KC’s Next Play: A holiday-week compilation of some can’t miss sports in Kansas City
Games of interest to sports fans in and around Kansas City have been rescheduled or canceled outright with increasing frequency of late. It’s a fact of life as 2022 nears that teams will contend with an ongoing threat of postponement during these COVID winters.
In today’s installment of The Star’s recurring “Next Play” feature, in which we aim to highlight some interesting events slated for the week ahead, we’ll operate under the assumption that the games will go on as scheduled.
Risky business, but that’s life in the big city, eh?
Chiefs vs. Steelers
This is a matchup that always perks interest among the Chiefs’ fanbase. And hey, Pittsburgh did KC a favor last weekend in rallying to beat the Titans. That outcome knocked Tennessee down a rung and elevated the Chiefs in the race for the No. 1 seed in the AFC.
Any goodwill that existed eastward toward the Steel City melts on Sunday, when Ben Roethlisberger and Mike Tomlin lead the black and yellow into a 3:25 p.m. showdown against the Chiefs at Arrowhead.
A win Sunday, with whatever portion of their roster that’s not still mired on the NFL’s reserve/COVID-19 list, would accomplish two critical things in the Chiefs’ quest for a third straight Super Bowl berth: one, it would lock up a playoff spot regardless of how the rest of the regular season plays out, and two, it would secure yet another AFC West title for Kansas City.
League play (and final tuneups)
For Kansas, K-State and Mizzou, the league portion of their respective 2021-22 men’s basketball seasons begins soon. In fact, for the Tigers, really soon.
Missouri opens SEC play at 6 p.m. Wednesday against Kentucky. Tipoff is 6 p.m. UK was ranked 20th in the nation entering this weekend, so this will be yet another tough task for the Tigers. But it’s time to move past recent and disappointing losses to KU and Illinois and see what they can do against their in-conference opponents.
KU, meanwhile, has one more nonconference tuneup left, and it, too, arrives Wednesday night. The Jayhawks play host to Harvard at 7 p.m. Then it’s on to Big 12 competition Saturday (also at home, at 4 p.m.) against the Horned Frogs of TCU.
Kansas State was to play Morgan State in a noncon contest Wednesday, but that was scrubbed because of COVID concerns within the Morgan state program. KSU will instead play host to North Florida at 7 p.m. that day. The Wildcats’ next game after that is Saturday at Oklahoma at 7 p.m. — the first game of the Big 12 season for both schools.
Holiday Classic at Jewell
Big high school hoops tournaments abound in the KC area. A new one, the “Twelve Courts of Christmas,” was added this year and played out last week at HyVee Arena.
The grand-daddy of them all is the Holiday Classic at William Jewell in Liberty. This year’s edition is set for Monday-Thursday, featuring another stout array of local hardwood heavyweights broken down into three divisions: the Nelson, the Patterson and the Holley, named for the longtime Jewell coach and tourney founder, Larry Holley.
The hoops will start early and continue late all four days, so if you’re looking for a holiday-week roundball fix, Jewell is the place to be.
Catch the Comets
The Kansas City Comets indoor-soccer team, coming off a 12-1 rout of the Wichita Wings on Dec. 18, plays a home game Wednesday night at Cable Dahmer Arena in Independence. The opponent is a familiar one to Comets fans: the longtime rival Milwaukee Wave.
That game kicks off at 7 p.m. And then it’s road-trip time for the Comets, who play a return-favor game against the Wave in Milwaukee on New Year’s Eve (3 p.m.).
Also upcoming, next month, is a Comets game at T-Mobile Center in downtown KC. For tickets to the game at T-Mobile Center, visit axs.com.