I apologize for not getting much content up this week. Hope it was made up for by the insightful interview with Clone Chronicles yesterday.
Moving on to the week's news...
The KC Star's Blair Kerkhoff sees the Cats making the trip to beautiful Shreveport, La. (average December high/low: 59/38), for the Independence Bowl. I would never turn that down, but we have a good enough team this year that we should be looking higher. For what it's worth, ESPN has us playing in San Antonio (average December high/low: 64/41) at the Alamo Bowl. Let's see here, beautiful city, nice weather, domed stadium, 200 miles from where I live. No brainer here.
For what it's worth, the Omaha World-Herald agrees with ESPN, sending the Cats to San Anton.
Kerkhoff also has his weekly Big 12 rankings out, where the Cats hold steady at number five. I can't argue with that, as you'll see soon.
This week, the Omaha World-Herald's Lee Barfknecht is going all the way, ranking not only the divisions, but the overall conference. He has the Cats third in the North, and fifth overall. Sound familiar yet?
Moving on to this week's opponent, or at least its fans, Gene Chizik is amazed by Iowa State fans. Apparently, the Cyclones are averaging about 50,000 fans per game. According to the official Iowa State sports site, the Cyclones are averaging 51,039 for their five home games this season. That is pretty impressive, and actually kind of disappointing, considering K-State is averaging only 47,178 fans per game. We're 5-3, likely headed to a pretty good bowl game, and have a pretty entertaining team. Where are the consistent crowds of 50,000+ we saw pre-2003? (Note: this is not a knock on the fans. I'm just wondering why the average attendance is down.)
Turning to basketball, the athletic department announced today that Bramlage Coliseum is sold out for the upcoming year. If you want tickets to individual games, good luck. The only tickets available will be whatever is unclaimed from the student allotment, and those go on sale two days prior to each home game. Not that that's a bad thing, it's awesome to see high interest and big crowds for K-State basketball.
I can't blame all those fans for wanting to guarantee a seat in the house to see the Cats this upcoming year, with players like Michael Beasley and Bill Walker taking the floor. Fran Fraschilla reports that Beasley had 42 points and 12 rebounds in the scrimmage with Marquette last weekend. I can't begin to tell you how excited I am to see this team play. Just don't give up on them after the first two months of the season, the team is young enough it will take some lumps early on, especially with the tough schedule. But when conference play rolls around, I think we may see the best team K-State has had since 1988.
Check out the left sidebar here at BOTC for K-State's complete basketball schedule for 2007-08. Results will be posted as they come in.
Most of you have probably seen this, but Smith Center High School set a national record this week by scoring 72 points in the first quarter of its playoff game against Plainville. The SCHS Redmen went on to win, 83-0. A few other stats to consider from Smith Center's season:
SCHS has outscored its opponents 640-0 this season
SCHS has not punted this season
SCHS runs almost exclusively, throwing only three passes (two for touchdowns) against Plainville
That's it for today. We'll get into the Iowa State game and the rest of the Big 12 action tomorrow.