Big 12 bb
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@drgnslayr I never cheer for them! Never! Can’t live w/their fans.
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I’m around plenty of the purple pride. They never give me too much of a hard time even when the kitties beat us in basketball because they know their win will be very short term. The next time we thrash them.
Just like the rare occasion when we beat them in football. I don’t press it in too hard because it is very temporary.
I miss Frank Martin. I miss Jack Hartman even more. Those guys were good coaches and decent people. Guys you could respect. Weber is just Weber. Hard to understand him. Seems like a man with issues. Not my cup of tea.
It bothers me more to lose to the Shockers… because it might be another 30 years before we get to avenge the loss. It feels like we had just recently recovered from 66-65 “Battle of New Orleans”…
We should play them every year and smash them into pieces!
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My heart is with you, but my head is with Self.
Year in and year out we are better off marketing our brand on the coasts for recruiting and exposure.
If the state of Kansas produced players like Kentucky, Indiana and Ohio do, and if Kansas were in the EST, as UK and UL are, then it could make sense treating WSU like UL. But the “ifs” aren’t.
Marshall could leave tomorrow and then we would be stuck riding a bus to Wichita every other season.
Self wants to beat Marsha more than all of us combined, but he is making the right call for the program.
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I hear you…
But if WSU can’t maintain winning… we can always leave them alongside the road, an orphaned program once again.
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The problem is: by scheduling them regularly, we are building them up into being more attractive to the next coach to replace Marshall. And with the Koch money, they are going to be able to keep hiring good coaches if they can schedule non conference games against elite majors like KU. Thus, we are damned, if we do and damned if we don’t. If they stay successful, then we have to keep playing them with no marketing pay back. If they fall by the way side quickly, then we have wasted a couple of chances at marketing to the EST for a payback, we will most likely get a chance for in the early rounds of the NCAA each season, as the NCAA tries to get rid of WSU, or KU, ASAP each tournament.
Don’t worry about pay back. We will get them early in this year’s NCAA again. Its how the TV-seeding thing works. They try to get rid of small market teams ASAP. We just have to be ready to punch WSU’s noses out the backs of their heads the next time. Self knows how Marshall plays the game now, so I suspect the gloves will come off.
As @HighEliteMajor once aptly (and a little uncomfortably) paraphrased from the Nicholson character (a villain) in the movie “A Few Good Men” about Self: we want him on that wall, we need him on that wall. He makes a lot of tough decisions that the rest of us have the luxury not to have to make. Your competitive juices say schedule and play the suckers and beat them into the next century ASAP. But Self is balancing that desire with the life blood of the program (EST marketing for adidas and recruiting of players from the EST) and taking the flak for not scheduling WSU to prove our collective manhoods. Why? Because he knows that he will get his shot at WSU come tournament time.
His approach was partially vindicated last tournament. Indeed, we got our shot early against Wichita State without having to waste a regular season scheduling spot on them. And there is sure is NO advantage to to KU to play them more than once a season. Alas, Self’s strategy was not fully vindicated, because KU was too thin, young and banged up to handle a punking spree by an older, more experienced WSU coached by a very tough customer in Marshall. But Self understands there will be more early match-ups with WSU, so long as the Kochs keep the money valve open at WSU, and Marshall keeps coaching there. Every year, likely as not, KU and WSU will get in the same bracket and run into each other in the first, or second, round, if the seeding committee can find anyway at all to justify the pairing.
So: again, my heart is with you, but my head is with Self.
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I just don’t agree that Kansas doesn’t have anything to gain.
Granted… if WSU falls back into Nothingville, then there is no gain.
But we should want them to develop and be good competition for us. We need more quality teams in the Midwest. It’s like living in a basketball desert out here. Sure, we have some quality teams in the B12. So far, none seem to fair well in March. ISU could easily whither and blow away in the coming years. Same with OU. And yes… same with Texas!
I think it is short sighted the other way around. Kentucky/Louisville is now a huge revenue maker and big recruiting tool for both schools. I know WSU isn’t Louisville, but just a few years ago Louisville was in the Mo Valley and wasn’t nearly as good as WSU is today.
This is like the short sightedness some fast food franchises have. They think they don’t want to locate near McDonalds, the competition. When in fact, putting fast food in clusters helps all of them.
I know people in here hate WSU and don’t want to believe this. In my book, it is one area that even Kentucky has played much smarter than Kansas. We can stick our noses up in the air and refuse to play people where it could develop into something big… that is just turning our noses up to opportunity. Kentucky never had to play Louisville. They could have done like us… put our tail between our legs and wait out the long period after the defeat. They finally saw the writing on the wall and realized the long term gain from having a real rivalry.
