1. Texas finally made it official on Wednesday, hiring Steve Patterson to be the new director of athletics at the school. Patterson is leaving Arizona State after working as that school’s athletic director since March 2012, but he has plenty of ties to the state of Texas. He has a law degree from the Austin campus; he was the general manager of the Houston Rockets from 1989-93; he was senior vice president of the Houston Texans from 1997-2003; and he was part of the group that brought Super Bowl XXXVIII to Houston. A big decision ahead for Patterson will be how he handles the future of head coach Rick Barnes as the program has taken a nosedive the past few seasons. Fortunately for Barnes, Patterson won’t assume his new role until next summer.
2. The promotions staff at Kansas State deserves a million percent raise for their latest ingenious idea. For K-State women’s basketball opener Friday night, the first 1,000 fans that enter the Octagon of Doom with a student ID will receive six slices of bacon in a tray. Kansas State’s sports information director Randy Peterson had this to say on the promotion: “Bacon is very popular.” And frankly, that’s all he needed to say. This man approves.
3. Oklahoma coach Lon Kruger announced Wednesday that the career of junior Keshaun Hamilton may be over before it had a chance to get started. Hamilton, a junior college transfer, has fallen behind Ryan Spangler and Cameron Clark on the Sooner front line but there doesn’t seem to be any playing time coming his way. “He’s kind of thinking through everything right now,” Kruger told the The Oklahoma Daily. “He doesn’t know if he wants to redshirt or go some place D-II right away in January.” As a sophomore at Labette Community College (KS) last year, Hamilton averaged 9.4 points, seven rebounds and 1.3 assists per game. It must be frustrating to arrive at a new place where he thought he’d get some playing time only to find there won’t be any. We wish him the best in his remaining career.
4. SB Nation‘s Ohio State blog, Land-Grant Holy Land, has confirmed a report that several Nike brand schools, including Texas, will wear alternate throwback jerseys in a game or games yet to be determined later this year. Other Nike brands like Kentucky, Michigan State and Duke have throwback jerseys they could honor but… what exactly does Texas have to look back on? I guess they could try to resurrect the jerseys from the T.J. Ford/Final Four year in 2003. Kevin Durant would later wear his #35 with the same style in 2006. Sigh, those were happier times for Longhorns fans.
5. Staying with SB Nation blogs, Wide Right & Natty Light has come up with perhaps the greatest shirt ever known to man just in time for the start of Iowa State’s season. If you’re a fan of the dearly-departed TV series Breaking Bad, then this has you written all over it. It’s Walter White meets Fred Hoiberg and thus creating: Hoisenberg, the hoops kingpin of Ames, Iowa. (!!!) If you’re not interested in buying it, it’s just as awesome to look at for free but if you do, show some love for WRNL and Iowa State hoops.

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 7th, 2013 at 9:01 am by Nate Kotisso and is filed under big 12, microsites, morning 5. Tagged: bacon, breaking bad, fred hoiberg, iowa state, kansas state, keshaun hamilton, lon kruger, oklahoma, ron swanson, steve patterson, texas, throwback jerseys. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.