Monday Night Pizza: Nearing the Stretch Run

I'm pretty awful at coming up with catchy titles for posts, and such recurring titles as "Morning Coffee" (Burnt Orange Nation) and "Morning Notes" (Double T Nation) are taken, I have to look elsewhere.  So, considering I almost always have pizza on Monday nights--because I'm such a good cook, you get the title you see.

The run continues.  K-State's women's basketball team downed Missouri, 56-40, on Sunday afternoon to improve its league record to 10-1.  Baylor now stands 10-2, a half game behind, but the Bears own the tiebreaker.  It's a big week for the women, as fourth-place Oklahoma comes to town Wednesday with an 8-3 league record and dominating center Courtney Paris.

The men play Wednesday in Lincoln, a 120 mile drive from Manhattan, at 7 p.m.  The women play in Manhattan at the same time.  If you can't make one, be sure to make the other.

Joe Posnanski has an outstanding article about Clent Stewart and what his late mother, Vanessa, continues to mean to him.  The entire column centers around the following quote, which Vanessa burned into Clent's memory.

Excuses are monuments to nothing.

They build bridges to nowhere.

Those who use these tools of incompetence

Are fools and masters of nothing.

Words we could all learn from.  From the athletic department Web site, we also have this Open Letter from the Stewart Family.  We could not have recruited a classier young man and family.

Let me also say that Clent Stewart is the epitome of what college athletics should be all about.  He came to school and used his scholarship to get an education that will be useful to him.  He is a good player and, while he won't play at the next level, he used the opportunity to get an education and get a good job (GoPowercat has the specifics on what that job is, but you'll have to pay to read it).

So for probably the millionth time, my hat is off to Vanessa, Clent Sr. and Clent Jr.  We're proud to have you at K-State.

There are plenty of tickets still available for the men's game against Nebraska in Lincoln.  Also, beware if you head to Lincoln, as the Nebraska athletic department has declared a "Red Out" for this game.  I guess I didn't realize Husker fans owned anything that wasn't red.

Let's hope after the first game of the year some of the Husker players got under Michael Beasley's or Bill Walker's skin and got them really focused for this next one.

Big news from the KC Star: Michael Beasley is kind of hard to stop.

Apparently I'm a little late to the party, but these videos are hilarious.  Beasley seems to be continually thrilled by one reporter's iPod.