Counting down the 10 best games I covered in 2023 | Kwiecinski
Johnathan Larson once measured a year in 525,600 minutes, which is also translated to moments so dear.
Mid-Missouri saw plenty of those moments across the last 365 days.
I know I did.
There were plenty of moments where teams reveled in the joy of victory, the pain of loss and the thrill of redemption.
Here are 10 games that I covered this calendar year which remain on my mind as 2023 comes to a close:
10. Mizzou basketball falls to Princeton in NCAA Tournament
The thing about a good story is it has one unchangeable absolute: there will be an ending.
Sometimes, that ending isn't a good one. In fact, for all but four teams in college basketball, nearly every team's season ends with a loss. Missouri's season ended on March 18 in an upset loss to No. 15 Princeton.
For most of the season, Missouri's shortcomings were on display. The defense lacked a consistent rim protector, the offense struggled when 3-point shots weren't falling and the team hit a standstill when Kobe Brown wasn't having his usual day.
All of that happened against Princeton. It was a bitter pill to swallow on the doorstep of the NCAA Tournament's Sweet Sixteen, and that makes the silver lining easy to forget.
Missouri won a game in the NCAA Tournament in Dennis Gates' first year. Being a part of the narrative was something I'll never forget.
More: Kwiecinski: What happens when someone else's dream is bigger?
9. The MSHSAA state track championships in Jefferson City
Rock Bridge won its third state team title in a row. Southern Boone's Connor Burns showed why he was one of the best athletes in the nation. Centralia's Jozelynn Bostick ended her high school athletic career on her own terms, undefined by her diabetes diagnosis.
These are just three things that happened during the two-day MSHSAA track and field state championships at Jefferson City High School.
If you've never attended the state track meet, you should think about it at the very least. Each moment is tense, and it all leads to the team state winners doing the math near the final events to figure out what they need to win it all.
In Rock Bridge's case, that happened three years in a row.
More: Thrice as nice: Rock Bridge boys track three-peats as Class 5 champions
8. Mizzou blitzes Iowa State, polishing its NCAA Tournament resume
If there was a moment I knew Missouri was making the NCAA Tournament, it was when it blitzed a former Big 12 rival at Mizzou Arena.
There were bigger and better wins, to be sure. Wins over Tennessee come to mind, both times in fact. But, this was a win where it felt like MU could do no wrong.
Donning the Block M basketball jerseys, the Tigers won both halves.
Isiaih Mosley got the start and scored eight points while providing the lasting image of the game. Mosley hit a 3-pointer and walked back toward the MU student section waving his arms up to ask the crowd for more.
It was a lasting example of how fun Dennis Gates' first season at Missouri was.
More: What Mizzou's NCAA Tournament resume looks like after upsetting Iowa State
7. Jayda Porter lifts Rock Bridge over Hickman with a buzzer-beater
During the early stages of the Missouri girls basketball season, Jill Nagel told me her Bruins are a young squad. This was very true, as Rock Bridge started freshmen Jayda Porter, and sophomores Mari Miller and Malia Chevious.
The Bruins took their lumps, falling to Battle for the first time in program history. Against Hickman, Rock Bridge showed how talented they were even with an underclassmen lineup.
The Kewpies had played plenty of basketball together and were playing at home. It didn't matter. The Bruins rallied and stunned the home crowd in the final seconds on Porter's buzzer-beater.
It was a harbinger of what was to come for Rock Bridge, as the Bruins eventually finished second in the state.
More: How Jayda Porter's scoring mentality vs. Hickman has Rock Bridge growing from good to great
6. Mizzou goes into Lawrence, gives Kansas a fight
Selfishly, this was a fun game to witness because the Border War is incredible to witness as a basketball fan.
In the last two years, Missouri took on Kansas in the revival of the bitter Border War rivalry. In those two years, it wasn't pretty.
The Jayhawks outclassed Missouri. There was quite a noticeable difference between both programs as KU won by dozens of points both times.
This December, Missouri led Kansas for most of the first half.
Sure, the Tigers eventually fell to a top-10 team in America. But, it showed what Missouri's program is capable of with a top-tier game plan.
The Jayhawks were not a deep team, and MU forced Kansas to beat the Tigers with someone other than Hunter Dickinson. Kansas did, but it challenged KU in the first and second halves.
