SB Nation User Blog: TB

Curt Kitchen: Beasley no bienvenido Miami?

TB — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 22:59:38 -0000

Curt Kitchen: Beasley no bienvenido Miami?

Rumors have surfaced this offseason that Dwyane Wade isn't thrilled with Michael Beasley. Kitchen gets to the bottom of it.

Programming Note

TB — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 13:08:50 -0000

Fellow BOTCers --

This summer has been more eventful than we would like. While summers should be devoted to overanalyzing the upcoming football season and discussing topics that otherwise wouldn't get coverage during the busier times, this summer we have been forced to deal with the aftermath of numerous mistakes made by our outgoing administration and, of course, The Audit. That should change in the near term, as Panjandrum will begin position analysis later this summer and, by August, we will start previewing K-State's opponents for this fall.

However, come what may in the next month, I will not be around. Today marks exactly one month until what will be one of the greatest days of my life: the day the Missouri bar exam ends. To get to that great day successfully, I'm going to have to stop doing pretty much everything I enjoy -- blogging, playing golf, sleeping regularly -- and thus I leave you to Panjandrum, EMAW and BracketCat. Also, y'all have done a great job of posting news stories and other items of interest in the FanPosts and FanShots, so keep that up and we'll bump them to the front page as often as possible. I'll be around to comment occasionally, but you won't get any more commentary from me for a while, no matter how much I'd like to slam the Representatives from Texas for this.

Also, for the love of God, don't let 2007 KU win this poll. Any of those K-State teams listed would beat KU by 20.

See you in a month. Well, a month plus the hangover.

Vote for Kite's

TB — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 21:57:11 -0000

Vote for Kite's

Kite's is in the running for Best Bar at the linked Web site. The voting is on the right side of the screen.

Jason Whitlock Thinks You Are Really Stupid

TB — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 19:01:32 -0000

Attention, all readers of Bring On The Cats. It is now time for your quarterly reminder that Jason Whitlock is an intellectually dishonest columnist who should not be listened to, even though everyone with a brain should know that already.

In the latest edition of "why I write things no intelligent human being could believe just to get a reaction," Whitlock asserts that the "golden era" of K-State athletics is "tarnished" by the release of the Board of Regents Audit. He claims he read the entire audit. If he did, he didn't read it very carefully. Of course, he admits as much:

I’m still unclear of who did what, when and where.

That much is obvious, because for the next 20 paragraphs, Whitlock only articulated one thought that made any sense at all, which occurred when he wrote the following:

The $3 million secret buyout Krause agreed to give Ron Prince seems to be part of a pattern of financial mismanagement at K-State under Wefald’s presidency.

This is no different from the rest of his columns, mind you, but because the subject matter of this one pertains to K-State, I decided to address it.

The major thrust of Whitlock's column is that Bill Snyder was complicit in the wrongdoing at K-State and should retire or be fired soon. In support of his claim that the rise of K-State football under Snyder is now tarnished by the audit, Whitlock trots out the tired old adage that you can't rise from nothing to something without cutting a few corners and ignoring a few ethical mores.

Whether or not the deals orchestrated by Wefald and Krause were actually in violation of the Internal Revenue Code will have to be determined by the IRS. Tim Weiser said today that he believes the arrangements were proper. The audit itself notes that it is standard practice for coaches to set up personal LLCs to handle certain compensation. I don't know the specifics of the tax law in this area, but I don't think Whitlock does, either. A friend of mine who understands these things better than I do said it might be possible to classify a coach as an employee of the university, who would pay the base salary for services as a coach, but an independent contractor of the athletic department, which is a private and legally separate entity, through which compensation for endorsements and appearances would be paid to the coach's LLC.

When the big picture is considered, I don't know how what happened constitutes serious corner-cutting that gave K-State a distinct advantage over other schools, thus enabling our "golden era." If it's a violation of the IRC, then it shouldn't have happened, and we probably did save some money on taxes during that time. However, given how much smaller our entire athletic department budget is, any incremental tax savings on employee compensation would do little to close the $70 million revenue gap between us and Texas. I'm not saying it's OK to cheat the IRS because you have a smaller athletic department budget, I'm noting that if that was our cheating strategy, then we really should have taken some cues from that school down the river in how to adopt a more effective cheating strategy.