Fact is… we don’t have a real rivalry. Those can’t be faked or created. There has to be a history of disdain. The exact natural connection we have towards WSU.
I’d much rather play the shnocks, then rekindle our battle with the tigs.
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Yes and no.
UK and Louisville are both elite programs that are constantly at or near the to and both have recent national titles. WSU seems to go on spurts when the have some good years and the fade back into mediocrity. No question that they have had a perfect storm in the last few years as a result of some unheralded players that turned out to be very good; credit Marshall for this. They have one more season left with these players, namely Baker, VanVleet and Wessel and after that they will drop quite a bit.
In my opinion, at this time there is little upside to play them, If KU wins the talk will be that it was supposed to anyway and it it loses, then it is a big upset, like last season at the NCAA. I say wait a year or two and if Marshal is still there and they are still relevant then by all means play WSU and if there are not, they will not want to play KU anyway.
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Let me put it to you this. Do you know anyone who works in marketing? Ask them their opinion. This really doesn’t differ much from UK/UL. WSU could stay good, and we could help them. I know that absolutely ticks off a lot of our fans. But the end result is positive for KU. Just like it was when UK helped UL.
I know it would be a game I would look forward to every year. I don’t fear the shocks. They actually are a good test for us… one of the best mid-major teams to hook up with and mid-major ball is different than what KU is used to facing. How many times now have we been beat in the Self era from mid-major teams in March? Right…
Lots of years when both Louisville and Kentucky totally sucked.
Like I said, it is to our advantage to help our little cousin.
Rivalry ball is a great recruiting tool!
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I respectfully disagree. While KU’s record an reputation is comparable or close to that of UK, WSU does not even come close to having a comparable record or reputation as Louisville. UK-Louisville has a national audience; KU-WSU would have a state (very small) or at best a regional audience and not even in the same planet as that of the UK-UL game.
More importantly, to play WSU, KU would have to give up a home game every other year to play in Wichita. Coach Self has indicated in the past that every home game nets KU $600K (probably more now), instead, KU can schedule another home game with a name team or a patsy for a fraction of the cost. From the financial aspect, a no brainer, really. This is why every time the issue is brought up in the Kansas Legislature , it is dismissed quickly once the numbers are calculated, since there is no way to compensate KU for the loss…and the KU basketball program supports most of the other sports at KU…we all now the football progarnm has not done much lately.
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I’m not WSU’s cousin, nose not up in the air, Marsha gets no credit for signing baker. An asst, think the one that was grabbing women in a bar, was fired, saw baker at the state tourney. Talked Marsha into having him come scrimmage and he became a walk on. Baker would have developed anywhere. He’s a driven kid! Market and business dept would say no way!
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I’m not sure KU could build up WSU to merit a home and home. If my memory is correct KU did offer WSU to come to the Field House, but Marsha didn’t want any of that. He wants KU in Wichita. That for me is the reason KU shouldn’t play WSU. WSU has no right or power to demand such claims. They even went as far to force KU to play in Wichita by using the state government. KU is a big boy and have earned the right to play who they wish at their choosing.
Not only that you put KU at a disadvantage playing WSU home and home. To KU the game is just another game on the schedule. While for WSU it’s the biggest game of their year.
State Law of Iowa forces the Clones and Hawkeyes to play each other plus two other lower schools in the state. As of to date it has done nothing to build up those programs. All it boils down to is bragging rights, and bragging rights don’t pay the bills. The Clones and the Hawkeyes have tried in vein to get of playing these games. To no avail. Their argument is money, exposure, and recruiting.
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Sorry, but trying to compare KU-WSU to the UK-UL rivalry is comparing apples to oranges. I think everyone basically agrees that Kansas and Kentucky are top 3 programs all time. Louisville is a top 15 all time program and there could be a reasonable argument for them being a top 10 program. Wichita St. is not in the same ball park as Louisville. UK and UL often compete for the same recruits whereas KU and WSU have only competed over 2 recruits recently and both were from Wichita and KU landed both. The Missouri Valley has never been in the same tier as the American, C-USA, or the Metro leagues that Louisville has been in. Those other leagues Louisville has been in over the years are leagues that regularly had multiple top 25 teams and teams capable of making a FF run such as UConn, Cincinnati, Memphis, and Marquette over the years.
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Which all makes me come back to the point that we should have added Louisville to the Big 12 when we had the chance …
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@HighEliteMajor Our Longhorn daddy said no.
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Since this thread has somewhat of a 'free roll" feel, I just had to share this. There is an EPIC smackdown of Josh Pastner and the Tigger Administration from an attorney representing the kid that tried to transfer, and was being denied/restricted by Memphis. OMG. I fell out of my chair. No wonder Tarik couldn’t wait to get out of there…:
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It’s not like we have a lot of choices.
