Winners and Losers: Good vibes for Kansas State

WINNERS

1.) KANSAS STATE OFFENSE: Keeping Collin Klein at Kansas State despite serious overtures from Notre Dame is a huge move for the Wildcats, and that keeps hopes high for K-State for the 2023 season.

2) SUNFLOWER STATE SECOND HALVES: It wasn’t just Kansas State sprinting past Iowa State in the second half in Bramlage Coliseum. Kansas did the same at Allen Fieldhouse to complete a comeback versus Baylor.

3.) YORMARK: I keep saying that K-State is in good hands and I mean it. Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark is accomplishing everything he set out to do. He wanted to secure a lucrative media rights deal, and Big 12 members are earning far more per school than most anticipated. Yormark also was one of the main figures in negotiations that paved way for an early exit from Texas and Oklahoma. Though they will lose the two bread-winners, they are being compensated heavily for it and will erase the the deficit that the league’s schools were about to face in 2023 and 2024. The next step is expansion to the west, and even Pac-12 reporters are becoming paranoid that he might be successful in doing so.

4) JAREEM: Kansas State fans are lucky that Jareem Dowling represents their school, much the same way that they are for having Jerome Tang. He’s a great assistant for K-State and he brings life, energy and positivity to the Wildcats. He is a great personality and someone that has a smile and graciousness about him that is contagious. It was awesome to see him in the Markquis Nowell shirt just released by Charlie Hustle before the Kansas State matchup with Iowa State. I wouldn’t be shocked if he was rocking the Keyontae Johnson version in pregame on Tuesday.

5) RED RAIDERS: All of a sudden, Texas Tech has woke up. Not only did they knock off K-State last week, they have a comeback win over Iowa State after being down by 23, upset Texas in Lubbock and just defeated West Virginia in Morgantown. They’re inching closer to a potential NCAA Tournament berth. It isn’t unrealistic to think that they could sneak into the field.

This ⁦@TexasTechMBB⁩ team healthy is an NCAA team. Has to win 3 of 4 and one in KC. Doable. pic.twitter.com/unm9qV3KEl

— Fran Fraschilla (@franfraschilla) February 19, 2023

LOSERS

1) NEW MEXICO STATE: Whenever a program has to shut a season down because of drama within the locker room, it is never a good sign. The New Mexico State basketball program has nosedived. They will not play a game the remainder of the year due to hazing allegations, and they were already dealing with one of the players on the team murdering a student from another university a few months ago.

2) KLIAVKOFF: There are rumors that George Kliavkoff is also on the hot seat as the Pac-12 commissioner, and his league has been drug throughout the media circles for being unable to secure a television rights deal. In fact, his biggest supporters have now flipped on him.

3) FIGHTING IRISH: Unfortunately for Marcus Freeman, Notre Dame came up empty on their offensive coordinator search. They were unable to snag Collin Klein from Kansas State and the school wouldn’t handle the buyout for Utah’s Andy Ludwig. Because of that, the Fighting Irish resorted to promoting tight ends coach Gerad Parker. He was previously fired by Neal Brown at West Virginia.

4) ONE-SEED: Perhaps there is enough time for them to improve upon their NCAA Tournament seed, but there is a possibility that TCU is an 8-seed or a 9-seed in March. If so, I wouldn’t want to be that top seed that would have to play them on the first weekend. The Horned Frogs are one of the best teams in the country when they are at full health. We saw a glimpse of that when they smoked Oklahoma State on Saturday when Mike Miles returned. K-State has felt the wrath of TCU before when they faced them in Fort Worth.

5.) UNC: Hubert Davis basically brought back his entire team that advanced the national championship game a year ago. For them to be 0-9 in quad one games and likely on their way to missing the NCAA Tournament is quite a disaster for North Carolina.

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