Eric Chenowith days of summer

I've been wanting to write a post all week but just haven't had anything to discuss. The day the first football practice report comes out can't get here soon enough because the last week has moved like former Jayhawk Eric Chenowith. I'm going to try to come up with some original stuff to post other than just links but in the meantime things are just going to be a little slow.

Fortunately, for you Big MO diehards I was able to scrounge up a couple of interesting links to pass along and give my always thoughtful analysis:

• Our old buddy Aqib Talib has already gotten off to a great start down in Tampa Bay. I wouldn't think anything of this if it happened on the football field but a personal finance training session? I'm just glad my Chiefs didn't draft this clown.

• Fox Sports college basketball writer Jeff Goodman gave his take on Keon's transfer in his blog. It's a little ways down the page so I'll just post what he wrote here: 
  "While Missouri guard Keon Lawrence is saying he is transferring to be closer to home, we’re hearing that he just wants more shots. No surprise. I saw Lawrence score 50 points in an AAU game and walked away in complete disgust. It was one of the most selfish performances I’ve seen in a long, long time."

I'm personally not taking a lot of stock in that. "We're hearing that he just wants more shots." Who are you hearing that from? Keon? Mike Anderson? Other coaches? And his description of that AAU game is painfully vague. This is a pretty good example of what blogs written by "credible journalists" should not be. In the games I personally saw Keon play in I did not notice any selfish behavior to speak of. I did however, see him with tears in his eyes after several tough losses over the past two years. But maybe he was crying about his low shot total. 

• Speaking of Keon, Steve Walentik has a list of schools that he could possibly end up at. I'm just glad that it at least appears that Lawrence will be going back to school because initially he expressed some doubt. I also think it's a good thing that he doesn't have interest in Rutgers, the school closest to the neighborhood he grew up in. 

• Be sure to scroll a little further down on that page and also check out this article on the chemistry that Mike Anderson's incoming freshman class are already forming. Am I the only one that breaks into a huge smile when I read that Kim English, Marcus Denmon and Miguel Paul are literally having sleepovers at Mizzou Arena? As encouraging as I find this stuff, lets not get carried away with it. These guys can be as close-knit as the Brady Bunch, if they don't have talent, toughness and good coaching it's not going to mean a whole lot. But I will say I don't recall reading anything like this about the last several incoming freshman classes. Just pointing that out. 

Farewell, Keon

I was extremely disappointed to hear that Keon Lawrence will be leaving the University of Missouri.

All season we heard that Keon had been considering moving closer to his home in New Jersey but at the end of the year it appeared that he had fully committed to MU and Mike Anderson. In fact, on Wednesday he sounded very upbeat when talking about this year's group with the Kansas City Star, "This squad, everybody’s about the team,” Lawrence said. “They’re going to give what it takes to win. Whether somebody doesn’t like it or not. They’re here to please the coach."

Keon told the Star that the reason he is transferring is to be closer to home but that was after he had taken a subtle shot at the MU coaching staff earlier in the day when talking to the Columbia Tribune, "It's not my teammates, and it's not the fans. That should tell you something."

He told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch over the phone that he's not even sure he'll return to school.

Keon's past has been well documented. Gangs were prevalent in his life throughout his childhood and adolescent years. Earlier this year his brother was murdered and his sister is also reportedly deep into the gang life. According to the P-D, Lawrence will move back to Newark with his mother, who abandoned him as a child, to the streets that nearly swallowed him before escaping to Mizzou. 

"The people I used to run with know I'm coming back home and I don't know what's going to happen," Lawrence said. "But this might be best for me right now."

I'm not going to pretend to understand Keon's situation or try to say that I know what's best for him. But I can't imagine this being a good decision. Keon appeared to have overcome his past and survived, but his battle could be long from over.

I'm not going to bash him for leaving MU even though it's extremely disappointing. I do think his jab at the coaching staff was a little below the belt. And I'm not taking Anderson's side in this. Anderson could be driving the program deeper into the ground than it already is, we don't know and only time will tell. But if you're going to say something like that about your coach after you leave decide to leave the program you better be prepared to explain exactly what the problem is that you have with him. Don't hint that there was something there the public didn't know about and then refuse to answer any followup questions, which is exactly what Keon did. Either tell-all or don't tell a thing.

But that's really the secondary issue here. Keon's obviously a very troubled young man who's going through a lot of serious problems that most have us couldn't possibly comprehend. I hope he has the wisdom to stay as far away as he possibly can from the people that got him into so much trouble in his high school years. 

