BCS bandits rob 2-loss Mizzou

COLUMBIA, Mo. — Of course it doesn't make sense. You know it, I know it, even the doofuses who continue to perpetrate this idiotic Bowl Championship Series system have to know just how fatally flawed and hopelessly messed up their multimillion- dollar scam is.

So Sunday night was just one more bit of annoying confirmation of how defective the BCS is. From the broad national perspective to the narrower parochial one, I truly hate it with all my heart. But since sports is very much like politics — everything is local — let's deal with how Mizzou got robbed Sunday night by the BCS and its convoluted computers.

Missouri finished its finest season in the history of the program with an 11-2 record, won the Big 12 North, knocked off both archrivals in Kansas and Illinois, and the Tigers finished sixth in the final regular-season BCS standings.

So logic says the Tigers had to get a BCS bowl bid, right?

So why are they sitting on the outside of the BCS with an invitation to the still-prestigious (but non-BCS) Cotton Bowl, while five other schools that ranked lower in the BCS standings — including the eighth-ranked Jayhawks and 13th-ranked Illini — received bids to the more preferred BCS bowls?

Seventh-ranked Southern California and Illinois are in the Rose Bowl. No. 3 Virginia Tech and Kansas are in the Orange Bowl, and 10th-ranked Hawaii is in the Sugar Bowl.

So how does any of this make sense? As the news began to filter through the second floor hallways at the Reynolds Alumni Center Sunday night, the grim faces of many Mizzou athletes told the story of the night.

"It's just a shame we got locked out," All-America tight end Martin Rucker said. "How does that happen? Mathematically, logically, it just doesn't make sense."

By the time the Fox network BCS bowl-selection show began at 7 p.m., Rucker and his teammates had already left the building. They couldn't bear to watch it. They had been instructed to take the high road and go with company line that they're "excited" to be Cotton Bowl-bound.