 2pm