Latest KU vs. MU hoops border war schooled us in the new language of college sports • Kansas Reflector

Many college basketball fans in Kansas and Missouri will remember Sunday’s game between the Jayhawks and Tigers in Columbia for a few years. There was history to digest from Mizzou’s 76-67 win. 

First, there was KU’s dropping two games as the national No. 1 in one week to unranked opponents. That hasn’t happened to any team since 2003. 

Years from now, Tigers fans might still treasure their first win over a No. 1 since 1997, and that last win was against KU as well (when I was, oddly enough, a student at Missouri). 

The bit of trivia that I will remember from Sunday’s game? It was the first day that I heard mainstream sports commentators fully and reflexively committed to the idea that college sports is professional. 

What was this moment? 

On the ESPN 2 broadcast of the game, Tom Hart was providing play-by-play alongside former coach and longtime commentator Fran Fraschilla.

With under 7 minutes remaining in the game, KU junior guard AJ Storr faked a drive to the basket, but then stepped back to the left corner to shoot a three-pointer with one Missouri player to his right and another in his face. The ball rose over the outstretched hand of one defender. 

By the standards of big-time college basketball, the shot was somewhere between reasonable and difficult. 

The shot was also off to the right. It rimmed left, against the glass, before falling to the Tigers for a rebound. 

“Storr can’t cash in,” Hart said about Storr’s miss.

As Missouri raced down the court, the ESPN crew put Storr’s single jumper into a harsh context.

“He’s paid a lot of money to make that shot. Gotta make that shot,” Fraschilla said. 

“We didn’t used to say that out loud, did we?” Hart responded.

“No, but it’s true. Seriously,” Fraschilla said.

“He’s one for six from the floor. O for two from deep,” Hart adds. 

“That’s the reality,” Fraschilla concludes.

The money, newly injected into college sports — that’s the reality. 

When I heard this banter, I flinched. (It seemed like Hart might have been a bit shocked too.) I had to go back and transcribe it word by word, because I was so surprised at Fraschilla’s bluntness. 

This language  — “a lot of money to make that shot” — is a staple of NBA coverage. And we twist it to fit the NFL, NHL and MLB too. Even when sports commentators say, “If you are Travis Kelce, you have to make that catch,” they are nodding at the salary and endorsements that accompany being a pro athlete. 

Earlier in the same game, Hart and Fraschilla had gestured to this new language infusing college sports. They mentioned how an ESPN colleague, Pete Thamel, described college football recruiting and player decisions in a new way earlier in the week. 

Thamel’s post on X.com read, “Sources: Kansas quarterback Jalon Daniels has agreed to a new deal to stay with the Jayhawks for 2025, his final college season. In his five years in Lawrence, he’s thrown for 6,751 yards and 45 touchdowns.” 

Notice the phrase “has agreed to a new deal.” As in, college sports now hinge on negotiated financial payments in return for yards and touchdowns.

Of course, everyone working in college sports should aim to describe this new era for what it is, like Thamel did. And that honest pivot is happening right now, both during games and in the coverage of college sports. 

These direct descriptions are just another trickle-down effect of the end of amateurism and the withering of the NCAA. But rather than simply shrugging it off, I think it’s worth lingering on how this new sports commentary will affect student athletes. 

In the near term, we fans are more likely than ever to see a player’s failings on the field or court or swimming pool and equate those mistakes with money. A disappointing 110-meter hurdles heat? What a waste of money. An interception in the fourth quarter? He doesn’t deserve that NIL deal. A misplaced curveball in the ninth? Another player was a better investment.

It’s familiar financial arithmetic from our fandom of professional sports — but superimposed on college athletics. Players equal money. Mistakes equal money. 

The NCAA spent decades polishing its faux-pristine veneer, convincing us of its amateur glow. However, fans knew that boosters were sliding cash-stuffed envelopes or keys for luxury cars toward the most talented and valuable recruits. 

Today’s college athletes are different, particularly because the sanctioned payments they receive will often come from more of us as fans, rather than a small entourage of underhanded boosters. 

In addition to forming revenue-sharing agreements, university athletic departments are organizing collectives to fund player payments. That means that I could support my Tigers or my Jayhawks by paying into a pool of money used to entice or retain student athletes. Let’s call this new kind of booster the Donor-Fan. 

Today, if I am Donor-Fan who contributes to a student athlete-fund, I might see Landon Daniels’ “new deal” as a personal assurance that he will improve his touchdown to interception rate next season. I might see AJ Storr’s missed shot in Sunday’s game as an indicator of my foolish investment. 

Fraschilla channeled the voice of the Donor-Fan when he said, “Gotta make that shot.” It’s a coach’s voice of frustration mixed with a day trader’s insistence on returns. 

Coverage of Storr’s recruitment to Kansas on NIL blogs hinted at seven-digit compensation, although no sources were listed for the reporting. Lawrence is his third college basketball stop following seasons at Wisconsin and St. John’s. Perhaps this hopscotching prodded Frischillia toward his comment. 

As I have written, I support college athletes being paid for their work and the value they bring to athletic departments and universities. These payments were overdue. 

Nevertheless, those college players are going to hear words, similar and worse, to what was said about Storr on Sunday. These young people will see the benefits through payment — but also the costs. Let’s hope that they will be ready for frequent and ferocious criticism.

The pressure cooker of college athletics often overwhelms student-athletes: classes plus practices plus the weight room plus team meetings plus weekly travel. In this new era, we should monitor how mental health is affected by the addition of money and the pressure that comes with it.

We have expertly tattooed financial imperatives on professional athletes for decades. Big contracts demand big games. 

If last week made anything clear, we seem ready to demand the same of college athletes. Because, after all, many of them are pros now too.

Eric Thomas teaches visual journalism and photojournalism at the William Allen White School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Kansas in Lawrence. Through its opinion section, Kansas Reflector works to amplify the voices of people who are affected by public policies or excluded from public debate. Find information, including how to submit your own commentary, here.