More than 15 minutes after the final horn, thousands of Kansas State fans lingered in the stands to savor a hard-earned victory.

No floor-rushing celebrations, no hopping on the scorer’s table, just a loud, sustained ovation.

Even against the nation’s No. 1 team, Kansas State and its fans, many wearing fake beards in homage to high-scoring Jacob Pullen, expected to win.

Jamar Samuels scored 15 of his 20 points in a dominating first half and the Wildcats (No. 9 ESPN/USA Today, No. 10 AP) withstood a gut check rally to knock off top-ranked Texas 71-62 on Monday night.

“Teams rush floors when they do something phenomenal,” said Kansas State forward Curtis Kelly, who had 17 points and eight rebounds against one college basketball’s best front lines. “It’s flattering. They knew we were going to win. They didn’t have to rush the floor because they believed in us.”

Click here to read the full article – By Associated Press of ESPN.com

Major League Baseball commissioner Bud Selig admitted at baseball’s quarterly meetings that he agonized over the statement he put out in reference to Mark McGwire’s admission that he took steroids during a good portion of his career.


Selig was unwilling to take his commissioner hat off and give his reaction to McGwire’s statement as a baseball fan.

“Look, I am the commissioner,” Selig said. “My public statement, which I wrote over and over and over, says exactly how I feel on the matter. I just don’t want to add to that. I painstakingly went over it. I went over and over it while I watched the Packers game Sunday night. They gave up so many points and scored so many that I had about five hours to re-write it about 100 times.”

Selig said he found out McGwire was going to speak up about his steroid use before the public did.

“I knew beforehand, but not much,” he said. “I’ve talked a lot about it to [St. Louis Cardinals manager Tony LaRussa] and [Cardinals owner] Bill DeWitt. We’ve talked about it since they made him their hitting coach.”

Click here to read the full article – By Bruce Levine of ESPNChicago.com

As expected, the Kansas City Chiefs have officially hired Romeo Crennel to be their new defensive coordinator, a source close to the situation tells ESPN NFL Insider Adam Schefter.

Crennel, who replaces Clancy Pendergast, reunites with general manager Scott Pioli and offensive coordinator Charlie Weis, who all worked together in New England during their Super Bowl runs. Weis was hired by Kansas City last week following his ouster as Notre Dame’s coach.

The Chiefs informed Pendergast early Wednesday that they would be terminating his contract one year after hiring him from Arizona, sources close to the situation told Schefter. Potential landing spots for Pendergast could include Atlanta, which did not renew the contract of defensive backs coach Emmitt Thomas.

Crennel will not start work for Kansas City for a couple of weeks because of a prior commitment — he’ll be the head coach of the East Team in the East-West college football all-star game on Jan. 23 in Orlando, Fla.


Click here to read the full article – By of ESPN.com