K-State Basketball
K-State President Kirk Schulz and athletic director John Currie held a press conference yesterday morning to answer questions surrounding the departure of Frank Martin. Perhaps the most significant issue revolved around Jamar Samuels's suspension. To say that Currie's explanation that the receipt was found in the trash at Dillon's and brought to the athletic department's compliance department was not well received would be an understatement. My commentary on the issue could fill a full post, so I'll leave it at that for now.
Unlike their predecessors, Schulz and Currie maintained a positive outlook as they set out to find a replacement for Martin.
The Star has a list of seven potential replacements for Martin. Most of them are sure to give Pan an apoplexy.
Currie looks like a fool for running off a popular and successful coach, but the more we learn about Martin the more we're going to realize he wasn't that great. Or that seems to be what Sam Mellinger is saying here. Mellinger makes good points (I agree that Currie will be judged ultimately on who he hires), but sometimes he reaches so far to try and make a point, he undercuts his credibility. If the Chris Merriewether "slap" was such a big deal, then anyone who watched Fred Hoiberg a couple times this year should be concerned about the path he's headed down.
The opening paragraph of this article states that the fans are the group most affected by Martin's departure. Somebody may want to tell that to the players, but given the talk of a near-mutiny on the team, a lot of them may not be that upset. In any event, Grant Guggisberg went out and found some K-State fans who aren't upset by Martin's departure.
Currie isn't using his time looking inward at what could have been differently with regard to Martin. For his part, Martin denies that there was a rift between the two. It's nice they're both taking the high road, but the reported relationship between the two tells a different story.
Rob Cassidy reports that Matt Figger is leaving K-State to follow Martin to South Carolina.
K-State Baseball
Nebraska notched a 6-3 win over K-State in Lincoln yesterday.