Jug Of News (05.25.12)

Welcome to our humble abode. Pull up a seat and grab a glass for a sip from today’s Jug of News. Hit the jump for Victor Ojeleye getting some very well-deserved accolades, a purple Sweet 16, the Bat Cats taking a page from the songbook of the brothers Gibb, and much more.

I would be remiss if I didn’t lead off this edition of the JOS daily newspaper with a mention of Victor Ojeleye. Victor is a truly outstanding young man, of great character. Yesterday, he was rewarded for that character, in the form of the Arthur Ashe Jr. Sports Scholar Award. Congratulations to Victor on this achievement.

Another fine example of a Kansas State student-athlete is Petra Niedermayerova, who won her round of 32 match yesterday against 16th-ranked Diana Nakic of Baylor, by a final count of 4-6, 6-3, 6-3. Petra is the first K-State Tennis player to advance to the Sweet 16 since 1998. The win  avenged an earlier 3-set loss to Nakic in Wamego, Kansas.

As mentioned in the lead, the Bat Cats did their best Bee Gee’s impression yesterday morning, thumping the Oklahoma State Cowboys by a final score of 11-5. Flattery again pitched well for the Cats, and the Wildcat bullpen did not let them down this time. The team will now face off against the Baylor Bears, who lost a 3-2 heartbreaker later in the day to Oklahoma. Thus far this season, K-State is 0-4 against Baylor, but two of the losses have been extremely competitive, with one being decided by only one run in 11 innings. A loss would end the Wildcats’ season.

In some miscellaneous news and notes, ESPN’s Big 12 blogger David Ubben took a look at how much the various conference commissioners make. The information on the Big 12 only included Dan Beebe’s tenure, and suffice to say, he was paid too much ($1.7 million/year) to do too little (nearly destroy the conference). Ubben also declared who each Big 12 team’s  “most indispensable player” is. In the least surprising news ever, he picked Collin Klein as K-State’s example.

On the “where are they now” front, former K-State defensive back Troy Butler signed to play for the CFL’s B.C. Lions.

And finally, Kansas State President Kirk Schulz sent out his 49th “Monthly Letter to Campus.” It’s worth a read.