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K-State Slate: 1.26.12

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K-State Basketball

K-State rolled to a 67-49 win over Texas Tech in Lubbock last night.

Victor Ojeleye had eight points, filling in for the non-existent Jamar Samuels.

K-State Football

Defensive end Jordan Willis, a junior out of Rockhurst (Mo.) High School, has verbally committed to K-State.

K-State Women's Basketball

The Wildcats couldn't hold a nine-point halftime lead and fell to Iowa State at home, 66-57, in Manhattan.

Big 12 Basketball

LeBryan Nash got hot late and erased a Missouri lead as Oklahoma State upset No. 2 Mizzou in Stillwater. Also, Markel Brown had a filthy alley-oop dunk over MU's Matt Pressey.

Big 12 Conference Expansion

The conference's expansion committee met via teleconference yesterday, but apparently just exchanged pleasantries as "nothing of substance" was discussed and no action was taken. Rumors are that Louisville and BYU are still being considered as expansion targets.

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Comments

I'm glad that joke of an ejection didn't cost OSU the game

Not that I expected MU to actually challenge KU for the title this season, but this all but wraps it up (barring a TRob injury or something crazy going down).

I don't have a problem with the second T simply because he had already gotten one for the same thing

That is why you get two before sitting down…first is a warning to stop doing that stuff.

I won’t argue that he didn’t do much talking to get it, but he was warned and should have adapted accordingly.

And from what I saw of the replay

even Ford wasn’t pissed that was called. He hopefully yelled at Brown after the game for being a dumbass and possibly screwing his own team over.
I mean, OSU won, but that could have hurt

Strangley, OSU actually played more inspired for the rest of the game.
That doesn't surprise me. Coaches try to get TOs occassionally to fire their guys up. I can certainly this would have the same effect.
I was really happy to see Martavious have such a good game.

We kind of needed it, with Will as cold as ice.

Will is killing me ...

he could shoot better blindfolded right now.

Thought he played his best game in a few last night.

Which is a sad statement.

I’m not worried about Will’s shooting. It’ll come around. He’s in a slump. A bad one, albeit, but we know he can shoot much better than this.

What he didn’t do last night that he’d done in the previous few games was give away careless turnovers.

The reason everyone loves Will is because he does the intangibles so well. He’s an underrated defender, he plays smart basketball, and he is reliable. He may not be spectacular at anything but his net contribution is very positive. Unfortunately lately that hasn’t been the case. He’s been careless with the ball, has not facilitated good offense, has missed some FTs, and overall his minutes would be better served on other guys the way he’s playing. At least his defense has been solid.

Hoping he breaks out of this slump sooner than later. I actually think the way he played last night (minus the bricks) is a good sign he’s heading back in the right direction.

Yeah, I was just talking about the shooting alone ...

because I know he has it in him to be nails and he’s so far off right now.

To approach our potential, we need Will to:

1) Facilitate the offense without turning it over. Especially steals.
2) Defend his man reasonably well.
3) Knock down a good % of wide-open 3’s. And he gets a good amount of wide-open looks because opponents have stopped caring.

Of late, it seems he’s been ok on 1 and sometimes much better than ok on 2. But he could drop-kick the ball for a better FG % right now. When players like him are hitting like we know they can, it’s like a force multiplier for this team. It should come back around, but it’s just killing me right now.

He was passing up open 3's last night - looked to me like he was hesitant.
Back before players could leave early to the NBA

we would see 4 year players and the “sophomore slump” was more frequent. In many ways Will is a throwback to this time, and his current troubles seem like the old sophomore slump. He’s not going to the League, and he will be with us for four years (giving his all in every minute he gets). Let’s hope he moves past this rough patch and continues to improve so that as an upperclassman he leads in many ways. I believe Jacob Pullen even had a down sophomore year (my memory is as foggy as bong water). It’s easy to forget that this team has a lot of young players that we are counting on to do big things.

Yeah, that was the NIT year
"foggy as bong water"

+1. Great metaphor. May I use this in my future ramblings?

I can see Spradling ending up pike Hrebec

Starts for a year or two before getting replaced with a better younger player.

Now that's just not nice

Spradling starts because he is good, Hrebec started because his replacement was ineligible.

