The Kansas City baseball franchise laughingly referred to as "Major League" continues its slide into history.

A competent organization would actually fire it's current general manager before offering his job to someone else.

Not the Pathetics, however, as the Kansas City Star's Joe Posnanski writes:

David Glass has done one impressive thing. He has offered his general manager’s job to Dayton Moore. True, you would have liked to see Glass mention something about this to his current general manager first. But in any case, Moore is admired throughout baseball. He would make a terrific choice. Many people around the game are impressed (and stunned) that Glass was even able to get Moore to listen to a Royals offer.

Update: The Pathetics lost today (Sunday) to the Yankees, 6-5.

Valparaiso leaves the Mid-Continent Conference for the Horizon League.

The Horizon League will now have ten members.  But what happens to the Mid-Con?  Down to seven members, the minimum number to keep their NCAA basketball tournament automatic bid, the Mid-Con has to pick up members.  Top candidates are Indiana-Purdue Ft. Wayne, North Dakota State, and my alm mater South Dakota State.

Stay tuned . . .

I'm spending a lot of time tweaking the new discussion board for South Dakota State University athletics over on my other site, SDSUFans.com.

So says Jack Shafer in Slate:

I'm happy to report that Challenger's estimate is as loosey-goosey as they come. For one thing, he misjudges the size of the dedicated college hoops audience. In 2005, for instance, the NCAA championship game drew 23.1 million households, according to Nielsen. The year before, only 16.6 million households tuned in to the championship game, which indicates that many so-called fans have only a casual interest in the tournament. Many are happy to tune out the tournament's biggest game if it's a blowout, or if the matchup doesn't interest them. Also, many nonfans and casual fans who participant in office pools experience reduced interest in the tournament as it proceeds and the teams they bet on get knocked out.

Since I've evolved beyond "productivity" those 40 or 50 hours or so I spent watching the NCAA men's and women's tournament games this weekend (and an hour or two watching the NIT to boot) had no effect--as you can easily see by how my posting here at Medary.com didn't drop off at all . . . er . . . well . . . um . . .

Never mind.

Here is the current pool of new NCAA Division I schools which are available for conferences in need of members (if any) (GWFC = Great West Football Conference; UBC = United Basketball Conference, a scheduling agreement beginning play in 2006-07):

Current Full D-I Independents
IPFW (no football/Independent(UBC))
Savannah State (football/Independent)
Texas A&M-Corpus Christi (accepted to Southland-all sports)
Texas-Pan American (no football/Independent (UBC))

Class of '07
UC Davis (GWFC/Big West)
Longwood (No football/Independent)
Northern Colorado (Big Sky-all sports)

Class of '08
North Dakota State (GWFC/Independent(UBC))
South Dakota State (GWFC/Independent(UBC))

Class of '09
New Jersey Institute of Technology (No football/Independent(UBC))
Kennesaw State (No football/Atlantic Sun)
North Florida (No football/Atlantic Sun)
Utah Valley State (No football/Independent(UBC))

Class of '10
Central Arkansas (Southland-all sports)
Cal State Bakersfield (Independent)
Winston-Salem State (Independent)

Announced move (but haven't turned in NCAA paperwork yet)
Florida Gulf Coast
North Carolina Central

Announced studies of D-I (Possible Class of '11)
Francis Marion
North Dakota
Presbyterian (need link)
South Carolina-Upstate
Southern Illinois-Edwardsville

Rumored to be looking at D-I (i.e. no announced study)
St. Cloud State (need link)
Northern Kentucky (need link)

NOT going D-I (with link to announcement)
North Alabama
South Dakota

The United Basketball Conference is a newbie NCAA Division I conference formed of newbie NCAA Division I schools. It officially starts play in 2006-07, but I thought I'd get a head start, with this Sunday roundup of the UBC.

UBC Standings

Men
Utah Valley State	4-2	.667		14-12	.538
IPFW	2-1	.667		7-17	.292
North Dakota State	3-2	.600		15-11	.577
South Dakota State	3-2	.600		8-17	.320
New Jersey Tech	0-0	.000		7-19	.269
Texas-Pan American	0-4	.000		7-20	.259
Women
South Dakota State	5-0	1.000		17-8	.680
Utah Valley State	1-0	1.000		10-13	.435
North Dakota State	1-3	.250		8-15	.348
Texas-Pan American	1-3	.250		6-19	.240
IPFW	1-3	.250		3-20	.130
New Jersey Tech	0-0	.000		15-10	.600

UBC Results, February 13-19
(UBC games in Bold)

Men
Feb. 13
Middle Tennessee State 89, South Dakota State 82 (OT)
Feb. 14
Holy Family 67, New Jersey Tech 61
Feb. 15
IPFW 79, Texas A&M-Corpus Christi 64
North Texas 84, Texas-Pan American 45
Feb. 18
Utah Valley State 70, Johnson & Wales-Denver 42
South Dakota State 67, North Dakota State 65
Caldwell 82, New Jersey Tech 70

