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When Missouri set up for Saturday’s tip-off against Iowa, 13,611 fans did a doubletake.

Rickey Paulding, Travon Bryant and Jimmy McKinney started for the ninth straight game. Sophomore Kevin Young and freshman Thomas Gardner were the Tigers drawing befuddled stares.

Finding a consistent point guard has been a focus of the Missouri coaching staff early this season. Lacking a steady performer there, the offense had been inconsistent and often relied on one player to take control of the game.

The Tigers are beginning to find what they had been missing: Jimmy McKinney and Randy Pulley combined for six assists and no turnovers in Missouri’s 76-56 win against Iowa on Saturday.

In a game with few fouls, it’s hard to imagine someone nicknamed “Slinky” dominating, but that’s exactly what Nahowan Saxon did on Saturday night.

Saxon was named the Coaches vs. Cancer Holiday Classic men’s Most Valuable Player after Columbia College’s 61-50 win against Brescia (Ky.) at the Arena of Southwell Complex. Saxon scored a career-high 27 points on 11-of-14 shooting. He also made all five of his field goals in Friday’s 75-47 victory against St. Mary (Kan.).

Rock Bridge’s used accurate 3-point shooting to overcome a larger Oakville team Saturday in the first game of the 2004 MFA Oil Break Time Shootout.

The Bruins gained the early lead on a Demond Thorpe 3-pointer about a minute in and held onto it for another 31 minutes to defeat the Tigers 57-53 at Hearnes Center.

KANSAS CITY— Mary James secured her seat on the University of Missouri’s Board of Curators in the simplest way possible: She asked to serve, and her wish was granted.

“I had always done public service work in my community — park board and athletic booster club. I’d always raised money here in town,” James said. “This is sort of an extension of all of that,” but it’s “the big time.”

Columbia’s Activity & Recreation Center has been open for a year now, and those running it couldn’t be happier.

“I think the ARC has lived up to — if not exceeded — most of the expectations the community had for it,” said Gary Ristow, recreation services manager for Columbia Parks and Recreation.

Wanda Avery turns over her hand — a hand with long, graceful fingers and trim, rounded nails — to show the tight puckered skin of her palm.

Rheumatoid arthritis forces her fingertips toward her wrists. She can hardly use her hands, even to hold a cup of coffee.

Gary Hudson has raised cattle in Columbia for about 40 years. Even in retirement, Hudson keeps about 35 cows and also raises heifers to sell every year.

Hudson believes consumers still have a hunger for beef, despite concerns raised by the recent case of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy — also known as mad cow disease — reported in Washington. Hudson was among a standing-room only crowd of local farmers and cattle producers at Thursday’s auction at Callaway Livestock Center, east of Kingdom City.

No one disputes that Texas raises more cattle and produces more beef than any other state.

But who is No. 2?

A single case of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy — or mad cow disease — has raised concerns about the safety of the country’s beef supply here and abroad.

In the wake of the BSE report, involving a dairy cow in Washington, the largest foreign buyers of American beef — Mexico, Japan and South Korea — have banned imports.

COLUMBIA— Two rawboned 10-year-olds from outside Springfield have been chosen to represent the University of Missouri-Columbia at events ranging from the governor’s inauguration to the State Fair.

Tim and Terry are replacing Jill and Shirley as the university’s mule team.

I haven’t written about any of our RV excursions lately because the last few trips while fun were uneventful. Translation: too boring to talk about. However, as I write this column I am on the trip from hell.

My husband and I decided that we would go to MU’s Independence Bowl game. (Because we haven’t had a bowl game in years and we are getting older, we seized the opportunity, not knowing when the next post-season foray would occur.)

Exhaust hangs thick below the lights in the arena at the Boone County Fairgrounds as two John Deere tractors groom the arena’s dirt track.

Roger McKinney, Jr., 33, paces the sidelines of the 200-foot track, weaving between the hundreds of people that are waiting for the next competitor. Some wear earplugs, but most don’t.

The Columbia College men’s and women’s basketball teams hadn’t played since a few days before Christmas, but their time off was clearly well spent.

It probably didn’t bother the Missouri men’s basketball team when 2003 ended and 2004 began.

Recent on-court struggles as well as an NCAA investigation of the program have made it a forgettable year for the No. 23 Tigers (4-4). The Tigers get a chance to begin anew, to some degree, when they host Iowa at 2 p.m. Saturday at Hearnes Center.

SHREVEPORT, La. – Before the Independence Bowl had ended, even before it had started, the Missouri football team found it hard not to think about the future.

Everyone makes resolutions for the new year, even the Missouri women’s basketball team.

The Tigers play Miami (Ohio) at 7 tonight at Hearnes Center. It will be the first meeting between the Tigers (7-2) and the RedHawks (6-4).

Bob Burchard, the Columbia College men’s basketball coach, and Mike Davis, the Cougars’ women’s coach, love to win and hate to lose, but this weekend’s second annual Coaches vs. Cancer Holiday Classic is about more than wins and losses.

Burchard and Davis started the Classic last season because of a common concern. They both knew friends, family members and Columbia College faculty members who with cancer.

Though often at odds, Gov. Bob Holden, a Democrat, and Republican legislative leaders agree on the need to boost the University of Missouri system’s life sciences. But the governor and the lawmakers have offered up two different plans for spending millions of dollars to meet the goal and have yet to coordinate their efforts.

Holden’s Jobs Now program and a bond proposal promoted by Missouri Senate President Pro Tem Peter Kinder and House Speaker Catherine Hanaway both target expansion of life sciences to create new jobs in the state. Kinder and Hanaway back a UM proposal to issue $190.4 million in bonds to build and renovate life sciences facilities. The plan would cost the state’s revenue fund $11.6 million a year for debt service beginning in 2008.

JEFFERSON CITY — Dotting the Missouri landscape are the ingredients for human suffering: lead, arsenic and dioxin.

Just ask the residents of North Kansas City.