It actually makes sense

But Spradling is far more talented at playing basketball comparatively then Hrebec was at playing linebacker.

Spradling was actually recruited and has a decent talent level

Is he going to wow anybody? Probably not. But he does have the tools and smarts to be a quality D-1 athlete. Hrebec should have gone to a FCS or D-2 school to really make an impact

But hey

He did make an impact, he was our leading tackler for what it was worth. Sure he was slow as molasses but I’d rather be mediocre at the D-1 level myself then really good at D-2 or the like. But that’s just me. The dude had heart.

Agreed

and I didn’t want to diminish his impact on the team while he was here. I just meant he could have been a stand-out at a smaller school, even close to legend status. Here he was a stop-gap, filling in when we needed someone who could actually tackle.

The point was, there is no comparing Spradling and Hrebec, they are two completely different situations

The kid has a shooting slump and you right him off that soon?

This is not cool. Several inconsistent games are needed before we start going down this road. And Will plays very good defense for his size and stature.

No but Angels has much more potential

And I see him eventually passing spradling as the everyday starter

Angel already starts....
They've both started lately.
Which is what they want to happen, because they want Will to start at the 2 spot.
Hopefully, with Angel starting at point

and Spradling moving back to the two spot, he will find his comfort zone again.

Definitely need his outside shot to help the bigs inside, but I also don’t mind him driving – as long as he has a teammate to kick the ball out to.

He looked great last night
WTF was that Jamar? Good grief, that was awful. Thank God the Cats didn't need him, but man was that miserable.

I’m very glad Martavious played so well too. I felt bad when he lost his starting position, but it certainly seems to have paid off for him. Angel too. Good job Coach Martin.

And good job Victor. That was a very nice performance last night.

I was very impressed with how Vic played

he was solid on D and made good shots (I think he only missed 1?). That’s a pretty good night for a guy like that. To be fair, it was against that raging dumpster fire that Tech calls its men’s basketball team, but it was still a good night for a great guy.

…now, if he would just convince his brother to come here

I'll take 8 points, missing 1 shot, rebounds, and solid D from any of the 3, 4, or 5 on the team at this point.
Crazy

JO, Jamar, and Will all fell off the edge of the earth and we won by 20 on the road. TTU has a terrible, terrible basketball team. They have to be one of the worst Big XII teams I’ve ever seen. Just ghastly.

Good point, but a win sure does feel nice. Especially the same night the Cats last not-all-that-impressive win turned around and beat #2 MU.
I love good press - check out the cover image for cfn.scout

http://www.kstatesports.com/sports/m-baskbl/ksu-m-baskbl-body-main.html

Bah, stupid copy and paste - this is the actual link

http://cfn.scout.com/

Question

Was Klein really intended to play Receiver? I thought that was something Snyder did for a year?

Klein was recruited by Prince to be a QB

he and Kassanavoid (from MO, Snyder kicked him off the team the year he got back) were the QB recruits that year.
He was athletic enough, we were weak enough at the position, and wanted to play so much, that Snyder let him switch to WR for a year. Didn’t need him the next year after adding Brod and Chris, and we needed a solid backup QB. The year before was Gregory, with Coffman the chief backup.

Recruiting pages

Rivals
ESPN
Scout

Never even listed as “Athlete,” and if I could find archived rosters from his first two years they would say QB

So pretty much the article is wrong in that aspect

Still good press.

Yeah

another “expert” who didn’t do their homework

I've got to say I like Chuck Neinas

In this interview he’s slapping down Mizzou and giving the brush-off to the Big Least. ‘Bout time someone in the Big-12 offices developed some stones. I love this line:

"We didn’t solicit West Virginia; West Virginia solicited us — as did other Big East schools. It seems to me the Big East has a double standard. And the Big East was talking about [automatic qualifying status to the BCS]. There’s not going to be AQs in the near future."

A commish with balls? Hope the new one does also, this is nice to hear.
"There's not going to be AQs in the NEAR future..."

I made the point in September, when some were hung up on the “AQ” status as it related to conference “re-alignment,” and I was roundly castigated.

I'm pretty sure

Your were castigated for other things you said, not the “AQ” status deal.

Well, I beg to differ ...

I was making the point that the "BCS" was a construct and wouldn’t be around much longer.

