Sports

Luke Cassis is not shy about criticizing his former teammates. In fact, he gets paid to do it.

Cassis, a former Missouri baseball player and student assistant coach, moved into the broadcasting booth this year, providing the color commentary for Tiger baseball radio broadcasts on KTGR 1580/AM in Columbia.

Columbia College forward Charliss Ridley was named to the NAIA All-American second team, and guards Lisa Kowalewski and Tiffany Foote were honorable mentions.

All three players are juniors and received All-American Scholar-Athlete honors.

Ryan Rallo had a chance to be a hero Friday night for the Missouri baseball team. The Tigers trailed by two runs and Rallo faced a full count, with two outs and runners on first and third.

Bill Clark made the Mid-Missouri Mavericks an offer they couldn’t pass up.

After all, it’s not every day the last-place team in the Western Division of the Frontier League gets a call inquiring about a job from the major league scout who discovered Andruw Jones and Rafael Furcal and almost put Albert Pujols in an Atlanta Braves uniform.

With all the hoopla surrounding the NCAA men’s basketball tournament each March, it’s easy to forget about the sport’s original extravaganza.

The NAIA Tournament began in 1937 with an eight-team field. The next season, the tournament adopted its 32-team format. The tournament’s five rounds are played during a seven-day span, compared to the NCAA’s six rounds in 19 days.

It isn’t the weights that are odd at Clark’s Championship Gym. It’s the lifts. Common sense might also argue that any weightlifter who engages in an exercise named the crucifix would have to be an oddity, if not downright crazy.

“A man is essentially nuts that does this,” owner Bill Clark said with a smile on his face after pounding out 20 repetitions of 1,005 pounds in the Harness lift.

At the end of the 2003-04 season, the Missouri women’s basketball team finds itself at a crossroads.

Inconsistency plagued the Tigers’ 17-13 season, but the Tigers achieved measured success.

Basketball fans crave marquee individual matchups.

Thursday’s first-round NAIA Championship Tournament game between Columbia College and Oklahoma City was supposed to feature two of the nation’s premier scorers.

Outdoor athletes of all kinds share a common opponent: inclement weather.

Stepping on the field can be a challenge in mid-Missouri’s often unpredictable climate. The opportunity to play without braving cold or rain is growing for some athletes.

All season Big 12 Conference coaches praised the talent and competition their teams faced in the league.

When choosing the best players Missouri faced this year, it would be easy to pick Kansas State’s front four of Kendra Wecker, Laurie Koehn, Nicole Ohlde and Megan Mahoney. To do so, though, would overlook many other great players.

No one is saying how soon the National Collegiate Athletic Association will reveal details of its nearly 6-month-old investigation into MU’s troubled men’s basketball program.

The NCAA won’t discuss its investigation, and it also bars MU officials from discussing it. And even if investigators do discover the team violated NCAA rules, depending on how serious the infractions are, details might never be revealed.

No one could have predicted this.

A 16-14 record? A trip to the National Invitation Tournament, the lesser of the two postseason tournaments? A quick, disappointing exit from that?

Rickey Paulding learned a few things about certainty this season.

When Missouri finished its most up-and-down season 16-14, he found out that, in college basketball, it doesn’t exist.

Chad Moller, Missouri’s sports information director, confirmed Monday that MU suspended Alex Woodley, a redshirt freshman defensive back, from the football team.

MU police arrested Woodley on Thursday for theft of more than $750 and fraudulent use of a credit card.

For spring break, Megan Kuntze wants to go snorkeling.

Krista Viefhaus wants to escape the drizzle and work on her tan.

A quest for tougher competition found the Jefferson City Capitals in Chicago.

A league championship wasn’t enough for them; coach Matt Hart and his players wanted to test their skills against teams from the northern part of the country, where winter weather is synonymous with youth hockey.

TEMPE, Ariz. – Although perseverance and overcoming the odds defined Missouri this season, both were absent in the Tigers’ past two games.

Neither Saturday’s 68-44 loss to No. 6 seed Stanford in the first round of the NCAA Tournament, nor the 79-58 loss to Kansas State on March 10 in the second round of the Big 12 Conference Tournament were how Missouri wanted to end its season, but it happened just the same.

In less than one year, Jim Trainer overcame one obstacle after another to create the Hickman bowling teams and bring them to the district finals.

Trainer, with the help of an eager group of young bowlers, organized two Kewpies teams, which competed March 7 at the district finals in St. Louis.

As much as some would like, not all of the blame for Missouri’s disappointing season can be placed on the shoulders of the Tigers.

From bruising interior play to clutch, late-game heroics, several Missouri opponents deserve recognition for their memorable performances.

There was one zero on the scoreboard for the Missouri baseball team after its game against Chicago State on Sunday.

The Tigers won 21-1 and scored in every inning, except the fourth, to complete their first three-game series sweep this season.