The KSU rivalry is dead. It means something to the schools and immediate fans… but has no possible outreach.
Even though we are adding in tougher opponents to our schedule, we lack the fever that was present when the lowly tigs were around.
I miss emotion and rivalry… but I don’t miss the tigs!
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@drgnslayr You can’t force a rivalry. Just because they are in state doesn’t mean it would be a rivalry. We just have to smash them one time and they are put back in their place. As a student, I don’t feel the natural aggression towards the Shockers that a rivalry needs. I think that ISU is actually our next major rivalry if they can continue their programs success in the future. The student bases do things to piss each other off and the games lately have been so intense that it feels more and more like a rivalry every season.
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Agreed that Iowa St is as close of a rival as we have at the moment. No matter where the game has been played for the past few years its been intense. In Ames, Lawrence, or the Sprint Center. But that was what Hoiberg & their fans brought. Will it be the same with Prohm and after Niang is finally gone. Iowa St will have to stay not only relevant but very good for it to continue past this year.
I think Kentucky is as close of an out of conference rival as we have at this point. At least the bickering between fan bases over recruiting and everything else under the sun has pushed each and every game into either a deeper hatred for each other. The game in Allen this year figures to be crazy. KU needs revenge for last year and 2012. That is a rivalry that should be considered, The top 2 winning programs in College Basketball history battling every year. It already happens once every 3 years anyway but there’s no reason why it shouldn’t become an every year thing. Both fan-bases don’t like each other, the history behind each school only adds to it.
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"You can’t force a rivalry. Just because they are in state doesn’t mean it would be a rivalry. "
That is my point.
The hatred is there. The borders are close so the fan bases are intertwined.
Right, you can’t force a rivalry.
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@drgnslayr The hatred isn’t there between both schools. My interactions with WSU fans for the most part has been they are either also KU or KSU fans depending on family ties and went to WSU for a specific major, typically engineering.
I also know very few KU fans that truly hate WSU as well. They might not be a Greg Marshall fan, but there’s just not the hatred that exists for Missouri.
Even most rational WSU realize KU isn’t a real rivalry and never will be because they know it’s not in KU’s best interest and understand the reason behind it.
There’s also a lot of KU fans that don’t realize just how few games KU is actually in control of on their schedule. KU has 13 nonconference games on their schedule now with an 18 game Big 12 slate. Out of those 13 games, 4 are against teams for Maui (1 in Lawrence, 3 in Hawaii), the Champions Classic, the Big 12-SEC Challenge, and the game at Sprint Center. That us 7 out of 13 games KU has no control of opponent or location. KU has 6 games to play with on the schedule, each of those 6 games has to serve a purpose, and adding WSU drops that number to 5 and doesn’t add any benefit other than bragging rights. It doesn’t help recruiting because KU already lands any recruit out there they want. It doesn’t help RPI or SOS because KU is regularly in the top 5 or 10 every year, and it doesn’t help KU develop their bench. Reasons 1 and 3 are why KU picks the 6 opponents they do and WSU doesn’t help either one so there’s not a good enough benefit to schedule them for KU.
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The difference is UK/UL GENERATES HUGE EYEBALLS AND RECRUITING BUZZ in the EST, where the eyeballs and recruits are.
We learned from the Fizzou Rivalry, which was as big a rivalry as existed, that it meant little as a recruiting-marketing tool outside the four state region. It did not help talent flow, or national ranking, whether both teams were good or not.
You are right that we need rivalries.
But we need them in the EST. And they don’t want a rivalry game with us for the same reason we don’t want a rivalry game with WSU: location, location, location.
As the B12 stands, our best bets for net benefit rivalries are WVU in the EST and a Texas team.
The B12 has to expand into the EST to solve our need for a rival. I suspect Self keeps scheduling Philly teams to build KU’s viability in that market overtime and lay some groundwork for eastward expansion.
Go east, young man!
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The difference is UK/UL GENERATES HUGE EYEBALLS AND RECRUITING BUZZ in the EST, where the eyeballs and recruits are.
We learned from the Fizzou Rivalry, which was as big a rivalry as existed, that it meant little as a recruiting-marketing tool outside the four state region. It did not help talent flow, or national ranking, whether both teams were good or not.
You are right that we need rivalries.
But we need them in the EST. And they don’t want a rivalry game with us for the same reason we don’t want a rivalry game with WSU: location, location, location.
As the B12 stands, our best bets for rivalries are WVU in the EST and a Texas team.
The B12 has to expand into the EST to solve our need for a rival. I suspect Self keeps scheduling Philly teams to build KU’s viability in that market overtime and lay some groundwork for eastward expansion.
Go east, young man!