Then this guy said:
“I know you believe this very vehmently
But until the BCS is gone that is a reasonable assumption that’’ll be around longer than you think.”

…And that guy was this poster named …. Meatgeek.

http://www.bringonthecats.com/2011/9/18/2434075/the-k-state-miami-game-will-air-on-espnu-at-2-30-ct-Saturday

Getting rid of the AQ bids isn't the same as getting rid of the BCS

In fact, I’d pretty much guarantee you the guys doing the changing would argue it’s just another small rule modification like the ones they’ve made in previous years.

I don't think I made the point

You thought I made.

I do love your belief in "flawless arguments" though
that is an awesome article

muchos huevos

Like I posted the other day ...

Good or bad, I don’t even care anymore. The guy is a fun interview.

This line was dead on...

“The Big East gets on planes and flies all over the country inviting other schools,” Neinas said. "But they raise hell when West Virginia wants to come to the Big 12?

Agreed

hypocritical b*tches…

I like everything Cheinas has to say... almost.

It’s maddening to me that every interview he goes out of his way to insist that the B12 is happy to stay at 10 teams and content without a conference championship game, etc., etc.

1) I will be thoroughly disappointed if this is truly the consensus among our board members.

And 2) Even if that is the consensus, the fact that we are so happy to proclaim our expansion over makes us look weak compared to other conferences.

I just don’t like that we keep harping on the fact that we are done expanding, because the wave of the future is not 10-team conferences…

I agree wholeheartedly with these sentiments

I find those comments frustrating as well. But Neinas isn’t the long-term commissioner, only an interim one. So let us hope the next one is a bold visionary who isn’t go to sit on his thumbs and wait for the world to revolve around the Big-12 axis.

What are the odds that we hire a bold visionary?

Would the Oklahoma AD fit the bill there? His name has been floated around.

I just don’t know.

I think he just thinks he's bold and visionary

I don’t want him in charge of anything though. Give me Luck from WVU, or someone that isn’t one of the “boys” in the Big 12

This ^^^^
or someone that isn’t one of the “boys” in the Big 12.

We need some new blood.

This isn't the sentiment.

It’s the public talking point so when we raid and kill the BEast and or ACC, we have a track record of saying, hey we were happy at 10, these guys called us. Which everyone knows is hooey anyway.

I’m going to just come out and say it, John Currie is a cold heart visionary that would be great for the position. He would destroy his colleagues and not give one shit. Two things though, first I’d hate to lose him; and second, he looks like he’s 14 and I don’t see the member presidents taking a shot on a young guy.

Agreed

to all of this

Bold visionary you say?

Perhaps with a bit of daring?

I hate you so much right now...
#RonP4Commish
Instaban
The other spectacular highlight from the MU/OSU game ...

Kim English having a close encounter with a teabag-shaped UFO.

Glad OSU got their And-One mojo on after we played them.

I was thinking that this morning too

I’m glad we played them Saturday and not last night…

Picking up more recruits

From ESPN (Paywall)

Kansas State strengthened its offensive and defensive lines with the additions of two new verbals.
High two-star defensive tackle Demonte Hood (Arlington, Texas/Bowie) has committed, according to Rivals.com. The 6-foot, 290-pound senior picked the Wildcats over scholarship offers from Arkansas, Kansas, San Diego State and Washington.
Additionally, Scout.com reports that Eastern Arizona (Thatcher, Ariz.) Community College offensive tackle Ellwood Clement will play in Manhattan, Kan. East Carolina, Indiana and Utah State also offered the 6-foot-4, 290-pound prospect.

Hood is a high 2-star (74 rating) according to ESPN

And is supposed to be good a run defense...that's nice
Both are 3-star guys according to Rivals

Hood
Clement

Nice list of schools after Hood, especially Arkansas
Yeah, it always makes me feel a little better

when other “bigger” name schools want the kid too

Me, too

I don’t need to see 3-, 4- or 5-stars on them, but I do need to see that other major programs are at least sniffing around.

Two great pick ups!

But 6’ 290lbs? Good Lord. I hope he has an inch or two left in him or is crazy quick.

He could easily gain an inch or two next year

I did my freshman year of college. And DT’s don’t need to be as big as OL’s.

I went up 2 inches as well, but graduated HS at 17.

