Hearne: Twice Maligned, KU’s ‘Whine & Cheese’ Crowd Soldiers On

Former KU basketball coach Roy Williams said it first and arguably best…

After suffering an uninspired home game crowd, Williams said, “The place should never be described as a wine-and-cheese crowd, and that’s what it sounded like out there tonight. If you don’t want to cheer for us, keep your big butts at home.”

Well, in the wake of Oklahoma and Texas announcing that they’re bailing on the Big 12 conference for the SEC (with Mizzou and Texas A&M),  KU’s “big butts” are back.

And it’s high time we call it like it is…

Referring to KU’s big butts as a “wine and cheese crowd” is pretty close to being accurate, but these days they’re more of a “whine and cheese” crowd.

Seriously.

After having lived in Lawrence, Kansas for much of the past decade, I can confirm that KU sports fans – basketball fans primarily – are little more than spoiled snobs.

Having hired basketball deity Bill Self – who has long since mastered the art of what amounts to cheating by most traditional college sports standards – all they really care much about outside of their families, personal wealth and health – is how close the Jayhawk basketball team can get to winning the Big 12 and into the Final Four.

And that’s pretty much it.

Sure, they’ll glom onto the Royals in the rare event that Kansas City’s baseball team halfway matters – and  who wouldn’t get behind Chiefs superstar Patrick Mahomes team?

However, it’s Self’s men’s basketball team that lends Lawrence its primary, claim-to-fame and identity.

Outside of that, they’re just a hipper Kansas college town because they’re closer to KC, not stuck in the middle of Nowhere, Kansas like K-State.

And now that the Big 12 has been diminished by the pending loss of its two highest ranking football teams, it’s become one of those last man out, turn out the lights affairs.

Yet for like 10 years KU has refused to play basketball and football games with Missouri, after MU jilted the Jayhawks and Big 12 by bailing for the SEC. That’s only recently begun to thaw.

Mizzou were little more than traitors, having left Kansas trapped in the precarious and uncertain position of maybe belonging to a conference on the verge of taking a dirt nap.

So out of spite, KU trashed the oldest college football rivalry west of the Mississippi.

Now it’s KU’s turn to leave the other Big 12 conference schools in their dust.

That after a very successful effort to add four new major colleges to get the Big 12 back from 10 to an actual dozen schools. And on the day last week when the big announcement was made that Brigham Young, Cincinnati, Houston and Central Florida would be coming aboard – and everybody involved was celebrating wildly – KU’s newest athletic director was busy letting the world know that the Jayhawks were still trying to get in the Big 10.

Classy… 

So after a decade of trashing Missouri for being  a cheating spouse, turns out imitation is indeed flattery after all.

What’s left of the Lawrence Journal World‘s missing in action sports staff Matt Tait told 365 Sports earlier this week that KU is still kinda committed to the Big 12.

“And I think they are committed to making it as strong as it can be -because the future or the other options are all uncertain right now and nothing is given. So as much as the fan base up here really, really wants to see KU in the Big 10, it may never happen.”

Get it?

KU’s big butts, “really, really wants to see Jayhawks in the Big 10,” Tait said.

“So to me, they would be foolish – anybody in this conference right now would be foolish – to not try to build and build and build and make this thing as attractive as it can be. Because at least for a while, they’re going to need that attractive, you know, resume to shop around and to show to these television networks and their partners and things like that to show that, “We’re still worth giving a boatload of money.’ ”

Tait’s  bottom line on KU staying in the Big 12:

“As much as I think it’s cool to have Central Florida or BYU in the mix, it’s also odd to me. You know, that doesn’t really scream conference togetherness and all of that…And if in two three, five years that means going to the Big 10 because the Big 10 invites ’em, then that’s what they’ll do then. But that’s not the case today.”

Putting things in perspective…

KU fans hated it and felt betrayed when Roy Willams left them high and dry for North Carolina – they’re over that now – and when Missouri left them behind for a big bucks deal with the SEC they really hated that – but now they’ve learned their lesson.”

Last one out turn out the lights…