Now that we are in both the football and basketball offseasons, content is getting scarce. Certain stories cross my radar screen every day, but usually they aren't enough to write an entire post about. Consider this an amalgamation of those stories, in short(ish) blurb form.
K-State Baseball Sweeps Baylor: It was a matchup of the two best teams at the plate in the Big 12. So what did we get? Why, a three-game series with final scores of 5-2, 5-2, and 3-2, of course. Fortunately, the Wildcats came out ahead in each game to send Baylor back to Waco with an 0-3 weekend. The sweep was important in the conference standings, as it allowed K-State to keep pace with conference leader Texas, which swept Texas A&M this weekend. The Longhorns are now 13-2, with K-State at 9-3, having obviously played one fewer series. The teams will match up in Manhattan, May 7-9.
This week, K-State will hope to play road warriors as it travels to Wichita to face the Shockers on Tuesday, then heads east to face Missouri over the weekend. Missouri is currently at the bottom of the Big 12 standings at 4-8, so a series win should be the minimum expectation, although Tim Jamieson's Tigers have been a thorn in K-State's side since time immemorial.
Speaking of Missouri, Mike Anderson is Staying: Late last week, Oregon decided its coaching search wasn't going badly enough, so the Ducks threw what were reportedly obscene amounts of money ($3M/year) at Mizzou basketball coach Mike Anderson. To my knowledge, only Bill Self and John Calipari make $3M/year, so not only does $3M/year for Anderson seem a tad excessive, but Anderson turned down pay-increasing offers last year from Georgia and Memphis. Oregon may want to shoot a little lower next time, and realize that money isn't everything. Meanwhile, we'll be stuck in the Big 12, playing against that Fastest 40 Minutes in Basketball system twice a season.
Sooner Than We Think, Part I: Everyone's favorite athletic director, Lew Perkins, engaged in some sort of question-and-answer session in Lawrence last week, primarily focused on his humongous salary ($4.4 million) and the demise of Joe-College.com. Toward the end of the article, Perkins said something that really should be making more waves nationally than it has so far.
He then was asked about the BCS, which Perkins said he supports. That wasn't necessarily a surprise, but what he said next might have been. Perkins predicted the conferences that now make up the BCS would split off from the NCAA.
"At some time, the six major conferences are going to have their own quasi-NCAA," he said. "They're going to do their own thing."
He didn't think this was imminent, but was confident in it.
"It's gonna happen," he said. "I hear a lot of college presidents talking about those kinds of things."
I don't have the time right at the moment to go back through our archives and find the links, but I know we've discussed the possibility that some group of schools may split off from the NCAA and create their own league at some point. Maybe tonight I'll go through and find those posts.
Sooner Than We Think, Part II: Remember how last December, we heard that the Big 10 was considering expansion, but that no decision would be made for 12-18 months. Apparently the Big 10 isn't used to how the information age works, as they gathered enough information to make a decision in about five months. The newspapers don't seem to have anything today on what was or wasn't decided yesterday in Washington by the Big 10 presidents, but a mandate to expand seems a foregone conclusion. For us, the question isn't so much "Will the Big 10 expand?" as much as "Will the Big 10 ask Missouri or Texas to join?"
Last December, I wrote a lot about why it would be really bad for the Big 12 if Missouri left. I didn't write nearly as much about the Armageddon that would be ushered in were Texas to leave, because there are only so many words you can devote to discussing the fact that the sky is blue. Our best case scenario right now, and it seems possible that this occurs, would be the Big 10 adding Notre Dame and, if they decide to expand beyond 12, looking east to schools like Rutgers, Syracuse or Connecticut. Things get a lot more interesting, and infinitely bleaker for the Big 12, if Missouri, Texas, or even wildcards like Nebraska or KU are in the Big 10's sights.