So what do we call ourselves?  The Big 10 is taken, and the Big 14 is still a couple of backroom deals away.

Texas and the Texettes? The Texas Ten?

Howsabout we keep it simple and refer to it as the Texas Invitational Conference (the TIC)?

It’s true that we all seem to be on that longhorn teat, but I’m not inclined to be bitter, as there’s so much obvious relief throughout the KU and K-state coaching staff and leadership.  They are all pretty clear, this is a good thing for all of us, at least through 2020.

And of course, I am enjoying the schadenfreude of watching Missouri beg the Big 10 to come and get them only to be rejected and have to run back hat-in-hand to the protective shade of the Big 12 where they will continue to get beaten like ugly step children.  In fact, they’ll get it worse now that there’s no B12 North in football — they won’t be competing for any more “division championships.”  The D-North championship is called third place, now.  So suck on that, Slavers.

And now that we can do home and away schedules in basketball, as well as play all 9 teams every year in football, the meaning of the conference championship just got a little bit bigger, which I love.  The NCAA tourney and bowls are obviously the glamorous events, and the big money, etc., but I like the idea that the conference championship matters — it makes each individual game more important than just seedings or invites.

Football has had that right for a long time, because in order to be #1 you basically have to go undefeated.  If you are challenging at that level, the individual games are huge.  Basketball, not so much.  1 through 3 (maybe 4) your seed is mostly just for bragging rights, and since the NCAA tourney is the big prize in every fan’s dreams, those other 30+ games you have to play a year to get there just don’t seem as important as they should.

Basketball season just got a lot tougher, and a lot more fun without the two worst teams in the league.

So apparently it’s all about ‘Merican Football and it’s big TV money, and therfore nobody really gives a shit about secondary revenue sports like basketball.  My most cherished hope is that KU will end up in the Big East or ACC, but the Mountain West (who? … exactly) looks the most likely according to the local rumor mill.

Ugh.

We used to raid our main rival Missouri and kill motherfuckers.  Who will I hate next year?  Can you imagine Rangers getting split off from Celtic?  Galatasaray from Fenerbahce?  River Plate from Boca Juniors?  Shrewsbury Town from Wrexham*?  Those Missouri fuckers burned my town to the ground once.  BYU are just creepy and weird.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

—–

*Not an actual example.

I’m exhibiting a complex secretomotor phenomenon characterized by the shedding of tears from the lacrimal apparatus, without any irritation of the ocular structures in my beer over here. This sucks.

CJ Henry is a better get for the program than his brother Xavier.

I say this for a few reasons. We haven’t seen him really play yet, so we honestly don’t know how good he can be, but we do know that Coach Self recruited him out of high school, so he’s a KU-calibre player. That’s for starters. He didn’t come to KU out of high school because the Yankees offered him, and after a few years in the minors (with a million bucks in his pocket), CJ decided baseball wasn’t for him. He committed to Memphis, but had to sit his Freshman year out injured. When Calipari leaves Memphis, he re-opened his recruitment and ended up with his younger brother at the same school both his parents played for.

So as a side-effect of our intense recruitment of CJ’s younger brother Xavier, we also end up with a 22-year-old legit D1 point guard freshman who doesn’t take up a scholarship. Are you kidding me? The only question is how long we’ll keep him. He does have NBA aspirations and won’t want to be a 27-year-old rookie.

Xavier is almost surely a one-and-done, but unless Xavier is playing in the last game of this season, CJ will have a bigger impact on our program over time.

Here’s what CJ had to say after his first game for the Crimson and Blue:

From KU Sports.com

Henry said he became emotional when watching KU’s pregame video.

“I was like, ‘Man, my dad played here. My brother played here. My mom played here. My aunt played here. Man, this is crazy. We all played here,’” Henry said. “It’s indescribable for your whole family to do one thing.”

OMG! That’s the way my family is about watching the game and eating potato chips!!!!1 We’re almost the same!!!!!111eleven

That’s John Brown taken from the mural that adorns the Kansas capital building, except here he has his National Championship trophy in place of a Bible.

Below is another angle that showcases this brilliant collage in its full and proper context. Imagine you’re a degenerate Slaver, trying to repress the latent guilt of signing for Missouri, while you shoot free throws into the face of John Brown’s righteous fury, framed by a halo of National Championship banners. Rough.

It's still my house, though, right Coach?

This is great news for the ‘Cats — a Kleenix sponsorship means big bucks for the Athletic Dept, which could let them afford to hire some more AAU coaches.

(I know, I know, coughChalmerscoughManningcough).

In other words, putting Frank Martin into stupid photoshopped images is like taking candy from the baby fish in a barrel.

Michael Beasley made Kansas State basketball relevant for the first time in more than a decade last season, and his presence put a few extra dollars in the pocket of the man responsible for luring him to Manhattan, Kan.

That would be Wildcats assistant Dalonte Hill, Beasley’s former AAU coach in the Washington, D.C., area. Hill, entering his sixth season as a college assistant, will make more money for the 2008-09 season than the entire three-man staffs at Ohio State, Washington State and Wisconsin and only $5,000 less than the staff at Texas, a survey done by Rivals.com shows.

$5,000 less than the entire staff at a perennial Big-12 power, who have earned a share of the league title twice in the last four years? Really?

The highest-paid assistant among the 13 schools we studied was North Carolina’s Joe Holladay ($265,000). Fellow Tar Heels assistant Steve Robinson was second ($242,000), and all three Kansas assistants tied for third at $234,000.

Hill is making more than the assistants at programs who won National championships and have been to multiple final fours? Why?

I guess you’d have to say, "nothing succeeds like success," or more accurately, "nothing pays like the fragile hope of success at the end of a very long, very dark tunnel."

But even still, why the fuck would anyone at a non-starter basketball program ever earn that much? Two words: Michael and Beasley.

Bob Huggins lured Hill to Kansas State. Hill was responsible for the recruitment of Beasley, who stuck with his pledge to play for the Wildcats even though Huggins left for West Virginia after just one season.

Hill coached Beasley in the AAU ranks, and Beasley called him "like a big brother." Beasley had committed to Charlotte while Hill was still there. When Huggins lured Hill to K-State, Beasley followed him. By then, Beasley had become the No. 1 prospect in the country.

Beasley, of course, was a one-and-done. A legitimate superstar, he was arguably the best one-and-done in Big-12 history (sorry Durant, but I think it’s true). Beasley helped K-State break the most humiliating losing streak in Men’s College Basketball, and surely helped the program regain if not a swagger, at least a stylish limp. Hell, Beasley even got them an NCAA tournament win (and I’m sure they’ll hang a Round of 32 banner in Bramlage Coliseum).

But now what does K-State do? They hired Head Coach Frank Martin and Delonte Hill in order to get Beasley (mission accomplished, hang that banner too) but now they’re on the hook with unproven coaches and a wonky salary structure.

At $400,000 for five years, was Beasley worth 2 mil? And that’s the hard cost — the "known known". What we won’t know is what K-State might have accomplished with a better coach than Martin. He’s clearly not at K-State because of his ability, he’s there because when Huggins bailed, K-Sate was desparate to keep Beasley. If Martin turns out to be a dud, what is the cost of that? How much long-term gain have you lost because you were chasing One Decent Season?

So far, Martin doesn’t look like half the recruiter Huggins was (maybe he is only half the scumbag Huggins was, Guido hair to the contrary), and things aren’t exactly looking up in Manhattan.

I don’t know how it’s going to end, but it doesn’t take Nostradamus to figure out that K-State sold short, got a brief return and is now looking at their metaphoric house the day after the kegger and wondering who puked in the flowerpot.