If you've ever seen Keon in a public setting he always seems to be having a great time. He's a guy who's always the life of the party. It's hard to believe he's been as unhappy as he says he's been. 

I've gushed about Keon as a player before and I sincerely believed he was going to be the catalyst that turned the program back around. But it wasn't meant to be. This is a significant blow to the team's Tournament chances next season but that's also besides the point. 

Right now this looks like a heartbreaking story. My prayers are with Keon and I hope he's able to find his place, wherever that may be.

Belated links

We've got a lot to get to today so lets get right to it:

• Not only did Ben Askren qualify for the Olympics, but he was so confident he would do it that he reserved a 40-person suite in Las Vegas to celebrate his qualifying...a week before trials even started. He's also made t-shirts with his silhouette against China's flag that says "putting the 'chin' in China." I'd love to get ahold of one of those. Askren's going to make olympic wrestling a lot more interesting for me this year.

• A great column by Joe Walljasper, listing the 25 biggest wins in Mizzou football history. You gotta love that two of the top 10 are from last season but am I the only one that thinks Nebraska '97 belongs on the list? I know we didn't technically win but maybe we could include an asterisk with it? Just a thought.

• Our friends at Mizzou Rah wrote a hilarious post comparing each Big 12 team to a brand of potato chips. If you liked his comparison of Big 12 teams to Mike Tyson's Punch-Out characters then you'll love this one too. 

• If the college basketball season ended today, Joe Lunardi thinks we'd be dancin' as an 11 seed! Bring on Bob Thuggins!

• Don Faurot is the face of our program.

• Chase Coffman was embarrassed by his performance over the last eight games of the season. Yeah, now that I think about it I guess those plays he made against Colorado weren't that amazing.

• I actually found a fantastic post concerning Keon Lawrence on Tigerboard about how despite his sophomore slump, he's still played above the ranking he had in the class of '06. I've said all along that Keon has to be the leader of the team next year. When putting his sophomore season into perspective you have to consider all the things Keon had going against him, all of which were really outside his control. The issues with his family (including his brother being murdered), the chemistry issues with Stef (not Keon's fault), etc. I think the team's going to be in much better shape now that Keon feels he's in a position to take on a leadership role.

• Steve Walentik broke down each freshman's performance in a recent pickup game. 

• Not everyone in Champaign was happy with Ron Zook last season.

• So there is actually a reason why Armageddon Part II won't be Prime Time. I'll let Dave Matter explain:

"Here's what I've been told as to why this game will be on FSN, not ABC/ESPN: The networks essentially have four “draft picks” for the Thanksgiving weekend. This year, the draft falls in this order: No. 1 ABC/ESPN, No. 2 ABC/SPN, No. 3 FSN, No. 4 ABC/ESPN. The Big 12 needed the networks to make their selections by June to allow for any games to be moved to different days for TV purposes. ABC took the Texas A&M/Texas game on Thursday with the No. 1 pick. ABC took Oklahoma/Oklahoma State for Saturday with the No. 2 pick. MU officials assume ABC would have liked to take Missouri-Kansas at No. 4, but FSN slipped in and took the Border War with the No. 3 pick. That left ABC with Colorado/Nebraska in at No. 4."

So ABC would rather have A&M/Texas and OU/OSU over the Border War. I guess I can understand the first one because of the enormous fanbases of both teams, but do you really expect OU/OSU to get higher ratings than the Border War? Maybe it will but I would find that surprising.

• I also found T-Ruck's mini-camp diary, via Matter's blog.

• The Jacksonville Jaguars decided to cut ties with Brian Smith. You have to feel so bad for Mizzou's other B. Smith who never recovered from that fluky hip injury he suffered during his senior season. I'll never understand why Smith was even on the field at that point in the game (late in the fourth quarter, up by at least three scores). Doesn't that have to rank right up there with Pinkel electing to play Tony Temple during his freshman season as one of the biggest blunders of his career? I find it odd that he basically got a free pass for this during a time when many Mizzou fans were still looking for reasons to bash him.

• And last but not least, a couple of Mizzou football promos from the makers of Rock M Nation. These are Zou Dave-esque so if you don't click on any other links in this post, be sure to click on these. I love the first one because it uses the music from "The Contender" and I'm a huge Rocky fan (little known fact, MU has never lost a home football game when I've listened to that song on gameday) but the second one has all of Mike Kelly's calls of the biggest plays from last season and includes a cameo by my boy Greg Bracey, so bonus points for that.