Once Dennis Gates develops the talent he had recruited into players that can impact the game in the ways he wants them to, this kind of game made you think that maybe Missouri could eventually beat Kansas.
More: How Missouri basketball grew out of its 'infant stage' in the Phog | Kwiecinski
5. Father Tolton stages comeback to stun Fatima, win districts
Tolton had nothing to brag about from the first half.
The Trailblazers trailed 31-22 in the third quarter, but found live from its reserve players. That led to a 15-3 lead capped off by Izaak Porter's 3-pointer that gave Tolton a lead it would never relinquish.
Even when Porter fouled out after getting a weak technical foul for slapping the floor following a big moment, the 'Blazers never yielded. Even when Fatima had two point-blank shot attempts that could have led to a comeback, Evens Appolon just rejected those attempts.
Exavier Wilson and James Lee put Tolton up 10 with free throws to ice the game.
It was proof that Tolton is an inevitable force in mid-Missouri. Jeremy Osborne lost two of the best players in America from the year before, and still reclaimed districts over a well-coached team that was primed to beat the Trailblazers.
More: 'This is it': How Tolton's Pingeton, Appolon and bench sparked a comeback to win districts
4. Battle outlasts Rock Bridge for district title at Hickman HS
Battle already made history, stifling Rock Bridge for the first time in program history on the Spartans' home court.
Ben Pallardy's group did it again, this time on a neutral court with the stakes as high as they could possibly be.
The Class 6 District 7 title game came down to Ethan Wiley winning a physical battle in the post against Kanyon Hummel and Vernell Holt playing some of the best basketball of the season, showing how far he grew from his just freshman year to his sophomore campaign.
The most impressive of all was watching two teams rely on their experience to play some of the best defense that Columbia saw on a basketball court that winter.
More: How a district title earned Battle ultimate bragging rights as a new standard of Columbia basketball
3. Mizzou walks off Kansas State, earning its revenge
There was little anyone needed to do to remind Missouri football what happened in Manhattan, Kansas, last year.
The Tigers remembered being washed away. I remember it being a hopeless matter where MU could do nothing right.
In 2023, at Faurot Field, the birth of an exhilarating and potentially monumental football season came against Kansas State. This time around, Missouri was up to the task. The Tigers went blow for blow against the No. 15 Wildcats.
It all ended with Harrison Mevis' unbelievable 61-yard, walk-off field goal. You could not write a better script if you had two years to write it, let alone one.
Whatever happens beyond the 2023 season for MU, the win over Kansas State will still go down as one of the most memorable in the last two decades.
More: Kwiecinski: How redemption and revenge was never served better than by Missouri football
2. Mizzou men's basketball downs Utah State in NCAA Tournament
In nearly 5,000 days, Missouri basketball had not won a NCAA Tournament game. That was until Dennis Gates got MU to the Big Dance.
Before I came to Columbia, I covered sports in Utah. I was no stranger to Utah State and its players, either. I also made it a goal to cover an NCAA Tournament in my career. This was a full-circle moment for me.
It was also a moment for Missouri basketball. Dennis Gates, after a season of upsets, a fourth-place finish in the SEC standings and 25 wins, won an NCAA Tournament game as a No. 7 seed.
Kobe Brown started it and D'Moi Hodge finished it. The Tigers' two eventual NBA players on an NBA court delivered a win that meant plenty to the Missouri fan base.
More: After sizzling in the NCAA Tournament, Mizzou's Kobe Brown proved he's one of the best in America
1. Mizzou stands on business, decimates Tennessee
Certainly, there are more impactful wins in Missouri sports history.
I can't imagine many felt this good.
Tennessee just blew away Missouri in the last two years and rubbed it in, too. That set up this year's top-20 match-up in Columbia.
Not only did Missouri return the favor, but the game played out in arguably the most perfect way for MU and Tiger fans.
Missouri's Cody Schrader put himself on the national map with a 300-yard all-purpose game. The defense held Tennessee in a 60-minute chokehold. The Tigers vaulted themselves back into the top 12.
Don't forget Eli Drinkwitz's timeout to ice Tennessee's kicker during a garbage time field goal.
I've never seen anything like that. That's the kind of stuff that makes college football great.
More: Missouri football mired Tennessee in hell. It was the best moment of the Drinkwitz era | Kwiecinski
This article originally appeared on Columbia Daily Tribune: The 10 best games I covered in 2023 | Kwiecinski