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I don’t hate WSU; I just don’t see them as competition so I really do not even dislike them. As a Kansas team, I follow them some and hope they win every game they play, except when they play KU; the hatred is just not there. I don’t even hate KSU, much like WSU I wish them well when they play everybody else; however, I hate MU and I hate Zenger. I don’t even dislike Marshall, He is a very good coach, no question about that, and has done extremely well by the program and I even understand why he says the things he does…much like a politician, he has to say the things that his supporters want to hear.
I would guess that many WSU fans see KU as arrogant and resent that It will not play their school; the WSU fans with whom I have talked about this issue will grudgingly admit that the upside for a KU-WSU series is heavily tilted towards WSU and understand why KU will not agree to it. If you poll members of this forum, which we both can agree is almost uniquely hard core Jayhawk fans, I would be surprised if you find many that hate WSU; my guess…and it is just a guess, is that most don’t hate WSU and like me are mostly indifferent about little brother WSU. IMHO, the hatred to make it a real rivalry is just not there. On the other hand, I can see a real rivalry develop with ISU provided they can stay at a high level; no question the fan bases do not like each other much.
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@JayHawkFanToo the fact Marsha publically called us chicken hawks doesn’t bother anybody?
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It does not bother me as much as it does others although I can see why it would bother some. It is what his fan base wants to hear and he is just following their lead. It is called “pandering” and maybe I am jaded because I see politician do it so often that it no longer has meaning and it is SOP for them. When you have younger siblings you learn to ignore them when they call you names because if you react they go to mom and you end up in trouble. WSU is the kid brother that we just roll up our eyes and ignore when he throws a hissy fit.
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@jaybate-1.0 @drgnslayr @Texas-Hawk-10 @BeddieKU23 @Kcmatt7
I’m not sure KU is looking for a rival in Philly or even for one period. I believe KU goes to Philly for pure experience and the potential recruiting. Think about it Philly is one of the few places HCBS has no problem playing a road game at. Not to mention KU has in deed grabbed some nice talent from the area. It’s no different than Duke and the ACC trying to play as many games in the Madison garden. “Exposure” Only difference KU has to do it alone as nobody else in the Big 12 can travel that far and have enough cache to demand respect and attention.
As fans we must first understand the question before we can find the answer. What is a rival? Is it just hating another school or team? Is it just the amount of games played between each other in history? Is it a school that is in your state or connecting state? Who decides if it’s a rivalry? Is it the media or the fans? A lot of questions to consider.
So was the MU and KU a real rivalry. Maybe, but was it really a rivalry? It was full of hatred no doubt, but it was hate that transcended the two schools, and formed it’s roots in the very nature of hate “slavery”. I know it was called a rivalry, but was it really? KU mopped up the MU basketball program like has so many others. I guess you could say football? I mean KU and MU are pretty much tied even with the recent success of the MU program. Yet when these two hooked up at Arrowhead I’m not sure they even sold out the stadium. In fact I think the second game was a dud as far as fan support goes. I’m not sure Hatred is enough to claim a rivalry.
There was a time Texas was supposed to by KU’s rivalry in basketball. Sure they had some good teams and gave KU a run for it’s money. Yet was it really a rivalry? Was it more Espn trying to push the whole UT and KU rivalry? I guess I just never seen it that way. I always saw Texas as trying to buy what KU already had.
The problem with KU having a rivalry with someone is that the rivalry really only exists if both teams are good. To often a team will rise to the top to challenge KU, only to falter when KU decides to circle that game on the calendar. Iowa st is a fine example. This isn’t it’s first time of the Clones rising up to lock horns with KU. However as KU has taken notice of the Clone threat it will focus on destroying and defeating the Clone nation. The Clones will not and can not survive this KU onslaught. They will falter and fall as their empire will be left in ruins.
You see KU can’t really have any true rivals. For when KU feels a threat from someone they began to focus on that team, that program, and that game. The KU program is like a reaper, it breaths to crush and defeat you. Very few programs can match the strength of KU, none can match the lore. Yet you see Kentucky, Duke, and UNC don’t want that rivalry with KU. HCBS has tried. They instead want to be snipers sneak up on KU every once in awhile in some faraway tournament. They have no desire to play KU head to head every year. Hell UNC doesn’t want to play KU at all. For you see when you have to play KU every year, then KU becomes stronger. KU will take notice of you, study you, find your weakness, begin to break you down, slowly take away you’re will, KU will not only rise to you’re challenge but it will crush and defeat you just like a reaper.
On the serious side KU can’t have a true rivalry in basketball because the more times they play you eventually they start kicking you’re ass until they just get tired of kicking your ass. It would be no different with UK, Duke, or UNC. Throw them in a league with KU and in the end KU will be kicking their asses on a regular biases too.