In short, Whitlock can blather on about how our "golden era" was caused by cutting corners and cheating on our taxes, and that will feed the moronic fans of rival programs who don't have any more support for their arguments than "Whitlock said it." Any rational, objective observer would agree that the "golden era" of K-State football was a product of a coach with a tireless work ethic, a brilliant offensive mind, and assistant coaches like Bob Stoops, Mike Stoops, Jim Leavitt, Bret Bielema, Brent Venables, Phil Bennett and Mark Mangino. It was a product of players like Michael Bishop, Jonathan Beasley, Ell Roberson, Darren Sproles, Darren Howard, Monty Beisel, Terence Newman, Chris Canty, Quincy Morgan, Mark Simoneau, Rock Cartwright, and many others.

You mean to tell me that saving a few hundred thousand dollars per year, when programs like Nebraska, Texas, Texas A&M and Oklahoma were making tens of millions more per year is the reason K-State was a powerhouse program?

Now I might argue that the comments Whitlock makes about Snyder could be considered libelous, considering that he recklessly accuses Snyder of wrongdoing when the audit produces zero evidence that Snyder did anything that should jeopardize his employment. I said that I would argue that these comments could constitute libel, but one of the elements of libel is damage to the reputation, and I doubt very seriously that anything Whitlock says could be taken seriously enough to damage anyone's reputation. The university is behind in paying him his salary, which I suppose could be a tax problem considering the income has already been earned and may not have been claimed for tax purposes if it hasn't been paid. However, as Blair Kerkhoff noted this morning, that's an IRS question, not an NCAA question, and in my mind has zero bearing on how Snyder performs his duties as head coach.

Toward the end of the story, Whitlock really lets the buckshot go and starts hitting anything and everything in sight. Somehow, men's basketball comes up, which was initially perplexing because the audit mentioned nothing about men's basketball. However, given Whitlock's willingness to fabricate anything that would smear Frank Martin's program, it's not particularly surprising to me that he would throw out unfounded accusations about men's basketball in this column.

Maybe we did get used by Bob Huggins, but I'll take getting used by Huggins over the way Iowa State is getting used by Greg McDermott. Whitlock undoubtedly still harbors the impression that we were a one-hit wonder with Michael Beasley and Bill Walker, but all available evidence indicates otherwise. I suppose we could have made the conventional hire in McDermott and wallowed under years of painful mediocrity and we would have avoided being used, but if being used means you end up with Martin and Dalonte Hill as your coaches and recruiters and Beasley, Walker, Denis Clemente, Jamar Samuels, Wally Judge and Rodney McGruder as your players, I can live with being used.

The claim that Hill's salary is "ridiculous" is befuddling. An independent college basketball blog, Rush the Court, wrote a post using actual facts and figures to demonstrate that Hill was worth his salary solely for bringing Beasley to Manhattan. If the "unproven" tag is used to describe Hill's coaching acumen, I suppose that's still up for debate, considering he's only 30 years old and has not been a head coach anywhere. But his primary job is to recruit talented basketball players to Manhattan, and he is anything but unproven in that arena. He brought in Beasley and contributed top-20 recruiting class this year, personally landing players like Judge and McGruder, and sharing credit for bringing Nick Russell and Jordan Henriquez to Manhattan. Panjandrum observed that, for all the moronic decisions Wefald and Krause made, they may have been on the cutting edge by paying big bucks for a proven recruiter in an age of one-and-done players.

Finally, a column just wouldn't be a Whitlock column if it didn't contain the obligatory disingenuous compliment to the people he's smearing. Whitlock claims to "respect...immensely" Wefald and Snyder and be "astonished" by their accomplishments. In that spirit, I will say that I respect Jason for doing what he can to root out racism in the city I now call home, even if I think everything else that he writes is not fit to potty train a dog.

K-State Researchers Fighting Wheat Rust

TB — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 18:58:55 -0000

K-State Researchers Fighting Wheat Rust

Not sports related, but an interesting story about how researchers at K-State are working with international research teams to develop a wheat crop with a resistance to wheat rust, a potentially devastating crop disease. I actually wrote a story about this while I was a journalism major at K-State, but it looks like they've gone to a whole new level since then.

