The Cold War ends Saturday.
Border War, welcome back.
You were oh so missed. Yes, even by the Missouri and Kansas fans who fibbed about it being time to turn the page. Those ones missed you most of all.
Kansas might win Saturday’s basketball game by 50, folks. Cuonzo Martin’s Tigers have not looked very good very often so far this season. But no matter what Saturday’s box score shows, common sense will be the real winner in Lawrence.
“I know the people around here,” Jayhawks coach Bill Self said Thursday from the Kansas campus, where students have been camping out for days to secure the best seats. “Throw out records and all of that stuff. Kansas is playing Missouri. That in and of itself brings excitement and energy to whatever situation there is. It will be good for everybody.”
College sports world, are you paying attention? This is what happens when fans get what they want. I know this sounds crazy to some coaches obsessed with scheduling wins instead of interesting games, and to some athletics department leaders who worry about what the damage losses to certain teams might do, but fans like watching and attending games that offer both substance and sizzle. So, schedule those kinds of games! Specifically looking at you, college hoops. Don’t complain people don’t care before March if you don’t give them reasons to care. If someone affiliated with Mizzou or Kansas says they don't care about what happens this weekend at Allen Fieldhouse, look to see if their nose grows.
Saturday's game marks the first of six in this resumed basketball series. A four-game football series begins anew in 2025. Keep it rolling. Every year. Forever. As it should be. Amen. New chapters are ready to be written. The history is a little dusty, but it’s far from dead.
Long before the bad blood between Missouri and Kansas was defined by clashing college programs, real blood was spilled when pro-slavery Bushwhackers from Missouri clashed with anti-slavery Jayhawkers from Kansas. It's not something to glamorize. But it is the truth, even if you change Border War to Border Showdown.
As for a college sports rivalry that lasted longer than a century before Mizzou’s departure to the SEC and the hurt feelings it caused put things on ice, glamorize away. Because it is one of the best college sports grudge matches ever, period. Mizzou and Kansas first played football against one another in 1891. The basketball teams tipped off for the first time in 1907. That Mizzou invented homecoming can be debated, but there is no debate about the game Mizzou believes made it so; it was a home game against Kansas in 1911, KU’s first football trip to CoMo.
Kansas holds the advantage in hoops. Both sides debate the all-time football record, but it’s been mostly black and gold in modern times. Some of the best moments came near an end that thankfully became just a pause. The 2007 football game was an epic clash between No. 4 Mizzou and No. 2 KU; the Tigers won the game, but the Jayhawks won the Orange Bowl. The last basketball series in 2012 as Big 12 foes was an all-timer, with both teams winning their home games.
What those who insisted that Mizzou’s move to the SEC should stop the rivalry for good always ignored was that MU-KU was bigger than the Big 12. To borrow a phrase from the SEC, it just means more. Self was as standoffish as anyone. He came around.
“There’s still beef,” Jayhawks senior guard Ochai Agbaji said.
Enough to fill both states’ sale barns.
Mizzou gets to get back to boasting about its upper hand in football when the basketball losses are lopsided, back to reminding Jayhawks that they should have found a way out of the Big 12, back to not capitalizing the K in Kansas, back to pointing to the NCAA black cloud still hanging over Self’s head, back to pretending picking Quin Snyder over Bill Self wasn’t a big mistake, back to swearing to not spend a dime in Kansas, like Norm Stewart taught.
Kansas gets to get back to throwing alley oops over the heads of Tigers, back to going bonkers about its rich basketball history while mostly ignoring the existence of its football team, back to insisting it doesn’t get home cooking from the officials thanks to one of the best home-court atmospheres in the sport, back to hollering that a team with national championship aspirations doesn't really care much about this non-conference game.
Bring it on, all of it.
I’m glad former Mizzou and Kansas athletics directors Jim Sterk and Jeff Long planted the seeds for this before both lost their jobs. I’m thankful Martin and Self get along; without the two coaches coming together for that 2017 basketball exhibition for charity, the standoff might have continued. I'm hopeful the college sports world will learn from this story.
Forget the fear of losing. Step outside conference groupthink. Play games fans want to see — even the ones who are too stubborn to admit it.
