Coaches lobby for PR

By Gary Bedore     Mar 6, 2007

Billy Gillispie says the Big 12 office needs to start trumpeting the league’s case for five and six teams in the upcoming NCAA Tournament.

“I don’t think our league does as good a job as our competitors do in marketing the league,” Gillispie, Texas A&M’s coach, said Monday on the league’s weekly coaches’ teleconference.

“They (analysts) are talking about a team in our league that needs to win a game in the conference tournament and has 10 wins? Give me a break,” Gillispie added of Kansas State, considered on the NCAA bubble despite compiling a 10-6 league record and 21-10 overall mark.

Gillispie – who cringes when he hears other leagues deserve seven and eight bids – said the league coaches and players deserve better promotion.

“I think the members are taking care of the league better than the league is taking care of its members in this particular situation,” he said, adding he didn’t know what the answer is, “but some other leagues have it figured out.

“Maybe we need to study other leagues and talk to other leagues and be more proactive instead of reactive because our teams are too good, and players are too good, and our coaches have done a great job.”

When informed of his buddy Gillispie’s comments, KU coach Bill Self jumped into the fray.

“From a coach’s perspective, why would K-State be on the bubble by experts?” Self asked. “I’m not the biggest K-State fan in the state : I do think it’s ridiculous people think they need to win to help themselves. I don’t know what it is. We should look at it to see if something can be done.”

Commissioner Kevin Weiberg told the AP the Big 12 had 35 appearances on ESPN and eight on national broadcast networks this season.

The media relations staff, he told the AP, “provides as much information, as good quality information, as anyone. :

“I know that coaches get frustrated when they see stories being written from time to time about teams with winning conference records potentially being so-called bubble teams, and I understand that frustration and share it. But I do think that you have to, at some point, have to feel like the process is going to take care of some of that, and you have to understand that we’re all working really hard to do the best we can for the conference.”

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