Winners and Losers: Kansas State hosts major visit weekend
KSO covers the biggest winners and losers in the world of Kansas State and college athletics.
Winners
1.) Visitor weekend: Kansas State hosted transfers Baba Miller and CJ Jones on official visits over the weekend. The Wildcats have plenty of spots available and a lot of production to replace. They’ve already landed a big fish in Michigan transfer Dug McDaniel.
2.) Football portal: Ready for double-barrel action? The football transfer portal opens on Monday. K-State head coach Chris Klieman voiced confidence that they are prepared to play defense. They know college athletics is what it is at this point but feel that they have improved the NIL situation to a point they can retain a lot of the players they want.
3.) Mittie: The biggest winner of the week might be Kansas State head coach Jeff Mittie. Wildcat star Ayoka Lee has elected to return to Manhattan for one more season.
4.) Win/win/win: Ever heard of a win/win situation? How about a win/win/win situation? John Calipari gets to go somewhere where he will be much happier after falling out of favor with Kentucky fans. Kentucky gets off the financial hook and doesn’t have to pay him a ton of money to leave. Arkansas, who hired Calipari, gets to save face after being turned down publicly a handful of times. K-State head coach Jerome Tang turned down the Razorbacks.
5.) Pope: Not the actual pope. Mark Pope. The former BYU coach and new Kentucky head coach gets to coach his alma-mater.
Losers
1.) Mitch Barnhart: I’m still putting Kentucky athletic director Mitch Barnhart in the loser column for deciding to keep Calipari only for him to leave a few weeks later. It worked out wonderfully for him, especially from a financial standpoint, but you’re Kentucky and were tossed around a bit by multiple coaches.
2.) Bat Cats: Kansas State is no longer hot on the diamond. They’re downright cold. Since defeating Texas in the series opener, Pete Hughes and his crew have lost six of seven.
3.) Coaching openings: It was not a good year to hire a basketball coach. Nearly everyone was turned down multiple times and got far from their first choice. USC and Michigan probably did with Eric Musselman and Dusty May. But Louisville, Kentucky, Arkansas, SMU, Oklahoma State, West Virginia, Vanderbilt and others got told ‘no’ at least a few times. And Ohio State pulled a Texas and just turned the interim head coach into the permanent one.
4.) Razorbacks: Speaking of Calipari, he admitted that he doesn’t even have a team right now in Fayetteville. That’s a sign of the times. The new coach will have to build an entire new roster at Arkansas.
5.) Recruiting battles: They won’t win them all. K-State is off to a good start, but they still fell short in pursuit of Mikeal Brown-Jones. Chris Beard and Ole Miss swiped him on an official visit to Oxford.
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