K-State Slate, 6/23/09

TB — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 12:34:46 -0000

There's enough going on to justify a K-State Slate. Hit the jump for all your Wildcat news and notes.

The Audit

The Topeka Capital-Journal's Austin Meek secured an email interview with former AD Tim Weiser. Weiser claims the $500,000 loan was used to purchase real estate in Kansas, and he also notes that he paid back the loan with $25,000 interest. Interestingly, Weiser also indicates that it's his understanding that making payments to coaches as independent contractors via their personal LLCs is not improper. I think, depending on how that compensation is earned and classified, he's right. Let's hope the way it was done at K-State was proper by IRS standards.

Also from Topeka, Kevin Haskin believes disclosure is a public right. As such, he calls for the KU and Pittsburg State audits to be made public. Don't hold your breath.

Here is some good news regarding the audit. The NCAA won't be looking into K-State's athletic department troubles. This doesn't come as any surprise to me, but it's good news nonetheless. If anything, we cheated ourselves rather than cheated to win.

Around the Big 12

Texas A&M fans are sounding more like Nebraska fans every day. Here, miketag writes that Tech will return to being Tech this year, which, ironically, is still way better than Texas A&M is.

Colorado is taking a hard line on wide receiver Josh Smith's decision to transfer. Apparently, they asked Smith why he wanted to transfer, and he listed being close to home -- he's from southern California -- and a good music program as his criteria. Based on that, Colorado granted him a release only to USC, a nearby school that has the music program he wants. I'm sure a lot of people disagree with me, but I think this is a smart move on Colorado's part.

Texas is in the national championship series in Omaha, but lost Game 1 last night to LSU. C'mon, Texas. You can't join the ranks of Big 12 schools that choke against SEC schools in national title games.

The Board of Regents Audit: It Could Have Been Worse

TB — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 17:18:07 -0000

It took me a while, but I have finished reading and digesting the Board of Regents Audit. Unless you are really interested in reading audit-speak, I don't recommend wading through it yourself. My thoughts follow beyond the jump, and several media outlets have already posted good summaries of the findings.

Before getting to my thoughts, we should address some comments made in response to the audit by outgoing University President Jon Wefald. My first thought on seeing that Wefald had commented on this was that it would probably be a good time for Wefald to stay away from the media for a while. You know, the whole "put down the shovel and walk away" thing. Other than stating the incredibly obvious -- he admits he gave Bob Krause too much authority -- Wefald didn't say much of note. Well, other than this little gem:

"I really chewed him out for that Ron Prince deal. That was so ridiculous. Ridiculous and absurd," Wefald said.

Good, I'm really glad to hear that Krause didn't skate on that whole Ron Prince super-double-secret deal thingy.

Anyway, the audit is out, and to return to the title of this post, my overriding thoughts regarding this whole situation are easily summed up: I expected it to be worse.

You may find that hard to believe. We are being roundly criticized by outside commentators -- much more on that one later -- and even those who cover K-State with a favorable slant are looking at this with disapproval, as they should. Even Dr. Saturday, probably the preeminent college football blog, led with this story today. That is almost certainly the first time in that blog's history that we have been the lead story.

Before I start looking at why this isn't as bad as I expected, I should make it clear for those who are less capable than others of understanding subtle distinctions that none of this is good. Our alma mater has clearly been managed incompetently for at least the last five-to-seven years, and the athletic department has been a mess of an old boys' club during that time. Krause and Wefald deserve all the criticism they have received, and then some. Some of the "business decisions" made defy any and all explanation. My point, however, is that this is not nearly as bad as I thought it might be, and is really a case study in incompetent leadership rather than an exhibition of a renegade athletic department cheating to win.

Roughly the first two-thirds of the audit discusses findings of improprieties involving various separate legal entities that are closely associated with K-State, including the alumni association, KSUGCMRF and Colbert Hills Golf Course, the KSU Foundation, and the NISTAC Cluster (I would add another word to that). Many of the findings in these areas dealt with shoddy management and corner-cutting that needs to be improved, but really lends itself more to the appearance of impropriety than actual impropriety. For example, the audit details two instances where shoddy reimbursement systems led to double payments (p. 14). This is stupid and a waste of money, but it's nothing criminal and can be dealt with by appropriate oversight.

