Still talking about that Wichita State move to the AAC. Wanna know why the AAC wanted the Shockers? Basketball. In comparing home attendance for all schools currently in the AAC and adding Wichita State, the Shockers lead the league in attendance with an average of 10,739. The closest were Cincinnati at 9,885, Memphis 9,623 and UConn at 8,505. At the other end of the scale, Tulane averaged only 1,707 sad folks being tied to their chairs and forced to watch the Green Wave! The AAC as a whole had only 18 sellouts. Wichita State themselves had 14. The Shockers, all by themselves, will create a jump in attendance, especially at Tulsa who averaged only 4,325 fans this past season.
The Big Shots like to tell us that the Southeastern Conference is the best football conference in the country. Maybe, maybe not. However, they ARE the leading conference as far as football player arrests go in the past five years. The SEC takes six of the top ten spots for number of players arrested. Florida is #2, Georgia #3, Texas A&M #3 (tie) Missouri and Ole Miss are tied at # 6 and Tennessee is # 10. The Big 12 leads with Oklahoma at #5, Iowa State tied for # 6 along with West Virginia. Kansas? WAY down the list at #23. K-State? There still at practice with old man Snyder!
The new pitching regulations issued for this year by the KSHSAA are having a huge impact on the high school games, especially at the 4A level and down through 2A. Very few of those schools have enough pitchers, enough arms, to get through a week of two doubleheaders. Many schools have just one competent ace and then it goes downhill pretty fast after that. The result has been a ton of high scoring games. Look for that to continue, especially as we get into sub-state and state championship games. Protecting arms of high school pitchers is an admirable thing but it seems like these new regulations are somewhat making a mockery of the game. Will teams adjust in the coming years or will the regulations be softened? Stay tuned.
The University of Missouri is continuing to see a decline in enrollment, resulting in three more dorms having to be shut down, due to the 2015 racially charged campus protests that saw some of their faculty leading the protests. This trend brings the total number of dorms that will be shut down next year to seven, while other universities are struggling to find room for new students.
The Mizzou faithful have rebelled, backing off in their giving and backing off in sending their children to become young Tigers. Meanwhile opponents of the “Political Correct Crowd” are cheering. It is an apt lesson for other schools and their administrators. In particular, the University of California at Berkley. Eventually, radical, out of control behavior WILL come back to bite you!
A perusal of last Saturday afternoon’s tv schedule showed a ton of Spring college football games being televised. In case you’ve been accused of “not having a life” and actually watched one of these “practice” games, they are pretty boring. Nevertheless, some 85,00 bored Buckeye fans showed up in Columbus to see what Ohio State would offer come September. Much to Husker fans dismay, Nebraska was relegated to second place in the Spring Game warfare with only 78,000 in attendance in Lincoln. I’m not sure what the joy in watching the quarterbacks NOT get hit is! Seems like quite a kerfuffle about nothing!
I met this cowboy at the ball game. He was wearing a paper hat, paper waistcoat and paper trousers. He was wanted for rustling!
Buddy Tabler is a guest columnist for the Great Bend Tribune and his views don’t necessarily reflect those of the paper. He can be reached at budtabler@gmail.com.
