Chat Mizzou sports with Dave Matter at 11 a.m. Thursday
Bring your Tigers football, basketball and recruiting questions, and talk to Mizzou beat writer Dave Matter in a live chat at 11 a.m. Thursday.
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Porter's son committed to play for Pepperdine. I haven't actually heard if Senior will go there, too. Usually Senior takes the job, then the son commits, not the other way around.As for Dark Matter, all I can say is ... believe that if you'd like to believe that. I won't question you. -
You voted Mizzou #22 in the latest AP poll. Did you vote for SLU in the top 25. If you vote for the top 25 teams, surely you have not watched all 25 teams you vote for, so how do you sort out the ones you don’t see? Teams that are ranked every year like Kentucky get the benefit of the doubt all other things being equal and it takes 3 losses to get them out of the top 25 which is what happened. -
Yes, I voted SLU No. 18, same place I had the Billikens the week before.I don't get to watch every team, obviously, but I try to read as much as I can about the worthy teams, examine some of the advanced metrics sites and make sound decisions based on strength of schedule. Ballots this time of year have to be a mix of on-court credentials and your preseason expectations. Tennessee played its first game last night - but I came into the year expecting the Vols to win the SEC, so I kept them high on my ballot based on those expectations even though there wasn't a body of work to study yet. It's hardly a science.You can view my ballot here:
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I'm surprised that the board of curators has approved the planning of a potential new indoor football training facility when a new state of the art locker/weight/recovery room was just finished and with the loss of revenue this season. I know that it is supposed to be privately funded so is that why it was approved? Also, what do you expect to go into this facility besides a full sized football field? It is exciting to see how committed the university is to creating a competitive SEC football team.
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The board is confident that it has the money to pay for this project. Drinkwitz wants the project. The board wants to be proactive in giving the head coach what he wants - and he's proven to them that he's the right man for the job.Gary Pinkel wanted an indoor facility, but by the time the ball got rolling, Mike Alden retired and then Pinkel retired. Odom wanted a new indoor facility but didn't have enough momentum behind him to garner the internal support to raise money for such a project. Things have changed in the last few months. The board backs the new coach. As I wrote the other day, the board was won over by Drinkwitz last year in North Carolina and that confidence has only grown the last few months.Here's what I've gathered: There's more space for this project behind the MATC and behind Taylor Stadium near the current outdoor practice fields. But it would be far more convenient for the players and coaches to build the indoor facility behind the south end zone team complex, on that parking lot that the SEZ shares with the gymnastics facility. There will be a push at the highest level to have that be the location for this project, even if it costs more.
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Dave: seems like there’s always a lot of trash talk on the Mizzou sidelines whenever an opposing team member end up there. Has Drink ever addressed his opinion on the matter? Seems like we should strive to be above such behavior. You sure don’t see it on the Alabama sideline.
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What do think of Mizzou trying to build a new practice facility amid the pandemic financial hardships athletic departments are having? And how bad does the pandemic impact Missouri's road back into the green. Believe they were trending toward that before this all started.
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Mizzou wants the facility and has boosters willing to pay for it. Would it be nice for the same boosters to pay for salaries for the folks in athletics who had to take paycuts and furloughs or save the jobs of those who were laid off? Of course. But that's not the world we live in when it comes to college sports. Mizzou athletics is facing a major revenue shortage for this year. It's why the department has cut costs. But a project like this isn't necessarily impacted by those decisions because there's outside money coming in to make it possible.
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What was your take on the defensive effort against ARK last week? I think most of us were expecting more a defensive struggle than it turned out to be. Your post-game article quoted HC as saying they just weren't getting guys lined up right. Is that an omen for this weekend or just an anomoly?
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Arkansas' tempo was a problem. The line had trouble getting lined up on time. It sure looked like guys were out of gaps. Losing Bolton for the second half hurts because he's the QB on defense who helps everyone get lined up, but also he wasn't playing all that great in the first half.
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Dave, unfortunately time ran out last week before you could answer my question. Hopefully I’m here early enough now. My son wants to be a sports reporter/writer. He loves reading your articles and says he wants to do what you do for a career. What was your career path (schooling, internships, previous jobs) that lead you to where you are now?
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I was fortunate at Mizzou because while I took classes through the Journalism school I landed a part-time job covering sports at the Columbia Daily Tribune. I essentially worked full-time hours and got a ton of invaluable experience covering every team in Columbia. I was even luckier to get a full-time job there as Mizzou's football beat writer at the Tribune. I worked there until 2004, when I took a brief hiatus from journalism then returned less than a year later and worked there for another few years covering Mizzou football. The Post-Dispatch hired me in 2013 in my current role. I've been very fortunate to have steady work in a turbulent industry. My advice would be to read, read and read good sports journalism before you're willing to find someone to pay you to write it. That's how you learn what's good.
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Dave, I have an odd question. Do you genuinely root/cheer for Mizzou to win when at sporting events? I don’t ask this as an attack at you, but rather a lot of times reporters do not come from the university they are reporters for or have no previous connections. This, you could say, allows them to not have a biased take or thought on a game. To my knowledge, you don’t fit that mold and have been a Missouri guy for most of your life. Because of that, and due to the other side of it, are you allowed to actually be a fan of Mizzou?
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No. I respect the question and I get asked this a lot, but for me there's no emotional attachment to the final outcome of the game. I would do a disservice to the readers if I was getting paid to be a cheerleader. Is my job more enjoyable when Mizzou wins? Of course. People are in better moods. More people read our stories and you get to cover events that mean more to more people. But when the team is losing I'm there to ask the most important questions: Why is this happening? What's going to happen to fix it? It's much harder to answer those questions and objectively analyze the situations when you're a cheerleader. Don't get me wrong. Covering Mizzou for more than 20 years has been a positive experience for me. I've gotten three books out of the deal. I've formed a lot of great relationships with people. But in the end, I'm rooting for the best stories to unfold, less stress on deadline, more access to coaches and players and quality coffee in the press box.
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If I were a fan of both teams I'd go with football. It would be a bigger upset. It would have better tangible results. It would clearly help MU's bowl appeal. It would help MU get closer to clinching second place in the SEC East. (Still have to beat Mississippi State for that to happen.) And it would become a huge credential to have as part of Drinkwitz's sales pitch.Winning the Braggin' Rights Game doesn't lead to actual tangible results like that ... because Mizzou won the game the last two years and still had losing records.
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If you ask Cuonzo he's been incredibly valuable the last two games. He's just not a big stats guy. He's not being asked to fill up the box score. I don't think Missouri wins that game last night without Buggs because his presence afforded Martin to bench Pinson for long stretches when Pinson was throwing passes into the stands.
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