AMES, Iowa | If all goes well, Kansas State may be only hours from solidifying a spot in the NCAA Tournament for the first time in more than a decade.
Or maybe you already think that the Wildcats should be an NCAA Tournament lock, no matter what happens at 3 this afternoon against Iowa State at Hilton Coliseum, based on freshman basketball player Michael Beasley?s star power.
That train of thought is a bunch of hooey, if you want to listen to what one former Selection Committee member has to say.
?He (Beasley) shouldn?t make the difference. You shouldn?t leap-frog over a more worthy team because of an individual star,? said Doug Elgin, Missouri Valley Conference commissioner. ?I don?t think they?ll say, ?Team X has this great player, let?s put them in the field.? It doesn?t work that way.?
Beasley, the 6-foot-10 standout who tops the nation in rebounding and is third in scoring for the Wildcats, has no issue with that line of thinking.
?It shouldn?t be about me. It should be about us,? Beasley said.
CBS analyst Billy Packer noted that not all great players get a free pass to the NCAA Tournament.
?Pete Maravich never played in the NCAA Tournament, and he?s a guy whose numbers never will be duplicated,? Packer said about Maravich, whose 44.2 points-per-game career average at LSU helped mold his legendary status beginning in the late 1960s. ?LSU didn?t get in just because of who he was.?
Of course, the NCAA Tournament was a different animal in those days. It?s a real revenue-producing machine now compared with that era.
Maybe that?s why there?s chatter around the water cooler and on the Internet about K-State having a wild card in Beasley, who can be so dominating that there?s absolutely no way the Selection Committee would bar such a draw from the 65-team field.
But who knows for sure if K-State, 19-10 overall and 9-6 in the Big 12, has done enough to end its 12-year NCAA Tournament drought? And those who have a hand in March Madness aren?t coming out and saying that a marquee player is a guarantee to be in the field.
Next Wednesday, George Mason athletic director Tom O?Connor will chair the Selection Committee as it begins its meetings in Indianapolis. Uh, your thoughts on the Beaz, Tom?
?I wouldn?t want to comment on any particular team or player right now,? O?Connor said, adding, ?what we look at is things like who you play, where you play and how you did.?
Wildcats senior guard Clent Stewart isn?t convinced that having Beasley on the roster gives K-State a boost in the Selection Committee?s eyes.
?We just have to win games,? Stewart said. ?If we lose, it doesn?t matter who?s on our team because they won?t be looking at us.?
Mike Aresco, senior vice president of programming at NCAA Tournament rights holder CBS, has heard conspiracy theorists lay out the possibility that his network plays a role in determining who makes it and who doesn?t based on players or teams.
?It would be great to have somebody like Michael Beasley in the tournament,? Aresco said. ?But we have nothing to do with that (selection) process. That isn?t even worth a comment.?
But should star power be included in the conversation when the Selection Committee huddles up to make its decisions?
?Bottom line, a player is part of the consideration because of his team,? Elgin said. ?The player, the coach, are all part of a team?s profile, its portfolio. And I don?t think any team should be judged to be one of the top 34 (at-large spots) unless they really are.?
And as much as Aresco says CBS doesn?t have influence over the Selection Committee, there?s no confusion as to whether the network would welcome a personality like Beasley to its airwaves.
?It definitely has been a vintage year for freshmen,? Aresco said, ?and this would be a great platform for him. No doubt with marquee names, and teams
Or maybe you already think that the Wildcats should be an NCAA Tournament lock, no matter what happens at 3 this afternoon against Iowa State at Hilton Coliseum, based on freshman basketball player Michael Beasley?s star power.
That train of thought is a bunch of hooey, if you want to listen to what one former Selection Committee member has to say.
?He (Beasley) shouldn?t make the difference. You shouldn?t leap-frog over a more worthy team because of an individual star,? said Doug Elgin, Missouri Valley Conference commissioner. ?I don?t think they?ll say, ?Team X has this great player, let?s put them in the field.? It doesn?t work that way.?
Beasley, the 6-foot-10 standout who tops the nation in rebounding and is third in scoring for the Wildcats, has no issue with that line of thinking.
?It shouldn?t be about me. It should be about us,? Beasley said.
CBS analyst Billy Packer noted that not all great players get a free pass to the NCAA Tournament.
?Pete Maravich never played in the NCAA Tournament, and he?s a guy whose numbers never will be duplicated,? Packer said about Maravich, whose 44.2 points-per-game career average at LSU helped mold his legendary status beginning in the late 1960s. ?LSU didn?t get in just because of who he was.?
Of course, the NCAA Tournament was a different animal in those days. It?s a real revenue-producing machine now compared with that era.
Maybe that?s why there?s chatter around the water cooler and on the Internet about K-State having a wild card in Beasley, who can be so dominating that there?s absolutely no way the Selection Committee would bar such a draw from the 65-team field.
But who knows for sure if K-State, 19-10 overall and 9-6 in the Big 12, has done enough to end its 12-year NCAA Tournament drought? And those who have a hand in March Madness aren?t coming out and saying that a marquee player is a guarantee to be in the field.
Next Wednesday, George Mason athletic director Tom O?Connor will chair the Selection Committee as it begins its meetings in Indianapolis. Uh, your thoughts on the Beaz, Tom?
?I wouldn?t want to comment on any particular team or player right now,? O?Connor said, adding, ?what we look at is things like who you play, where you play and how you did.?
Wildcats senior guard Clent Stewart isn?t convinced that having Beasley on the roster gives K-State a boost in the Selection Committee?s eyes.
?We just have to win games,? Stewart said. ?If we lose, it doesn?t matter who?s on our team because they won?t be looking at us.?
Mike Aresco, senior vice president of programming at NCAA Tournament rights holder CBS, has heard conspiracy theorists lay out the possibility that his network plays a role in determining who makes it and who doesn?t based on players or teams.
?It would be great to have somebody like Michael Beasley in the tournament,? Aresco said. ?But we have nothing to do with that (selection) process. That isn?t even worth a comment.?
But should star power be included in the conversation when the Selection Committee huddles up to make its decisions?
?Bottom line, a player is part of the consideration because of his team,? Elgin said. ?The player, the coach, are all part of a team?s profile, its portfolio. And I don?t think any team should be judged to be one of the top 34 (at-large spots) unless they really are.?
And as much as Aresco says CBS doesn?t have influence over the Selection Committee, there?s no confusion as to whether the network would welcome a personality like Beasley to its airwaves.
?It definitely has been a vintage year for freshmen,? Aresco said, ?and this would be a great platform for him. No doubt with marquee names, and teams