A lengthy portion of the audit is devoted to the NISTAC business incubator, detailing a dizzying set of transactions that may have involved self-dealing and inappropriate voting measures. Without doubt this business arrangement needs to be reviewed. However, again this goes back to Krause and Wefald and their apparently Nixonian belief that they were above reproach in their actions. New, competent leadership can ensure problems such as these do not arise.

On page 24, the report gets down to what we are most concerned about, specifically the audit's findings regarding the Intercollegiate Athletics Association. Here, most of the findings are concerned with circumvention of appropriate controls and possible tax issues relating to the payment of coaches and athletics directors.

First, one thing I keep seeing brought up is the 13 undocumented transactions totalling $845,000. For sure, this could be a big issue, as that's a lot of money to be spent without documentation. But a careful reading of the audit supplies me with at least reasonable doubt as to whether these undocumented transactions are as significant as some may have you believe. First, the audit covered fiscal years 2001 through 2008, meaning that $845,000 was spread over seven years. Second, the audit indicates those amounts were disbursed to Tim Weiser, Bill Snyder and Bob Krause, among others. How many others are we talking about here? Two? Ten? If we're talking about 15+ individuals sharing $845,000 over seven years in a school that has to pay as much for transportation as K-State does because of it's isolated location, suddenly we're not necessarily talking about a huge waste of money. I don't know that is how it happened, but those looking at it from the other side don't have any better proof that that is not how it happened.

In today's business climate, the terms "supporting documentation no longer available due to normal record retention practices" necessarily evokes memories of Enron, Arthur Anderson and improper document shredding. But there's no evidence here that our athletic department was shredding documents to hide improper payments. One of the unavailable documents was Weiser's original 2001 contract. Given that new contracts had replaced that agreement at least twice and that Weiser left the school last summer, it's not particularly surprising to me that it wasn't available. Remember, the athletic department is not a state entity. It's a private, non-profit corporation, and it's entitled to decide how long it wants to keep old records around, subject to whatever restrictions the SEC and Sarbanes-Oxley places on document retention.

Now the part for which you've all been waiting: the payments to limited liability companies. The report found that coaches and athletic directors were being compensated via payments to their personal LLCs, such as Snyder's SSM, Inc., Weisers "The Weiser Way," and Krause's "Horizon Ranch," which is curiously no longer available on the Kansas Business Center Web site. This is big news, of course, because we recently found out about a secret arrangement between Krause and Ron Prince, or more accurately Prince's personal LLC, "In Pursuit of Perfection," which is currently registered to 111 Anderson Hall, Manhattan, Kan. 66502. Also, IPP, LLC in Kansas is registered to a law firm in Topeka.

Anyway, the audit found that a majority of the compensation paid to Snyder and others was paid to their LLCs, ostensibly for "consulting," "appearances," and "endorsements." As the audit notes, many universities do this, and it's not per se improper. If K-State had a reasonable basis for classifying the individuals at issue as independent contractors in these situations, then the payments are not improper. The issue is who withholds taxes. For payments to the LLCs, the athletic department would not withhold taxes, leaving that up to the LLCs. Again, if the distinction is proper, this isn't a problem and there's absolutely no evidence that Weiser, Snyder, or anyone else have been improperly paying their taxes through their LLCs.

The question that kept popping into my mind while I read this information was how this evidence would play into the lawsuit between K-State and Ron Prince. At first, I thought the University was screwed, because these repeated agreements with individual LLCs would indicate a pattern of behavior that would strongly indicate Jon Wefald knew what was going on. However, the audit points out that this practice was discontinued in 2005, due to concerns about taxation issues. If the practice was discontinued in 2005, and Krause truly did hide the secret agreement from President Wefald, then an argument can be made that Krause did not have the authority to enter into such an agreement and that Wefald did not know of it and did not approve of it.

In the interest of full disclosure here, I should point out that it appears Frank Martin has his own LLC. Make of that what you will, but given that it was formed in 2007, which is within the scope of this audit, the audit uncovered nothing untoward regarding payments to Martin's LLC. It's entirely possible that Martin maintains his own LLC for services that are legitimately outside the scope of his employment. Further, please note that it appears Mark Mangino, Bill Self, and Bo Pelini also have personal LLCs.