The Willis pick up is huge. The kid is only a Jr, could put on 25-30lbs before ever stepping on campus, and who knows maybe another inch or two. If he does all this, I hope we leave him at end. I’m all for switching kids around to find the right position for them, but it sounds like he has really good technique and by the time he is done here, a 6’5" 270lbs DE will play on Sundays, period.

Tim Colston was only 6'1

and he was one of our better d-tackles. Of course he weighed in at only 275lbs, but at the same time that was in the early-mid-90’s.

And the average OL was 6-3 or 6-4, now they're 6-6 and up.*
  • This statement supported by no facts, but it’s never stopped me before.
Holy crap!

Did anyone else look up the other junior mentioned, Tanner Wood? 6’5" 237lbs LB! Runs a 4.65.

Try throwing over that in the middle!

That is one scary mass of man running around.
It's Optimus Klein

Linebacker edition.

At least in size.

I can imagine trying to turn him into a D-End

Imagine that coming off the line if you pack on some bulk.

That would be Willis.
Oh yes indeed.

But imagine if we had 2 like that. That’s a lot of swatted passes at the edge of the pocket.

Klein isn't that fast, is he?
Yes.

He looks slower because he has a long stride. I think he is exact same speed actually…now I need to look it up.

Wow

Exact same 40

Oh My God

He’s a baby! And isn’t that the hand that bleeds all the time?

Very interesting...I guess quickness comes into play but color me suprised
Watched Willis several times this year.

Kid is awesome off the edge, and very fast. He does still look a little skinny, but he will fill out his frame over the year and a half. A lot of teams would try to roll the quarterback out away from Willis due to his speed off the end. This hurt his sack total, but you could tell teams were running plays away from him. I do worry about his ability to stop the run at a college level. This last year, he would get a little out of position (going for the sack), but used his speed to make up for being out of position. I am sure this can be fixed in college though. Really excited to see him go to KState.

Great insight.

Excited to have this kid onboard. Hopefully he stays committed throughout the process even if he blows up next year.

Remember Tank Reese? Or Fatafehi? I know Tank wasn't over 6' and he was a handful in the middle, and I think Fatafehi wasn't that tall either.
Josh Buhl wasn't very tall, either
Buhl was like 5'11"

but was fast and could tackle

Buhl was really that short?

That seems strange, I always thought he was taller than that.

Okay...

officially listed at 6’0"…but I don’t think he was quite there

It may just be me, but he seemed to play a lot bigger than his size.
This is very true
I walked by him on campus one time...

…and he was my height, or maybe just a shade shorter.

I’m 5’11".

Yeah, like 6'0" in cleats and helmet
Just as I was listed at 6'1", 220 in High School

I was neither of those things.

You're short...
Hey now, I was like 6' 205 during football season.

6’ ain’t short bro for a perfectly mediocre athlete that I was.

Hey that's what I was listed!

I was 6’ 195lbs. Though it was predictive…A year later I was 6’2" 220lbs.

This^

I’m not saying he can’t be good, just that he needs a skill set that compensates…ie, good technique, low flexible hips, high twitch, good knees, good speed, etc. At that height he can’t just plug a hole, he needs to find the ball which he won’t be doing over the lines of the big boys.

right

instinct/technique can overcome lack of physical talent/size, to some extent…see Alex Hrebec

Bad comparison, kind of...

Mostly because I hope this kid has a higher upside than Hrebec.

True

just saying Hrebec could form tackle well and that offset some of his physical shorts.

This guy is just shorter than we think he should be, because the NFL tells us he should be 6’8" and 360lbs. He could be the greatest DT to ever set foot on campus, and be a little shorter than we thought he should have been

No he doesn't have to be 6'8"

But a breeze through the rosters of the Texas ad OK schools shows one DT under 6’2".

Look, I trust Bill, if he sees something there I’m excited to see what it is.

Sometimes the kids just know where the ball is...

Some LB’s you need to give keys to watch for so they know where the ball is, some just do it. I’ve talked to the latter and they can’t tell me what they do, they just do it….starts way back in Junior FB. Kind of a neat thing to watch.