Women
Feb. 13
South Dakota State 71, Texas A&M-Corpus Christi 48
Feb. 14
Holy Family 68, New Jersey Tech 56
Feb. 15
Texas-Pan American 71, Huston-Tillotson 38
Feb. 16
Utah Valley State 91, Texas A&M-Corpus Christi 78
Feb. 18
IPFW 62, Texas-Pan American 46
South Dakota State 77, North Dakota State 55
Caldwell 52, New Jersey Tech 45

UBC Schedule, February 20-March 4
(UBC games in Bold)
Men
Feb. 20
IPFW at Northern Colorado
Texas A&M-Corpus Christi at Texas-Pan American
Feb. 21
Idaho State at Utah Valley State
Feb. 22
South Dakota State at IPFW
Mary at North Dakota State
Feb. 25
Utah Valley State at Northern Colorado
South Dakota State at Texas-Pan American
Post at New Jersey Tech
Feb. 26
North Dakota State at IPFW
Feb. 27
Texas-Pan American at Texas A&M-Corpus Christi
Mar. 1
Texas-Pan American at IPFW
Mar. 3
South Dakota State at San Diego State
Mar. 4
Utah Valley State at Longwood
Mar. 5
South Dakota State at Cal State Fullerton

Women
Feb. 21
Northern Colorado at Utah Valley State
Wayne State (MI) at IPFW
Georgian Court at New Jersey Tech
Feb. 23
Texas-Pan American at Texas A&M-Corpus Christi
Feb. 24
South Dakota State at IPFW
North Dakota State at Utah Valley State
Feb. 25
Post at New Jersey Tech
Feb. 26
North Dakota State at IPFW
Feb. 27
Texas-Pan American at Oregon State
Feb. 28
South Dakota State at UC Riverside
Mar. 1
Utah Valley State at IPFW
Mar. 3
Texas A&M-Corpus Christi at IPFW
Central State (OH) at South Dakota State
Mar. 4
Utah Valley State at Texas-Pan American
Central State (OH) at North Dakota State

South Dakota State University has suspended two basketball players pending an investigation of sexual assault:

BROOKINGS - Two South Dakota State University men's basketball players have been suspended from the team and a report of a sexual assault in a campus dormitory room is being investigated.

Mohamed Berte, 22, and Andre Gilbert, 20, will not be permitted to practice or play with the team until the University Police Department investigation is completed, SDSU officials said Wednesday.

No arrests have been made and no charges have been filed against either player, according to Brookings County State's Attorney Clyde Calhoon.

Bad news for a men's basketball program that was already reeling. Worse news for the alleged victim, of course.

Innocent until proven guilty for the two players, however.

Coming soon to your web browser:

sdsufans.com

A fan site for South Dakota State University's Jackrabbits.

sdsufans.com will be a sister site to Medary.com. Lots of details about sdsufans.com yet to be determined (like basically everything). Right now it's just one page of links to other sites. Planning has just begun.

If you've got ideas, either sign on here at Medary.com and post them as replies to this article, or post them to the SDSU discussion group thread.

It will be a few weeks before the RPI settles down, but this Monday finds South Dakota State at #64.

The Jackrabbits' opponents:
#24 -- Kentucky (L)
#207 -- Northern Colorado (W)
#47 -- Illinois (L)

Up next:
#212 -- Southeast Missouri State
#212 -- Cal State Fullerton

Thanksgiving week finds SDSU Jackrabbits winter sports cranking up, with both basketball teams in action, wrestling off for the week, and the swim teams idle until January.

Men's Basketball
After facing two of the top twenty teams in the country and coming away with a 1-2 record, Scott Nagy's Rabbits have two home games this week. On Thanksgiving Day night, SDSU hosts Southeast Missouri State in the Jackrabbits' home opener. Medary.com sees a home opener win from this young and entertaining Jackrabbits team against the SEMO Redhawks.

Then, next Monday night, the 28th, the Rabbits host a Cal State Fullerton team which is picked to win the Big West Conference. The Titans present a big challenge for the Jacks in the first of this home-and-home matchup (the Jacks play their final season game at Fullerton). It will be an upset, but we'll root for the Rabbits to successfully defend the home court against the Titans.

Women's Basketball
After a big win against Nebraska and a disappointing squeaker loss to Drake, Aaron Johnston's squad heads to Ft. Collins with a 1-1 record to participate in Colorado State's Coors Rocky Mountain Invitational. The Jacks play Colorado State on Friday night Nov. 25. The Rams are picked to finish fifth in the Mountain West Conference behind Utah, New Mexico, TCU, and UNLV. This is another winnable game for the Jackrabbits.

The Jackrabbits then play the Anteaters of UC Irvine on Monday night, Nov. 27th. The Anteaters are the fifth place pick by the coaches of the Big West Conference. Medary.com sees another win for the Rabbits against the Anteaters.

The next home action for the Rabbits is against Middle Tennessee State on Dec. 2.

Wrestling
The Jackrabbits are off until the Cliff Keen Invitational, December 2-3 in Las Vegas.

Women's Swimming and Diving
The new Mid-Continent member Jackrabbits are off until a January 13th dual with Northern Colorado in Greeley.

Men's Swimming and Diving
The Mid-Con Rabbit men's swim team is off until a January 14th dual at Denver.