My biggest "WTF?" moment in reading the audit came when the athletic department's loan to Tim Weiser was discussed. For whatever reason, Krause decided it was a good idea to loan Weiser $500,000 -- yep, half a million dollars -- with Weiser not required "to justify or explain the purpose" of the loan. As the audit states, terms such as these "are not standard clauses even in the most informal of lending agreements." I know I wouldn't loan even $50 to anyone without some direction on how it was to be used. The audit notes that the loan was repaid within one month of Weiser's departure for the Big 12 office in Arlington, Texas, and Wefald claims in the article linked earlier that Weiser paid interest on the loan. All's well that ends well, I guess, but I'd rather our athletic department leave the lending to the professionals.

In conclusion, in addition to my overriding thought that "it could have been worse," I want to echo something I recently posted over at Corn Nation. Everyone is pointing out what a train wreck our athletic department is right now, and there's no denying that the last several years have been an unmitigated disaster. However, I take great comfort in the fact that Kirk Schulz now occupies 100 Wilson Court, and that John Currie is now in charge over at Bramlage Coliseum. If Jon Wefald were still president and Bob Krause were still athletic director, I would be terrified of what the future may hold. Further, the department wouldn't even be receiving the probably cautious donations it's receiving now.

Point is, it's not the institution that's inherently incompetent, but rather the people in charge of it who make poor decisions. It's often said in America that we are a government of men (PC term: people), but that saying really applies to all institutions. An institution is not some living being with a will of its own; rather, it's taken in whatever direction by those with authority. Wefald and Krause got far too comfortable with their positions and took K-State and its various related entities in a poor direction. With Schulz and Currie in office now, both outsiders with no prior connection to K-State, we can look ahead and hope that the dark days are behind us. By releasing this information, I am already confident the new administration will be more open and honest with the fans, donors, alumni and friends of K-State than the previous regime.

Former KU Golfer in Contention at the U.S. Open

TB — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 17:54:12 -0000

Former KU Golfer in Contention at the U.S. Open

I met Gary Woodland in 2005 when he won the Kansas Amateur in Manhattan. A really good golfer and a nice guy. Hope he plays well in the final two rounds and earns an exemption for next year.

K-State's Athletic Department Priorities

TB — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 20:01:34 -0000

Yesterday's FanShot from MadCat was a good illustration of the utter arrogance Nebraska fans can display. It also demonstrated the pointlessness of their thinking on the issue discussed, as I'm not really sure why they would be worried about their athletic department feeling sorry for schools like K-State, Iowa State and Colorado.

However, after reading the story the quote was culled from, and another linked article, it occurred to me that the topic was worth discussing in K-State circles, too. While the tone of the Nebraska article discussed what it needs to do to close the revenue gap with Texas -- my answer: pray for Tom Osborne to win the PowerBall and decide to donate it all to the athletic department -- we need to discuss what needs to be done to a) get ourselves out of the mess we're in right now, and b) grow our revenue and athletic department budget in every way possible. Nebraska has the luxury of talking about what it can do to close the gap with the Joneses of the Big 12 because they are among the big spenders and big earners in the Big 12. The popping sounds you've been hearing are the exploding heads of Husker fans who read that and say, "Whatever do you mean?! We're one of the Big 12's downtrodden!" Don't believe it, and be thankful that I have written something that means there are fewer of that type of Husker fan with whom you have to deal.

Anyway, with a new athletic director in place, it's time for us to try and move past this very dark period in K-State athletics and discuss what the future needs to hold if we are to return our football program to its late-1990s/early 2000s level and our men's basketball program to its pre-1990 level.

All Sports

Get the Wildcat Victory campaign rolling: A quick check of the site reveals that the latest update is from January of this year, and all that's been done is some test soil samples. I'm very concerned that the perfect storm of the economy tanking and the utter financial irresponsibility shown by Jon Wefald and Bob Krause in the last several years is going to lead to a big delay for this project. Already, we're hearing scuttle that some of the biggest donors are drying up as it seems we get weekly reports of financial mismanagement.

