SLU beats MSU, but not the good one

Saint Louis University has been making significant strides in the past few seasons to advance the national (and local) image of the men's basketball team. For the first time in a while, the team is off to a hot start and has put together a promising season. With what is anticipated to be a below average conference schedule, the importance of the early season non-conference games cannot be overlooked if SLU has any ambitions to return to the NCAA tournament in March. Some quality wins over good opponents would certainly help, and the Billikens were poised to take on MSU at ScottTrade Center yesterday. Much to their surprise, a team other than Michigan State showed up to the arena, and SLU reluctantly beat them instead.

Just recently South West Missouri State University decided that directionally-names schools are not cool. North East Missouri State University, striving to get potential students to not realize that the school is located in NE MO (God-forsaken Kirksville, to be exact) changed its name to Truman State in the late 1990s. SWMSU thought that it would be a good idea to keep directions out of its name as well and, after years' of battling in the state legislature, the name was only recently changed to Missouri State University, or MSU for short. Too bad for MSU, but several other NCAA Division I schools are already initialed MSU, and this can lead to confusion, as it did the other day.

Said Billikens head coach Brad Soderberg, "I heard we had MSU coming up and I watched a ton of tape. I was pretty amped up to play Michigan State, such a presigious basketball program, but when I heard it wasn't going to be them, I assumed it would be Mississippi State, and no it wasn't them either. Montana State seemed like it might be too small to play us but I was willing to deal with it, but it was not them either. Someone then mentioned that SWMSU changed its name and I remembered seeing something about that in the paper a while back. Oh well the bottom line is we had to beat them instead of some other MSU team. All the same I guess. I still would have liked to get a crack at the real MSU, you know, the one in Michigan."

The game was exciting for all, except local Michigan State alums who showed up to cheer on their team. Several thousand were in attendance. Noted one alumnus, "To say the least, I was pissed off. Who falsely advertised this as a MSU game? This is not MSU! There is only one real MSU! So I booed those Missouri State kids up and down the court, with the rest of us true MSU fans. We show up in force. I think the booing and heckling from the MSU fans won the game for the Billikens, I really do. Serves them right for stealing our name!"

[This story is a satire of public figures.]