What a great weekend for St. Louis sports fans! No, the Rams didn’t magically solve the team’s lease issues. Albert Pujols didn’t apologize to the Redbirds, demand a trade and immediately waive half of his astronomical contract. The Blues, as good as they’ve been recently, only managed a split in two weekend game. No, the joy from St. Louis sports fans were because of losses by the University of Kansas and the New England Patriots.
Sunday night, the Patriots could have been playing the Chicago Cubs and St. Louis fans would have still rooted for their demise. Most of us still haven’t forgotten or forgiven Bill Belichick and Tom Brady for defeating the Rams in Super Bowl XXXVI, especially since they cheated to do so.
So just as we did in 2008, Rams fans from the town’s millions of different municipalities became joined forces with those born in the burroughs of New York to root against the Patriots’ evil empire. We instantly forgave the Giants for Steve Spagnuolo and cheered Eli Manning as if he and Peyton graduated from Clayton High.
As is common with many grudgeholders, we cheered, jeered and pointed at our screens during the game in hopes watching Bill and Tom’s Super Adventure go down in flames. And just like in 2008 when Peyton’s goofy kid brother gave the cheating Pats their just due, Eli stood on his own two feet to claim a Super Bowl title (and MVP trophy) with this ice-cold veins during an amazing late fourth-quarter drive.
Somewhere in his lab, recently renovated into a library after his retirement, “Mad” Mike Martz is smiling.
Tigers feast late on Jayhawks
Despite Mizzou’s great success so far this season, for every Tiger fan, the accolades and accomplishments would almost be worthless without a win over the Kansas Jayhawks, especially at home.
As television announcers Dick Vitale and Dan Schulman noted, there’s plenty of bad blood between the two teams in what has been an intense rivalry. And with the Jayhawks’ brass pouting over Mizzou’s pending departure for the SEC, this season could feature the final regular-season meetings of the rivals for some time (Mizzou would like to continue playing, KU is non-commital thus far).
In what turned out to be a great back-and-forth game, senior guard Marcus Denmon and Mizzou proved they wanted it more by going on an 11-0 run to end the game to strangle the victory away from the Jayhawks in Columbia, despite a monster game from Thomas Robinson.
Rope. Choke. Jayhoax!
The win over the 8th ranked KU squad validated the Tigers as a legitimate national championship contender and undoubtedly instilled confidence into a very talented team.
Frank Haith established himself as the hands-on favorite for NCAA Coach of the Year and Denmon pulled himself out of a shooting slump to dominate during the Tigers’ biggest game of the season to this point.
The Tigers seem to enjoy these close games. It’s nerve racking to watch them late in second halves but the experiences should help them stay calm when faced with similiar situations during the tourney.