It's a daunting task, John Currie, and I don't envy you. You have to get Great Plainsmen (and women) to trust you with their hard-earned money, not an easy task with a historically frugal group of people in the best of times. But it can be done. Currie will undoubtedly go about regaining the donor's trust in his own way, and it seems that he's promising transparency as an enticement so that donors will know what's happening. That's a good start, as long as he makes good on it. While I acknowledge to all donors that your money is yours and you may spend it as you see fit, I also remind you that the old guard is gone. Both Currie and new K-State President Kirk Schulz are outsiders who have no connection to the Wefald/Krause regime. Make them prove themselves, but don't hold them responsible for the sins of the last few years.

Branding: I hate that school to the east as much as anyone, but they're kicking our ass when it comes to getting their brand out there. It starts with the little things, like making every department on campus use the school colors, font -- we need to pick one and stick with it -- and logo. Not whatever they think looks cool, something that immediately screams to the person viewing it "THIS IS K-STATE!!! NOT SOME RANDOM SCHOOL WITH WEIRD BLACK AND ORANGE-ISH COLORS!"

To extend the theme, all athletic department licensed gear needs to bear the phrase "K-State." Not "KSU." Not "Kansas State." Only the full "Kansas State University" is an acceptable substitute. For the most part, people recognize us by K-State, but we need to make damn sure that everyone knows you're talking purple and white and Powercats when you're talking K-State. Oh, and making everybody use the font the football and men's basketball teams have been using the last year or two would be a good start, too. I realize there are some, and some people whom I really respect, who don't think we should surrender our identity by shortening "Kansas" to the "K" in K-State. I understand the concern, but K-State is a sleeker phrase than the mouthful that is "Kansas State," which counts for something in today's digital world, and if we brand it well enough, people will know the "K" stands for Kansas.

I think the point has already been made, but all this needs to be aimed at improving merchandise sales. When I worked at Manhattan Country Club, I remember it being quite an ordeal for K-State to permit us to use the school's "logo" on golf apparel, and even when they let us use it, we only got the outdated logo that had the line drawing of Anderson Hall's tower with "K-State" next to it. Use the Powercat. Embrace it. Love it. I had a Missouri fan, of all people, tell me that he considers the Powercat the epitome of what a sports logo should be. Let's run with it. And while we're at it, let's make it easy for companies to use the logo. We practically give it away to high schools. I'm not saying we should sell the rights to it for $1 to t-shirt companies, but work with them. By selling shirts with our logo, they are putting money in our coffers.

Football

Come up with a succession plan for Bill Snyder yesterday: While we'll never know what actually happened when Snyder retired the first time, it's fairly clear we really weren't ready for him to retire. After he stepped down, rumors flew about which one of his old assistants might come back to Manhattan to wear the legend's crown. One by one, it became clear none of them were interested or, as seems more plausible now, weren't contacted in Wefald's race to hire Ron Prince before all those other worthy suiters could snap him up.

While Snyder seems to be recharged and ready for this new challenge, he's 70 years old. He's not going to coach forever. We need to prepare for that eventuality now so that we aren't left scrambling when it does. Maybe he'll coach for 10 years, but maybe he won't. And please, for the love of God, don't let word slip that you've hired Gary Patterson when letting that word get out to the media will result in angry denials and a full-blown shit-storm that results in the administration tucking its collective tail between its legs and going back to the retired legend and begging him to bail them out.

Sell tickets: Clearly, the best way to accomplish this goal is to win games. A winning team will always put fans in the seats. But, painful as it is for me to say, we're not going to win at the rate we did 5-10 years ago, at least not right away. In the interim, we need to figure out how to get paying people in the seats. There are a lot of options available, and I'm not sure which one is best. We could do half-season ticket packages, like KU has done. We could do what Iowa State and Oklahoma State have done and do away with individual-game tickets. If it's permissible within Big 12 and NCAA rules, we could introduce tiered pricing for upper-deck seats. Along with that...

Improve the upper-deck experience: Thankfully, I've never sat up there, but having to go down endless flights of stairs for food and excretory relief is a joke. I'll let Panjandrum rant on this, as he's more experienced with the travails of the upper deck than I am.

Schedule home non-conference games: We're taking a lot of heat for our schedule right now, and deservedly so, considering that we play two FCS teams this season. I don't want to see two FCS teams on the schedule. One should always be the absolute maximum. But right now, we need money, and home football games equal money. In a normal year, we are guaranteed four home conference games. With four non-conference games, we should never have fewer than seven home games in a season. Schedule the best opponents available, and try to throw the fans a bone if you can, but don't give in to the criticism from the cupcake haters. We need to worry about ourselves right now, not some platonic ideal of what the perfect non-conference schedule should look like.