Why is Tyson Hartman not on the Senior bowl roster
Becuase he didnt get invited

he did play in the East-West Shrine Bowl though, held last week

pointless speculation

While pointless the prospect of adding BYU and Louisville got me thinking about how we would create the divisions since WV is far away and BYU is just as far away in the opposite direction. So here are a few options:

The 5 closest schools to WV plan:
North:
WV,Louis, ISU, KSU, KU, OSU
South:
TU, TT, BYU, OU, Bay, TCU
Pros: makes the most geographic since.
Cons: South has noticeable money and recruiting advantage may be unbalanced in the future (but not this year! :) Could swap OSU for OU but OU would never go for being parted from it’s two biggest rivals.

We must split up OU and TU plan:
North:
BYU, KSU, KU, ISU, OU, OSU
South:
WV, Louis, TT, TU Bay, TCU
Pros: fairly well balanced and makes geographic sense for most of the schools
Cons: not the preferred setup for WV and Louis especially, but who cares about those guys :)
My personal favorite

5 closest to BYU plan or the soak ISU plan:
West: BYU, KSU, KU, OU, OSU, TT
East: WV, Louis, ISU, TU, TCU, Bay
Pros: Better for WV and Louis trading TT for ISU. Fairly well balanced.
Cons: ISU would hate it. TT may not want to be split up from all of the other Texas schools.

My vote is for the first one

Keeps all the Mormon/Baptist/Christian holy war hoopla in the South.

Would that make Notre Dame (if they were to come in they’d be in the North) crusaders? Again?

Just a note, in order to retain friendly relations with our new friends from Fort Worth

(until such time as hostile relations become necessary, that is):

The Church of Christ has no more real authority in the management of TCU, and the school really sort of goes overboard trying to bolster its identity as a secular school. They don’t even like being called “Texas Christian”; they want to just be “TCU”.

So I’d tread easily lumping them in with Baylor and BYU, unless your goal is to prick them with needles.

So, it's not

The Texas Christian University?

Is that like Greek To Me just wants to be GTM?

How about I just cal them Little Purple Brother, or The Other Purple School (TOPS)?

Bah, respect is earned not given. They’re the new guy so they have some VERY heavy lifting to do. Outside of football and baseball, what do they offer the B12? Until they show that, I really don’t care if we make them feel/look like an acupuncture patient.

I would argue symantics in this case

TCU is affiliated with the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), not the Church of Christ. They are different organizations.

And they are still affiliated in the sense the DOC has members on the board, and you can still get religious training there, and scholarships to go there through the DOC’s coordinating body.

Yeah

What he said.

But they are not "Governed" by the DOC in the way that BYU is governed

by the LDS church. Baylor is also no longer officially “governed” by the Baptists either

They do, however, retain the societal trappings of a non-secular institution

although not as much as they once did.

TCU, on the other hand, really wants it students to feel like they’re attending a non-secular institution.

Well that would be a big difference between

the religious aspects of the two denominations. And I know we really don’t want to get into that here…

Sure we do...

My God will beat up your God, so there.

My Karma can run over your Dogma.
Good luck splitting up in state rivals.
I like the last one.

Down with the Cyclones, our most hated of rivals!

I've been thinking, with Mizzou's departure

What do you think the chances are that ISU would play along with calling each other our biggest rivals? So when KU can no longer insist that Mizzou is their biggest rival, due to refusing to play them, we can insist KU isn’t our biggest rival.

I'd rather we not indulge...

…in denying reality like our brethren down the river.

I indulge.

I love to tell my brother-in-law that I really don’t care what happens to KU, because ISU is OUR rival.

It’s fun.

I'll never wish as much ill will towards ISU as I do every morning for KU

so i don’t think, like TB said, I can pretend that KU isn’t our biggest rival.

It is amazing that they claim there is no rivalry, yet their fanbase never gets up for a game more than when we come to town.

p.s. i hate ku

I will say there is a difference between instate rivals and rivals for rival sake...

KU just happens to be ours for both?

i like to say that as well just to get under the skin of ku fans

Which in turn proves ku is our rival. It’s a great tounge in cheek approach to drive them nuts

The reason is because this isn't true. Mizzou's #1. Fuck them.
, yet their fanbase never gets up for a game more than when we come to town.
No can do...

My 2 favorite teams have always been K-State and whoever is playing KU.

For KU to be a “rival” they would have to have something I want, and I don’t know what I would do with all that snootiness.

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