6B SPORTS
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 21, 2007
VOLLEYBALL
Team takes on Texas Tech
KU looks to even conference record
Andrew Wacker/KANSAN
Katie Martinick, left, and Emily Brown, right, attempt to score against Missouri on Wednesday during a 3-2 victory. The women play Texas Tech at 1 p.m. at Stern in Lawrence
BY RUSTIN DODD
rdodd@kansan.com
After a breakthrough victory at Missouri on Wednesday, the Kansas volleyball team returns home to play Texas Tech at 1 p.m. Saturday, Kansas, 7-5 and 1-2 in the Big 12, will attempt to win its second consecutive conference match. On the other side of the net will be a Texas Tech squad that is 7-5 overall and 1-2 in the Big 12. Kansas lost both matches to Texas Tech last season, falling 3-2 at home and 3-1 in Lubbock, Texas. Texas Tech lost its last match to Texas A&M, 3-2, in College Station, Texas.
KANSAS OFFENSE
Kansas is last in the Big 12 conference with a .180 hitting percentage. Coach Ray Bechard said he wanted his team's hitting percentage to be in the .220 to .240 range. Texas Tech might be the ideal opponent for Kansas to get its offense in gear. The Red Raiders are dead-last in the Big 12 in defense. They allow opponents to hit .220 against them.
Freshman outside hitter Jenna
Kaiser still leads Kansas with 2.52 kills per game, but sophomore Brittany Williams has been
the jayhawk's most efficient offensive player. Williams leads the regulars with a .265 hitting percentage, and the second year player notched a team-high 15 kills
Kaiser
against Missouri on Wednesday.
Kansas is employing a new two-setter offensive system this season, so senior Emily Brown and sophomore Katie Martincich have been sharing the workload at that position. Brown leads Kansas with 6.71 assists per game, while Martincich, the team's assistant last year, has contributed 4.45 assists per game.
KANSAS DEFENSE
Freshman libero Melissa Manda has put together a solid rookie effort thus far. Manda leads the Jayhawks with 3.78 digs per game, while Martincich has been active on defense as well, tallying 2.57 digs per game.
Edited by Jeff Briscoe
COLLEGE FOOTBALL
Hard seasons may be vital for small schools' funding
BY THOR NYSTROM
tnystrom@kansan.com
When Florida International leaves Memorial Stadium on Saturday night, it will reach the end of the college football equivalent of a death march. The Panthers played at Penn State in week one, took on Maryland in the Orange Bowl in week two and played Miami in the same venue last week — and lost by a combined 79 points to those three teams. They will travel to Fayetteville in late October to play Arkansas.
In the Sun Belt Conference, such brutal nonconference slates can be necessary to subsidize football programs. Schools from BCS conferences call looking to schedule easy home victories against this Division 1-A conference. Most don't want to make a return trip.
The demand of BCS schools looking to book Sun Belt teams has at times created a bidding process that has guaranteed payouts regularly reaching $750,000.
"That conference will play games for a guarantee," KU Senior Associate Addis
Larry Keating said. "The other non-BCS leagues are less inclined to play for a guarantee. They do that because as a group their budgets are typically
not as healthy as a lot of the other 1-A schools"
Garcia
This can make Pete Garcia, Florida International's athletics director, a very popular man.
"I have had so many schools call that wanted to play us," Garcia said.
this will include six home games a season. Garcia is aided by a new oncampus stadium set to open for next football season.
Garcia, however, said he took tne FIU post one year ago with the caveat that he could construct the schedule to his liking. Eventually,
The Sun Belt passed a rule in May to prevent teams from filling their nonconference schedule with BCS
road games. The legislation states that schools must play a minimum of 11 home games during a two-year period.
This will decrease guar-
anteed games and increase
home-and-home and two-for-one
contracts, which
uncommon for Sun Belt teams to play four home games in a season.
"There's a big demand on the group of schools that are willing to play away...So what does that do? It drives the price up."
Garcia said he wouldn't have difficulty coaxing large schools to come to Miami because it's in the middle of one of the country's most fertile recruiting grounds. He is locked
LARRY KEATING
Senior Associate Athletics Director
will get larger schools into Sun Belt venues.
But it also will decrease the available games for those schools to accept guarantees from BCS schools. This has ratcheted up the bidding war for the available games, with guarantees now inching closer to $1 million every year.
"There's a big demand on the group of schools that are willing to play away," Keating said. "There is a lot of opportunity and not many teams that will do it. So what does that do? It drives the price up."
The University of Kansas has been able to secure Sun Belt teams at relative bargain prices the last few years. Louisiana-Monroe accepted $500,000 plus expenses to play in Lawrence last year. Florida International's original contract called for $400,000 to do the same.
It is now common to see Sun Belt teams play five home and seven away games each season. Before Aug. 1, 2004, when the NCAA began enforcing legislation that required each Division I-A school to play five home games a year, it was not
into some of the past administration's schedules, however, including this year's brutal slate and future dates at Kansas, Iowa, Alabama, South Florida, Florida and Maryland in coming years.
"When I took this over it wasn't
going to be an option for us to have one road game and get a big paycheck anymore," Garcia said. "We are going to get home and homes. We won't do two-for-ones, and I am not interested in guaranteed games."
John McElwain, Sun Belt director of media relations, said an increase in home games would naturally lead to occasional upsets of BCS programs that increase media attention. In the past three years, Troy has upset a ranked Missouri team and Oklahoma State in home games on national TV.
"You can go on the road and make a substantial amount of money doing it." McElwain said. "The money is obviously very important, but selling tickets at home is also a way that can balance the budget."
With the Sun Belt's eight teams having at most two open spots on the schedule to fulfill such requests and some refusing to even consider it, BCS teams will continue a bidding war to secure dates.
Edited by Amelia Freidline