Also, if we can wrangle the occasional neutral-site deal like we got for the Iowa State game, we should consider it. I don't like neutral site games at all, especially against Iowa freaking State. But if it's absolutely necessary, and we can get a big payout from a game at Arrowhead Stadium against someone like Ohio State, I say we take it. Snyder probably won't go for it, but if the money is there and he gets things going back in the right direction, I can dream, can't I?

Oh, and I'm still adamantly opposed to Thursday night games, in case anyone's curious.

Men's Basketball

Schedule better teams at home: Like that little flip-flop? Yep, I don't really care as much about the quality of the football schedule beyond some minimum standard as I do the quality of the basketball schedule. Know why? Because no matter the opponent, if the football product is decent, we're going to put 40,000 fans in the stadium. However, we've proven that even when the men's basketball program is at its highest level since the late 1980s, we won't fill Bramlage on a consistent basis for meaningless non-conference games against Wofford. Even when we have a No. 2 pick in the NBA Draft, we couldn't sell out the arena every night. Last year, with an exciting team that again earned a Big 12 bye, we couldn't even average 9,000 fans per home game.

I understand that we need to have some of those games to work on things and build confidence before conference play begins. I understand that we can't schedule UCLA and North Carolina for home-and-homes. But we have to get at least two or three marquee games on the home slate each year. If we can't get the elite programs like Duke and Louisville, at least get solid programs from the Big East, ACC and Pac-10. We need games like that to sell tickets and to test our program against the best teams available.

Lock up Frank Martin: Next season holds a lot of promise for K-State, as almost everyone returns, including Denis Clemente, and we add players like Wally Judge, Rodney McGruder and Curtis Kelly. I'm not going to make any wild predictions, but it seems an NCAA berth should be the minimum expectation, and it's not beyond the realm of possibility that this team makes it to the Sweet 16. If that happens, there will be some programs with coaching vacancies who will take a long look at Frank Martin (and Dalonte Hill). I'm not worried too much about Hill, because with his $420,000 salary, the only way he's leaving Manhattan is for a head-coaching gig, and I'm not sure most athletic directors are ready to put him in charge of their program at age 30. But someone might want to sign Martin up, and if he leaves there's a good chance he might convince the school that hires him to take Hill, too. We need to get Martin's salary competitive, and soon.

Baseball

Lock up Brad Hill, Sean McCann and Andy Sawyers: I'm not talking about throwing big money around here, but do what's necessary to keep them in Manhattan. A baseball program that consistently competes near the top of the Big 12 and makes it to NCAA Regionals can at least support itself. Money that doesn't have to pay for baseball expenses can be spent on something else.

Miscellaneous

Hope that Texas A&M continues to suck and/or Nebraska's revenues continue to fall: If either of these happen for a prolonged period, we may just get that ninth vote that would change the Big 12 bylaws and authorize equal revenue sharing as these schools realize that it's easier to compete with Texas by dragging them down to everyone else's level rather than by raising their own boat.

It'll be interesting to see how Chris Harper fits in at Kansas State. Harper, who spent his...

TB — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 19:56:53 -0000

It'll be interesting to see how Chris Harper fits in at Kansas State.

Harper, who spent his freshman season playing football at Oregon, is transferring to K-State and will be eligible for the 2010 season. The former Northwest High standout is intent on playing quarterback at KSU, and he certainly fits the Bill Snyder profile for that position.

It was Snyder who got tremendous mileage out of dual-threat types Michael Bishop, Jonathan Beasley and Ell Roberson during his first tenure as coach. All three of those quarterbacks were raw passers who become better under Snyder's tutelage.

But they also played before the explosion of spread offenses around the country, and particularly in the Big 12. It'll be interesting to see whether Harper can become a good-enough passer to play quarterback. Right now, he's probably not. But he'll have more than a year to get better.

http://www.kansas.com/sports/lutz/story/854416.html

Bob Lutz, once again proving that he's not very good at making distinctions. Somehow, I'm not terribly concerned about which spread offense other teams are running when the coach for whom Harper will be playing is Bill Snyder.