Realignment impact on you?

I live in a rural area outside of Tucson. I used to work retail and was allowed to wear my various KU clothing. I met a lot of other KU fans doing this but was also a target for U of A fans. The ones that I met, were very often arrogant and ignorant, esp in regard to the history of the game. I was reading a local news article in regard to them joining the Big XII and folks were posting about how the tournament should now be played in Vegas. These are the idiots that I will have to deal with now. Thank God I am retired and can just stay home with the horses

I live less than 2 hours from Boulder so I'm excited to have the opportunity to KU play live on occasion without having to drive 9 hrs to Lawrence. Anxious to see what the rotation schedule will be (with 16 teams it has to be).

I’m in Phoenix, and am excited to now be living in B12 Country again. ASU fans are great, and are a lot of fun to engage in banter with about our respective teams. Their fans can be rabid, but in a very positive way. Can’t wait to see KU visit in FB and BB.

UofA, on the other hand, are some of the most arrogant and nasty fans you’ll meet. Very much like KSt and MU fans whose dislike for KU goes toward anger and hatred, as opposed to good natured rivalry. I have a degree from UA, but have no allegiance at all, and root for ASU in any competition with UA.

Most bizarre for me, is that I look at KU FB games against the two AZ schools as almost sure wins. Haven’t felt that way in decades, but KU’s program is on a higher trajectory than either AZ school right now.

Does not affect me. Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, is unlikely to join the Big ?? but one never knows, these days. Ha Ha!

I live in Edmond, OK (Home of Bill Self). Of the guys I generally hang out with 2 are from Texas Tech, 2 from Oklahoma St., 1 from Texas, 1 from A&M, 1 from Arkansas, 1 from OU and 1 from Baylor. I am by far the biggest basketball fan in the lot but probably the least football fan. My golf buddy is an OSU guy, in fact his son played for OSU (basketball). So I am really not affected at all. As for annoying fans, it has been my experience that all schools have some nice fans and some jerks. Since all of my friends are Big 12 fans, they all pretty much root against KU in basketball just because KU is the king. We can joke about it and they are actually all pretty extremely complimentary of KU tradition and history in basketball. I try not to be too obnoxious about it which I think they appreciate. I will say that I wear KU gear far far far more than any of them wear gear for their schools. In fact, they all tease me pretty regularly about the fact I pretty much only wear KU gear, to golf, to church, to social gatherings, etc. When I retired I gave away all my work shirts (button down) and bought a bunch of KU polo golf shirts. Other than a few shirts I have from playing in golf tournaments, they are the only shorts I own. And of courseI wear my KU hats for golfing. But back to school fans. If I had to choose fans that I would classify as arrogant, It would be Texas. I lived in Texas for 20 years and UT fans can generally be pretty bad although some of my better friends were UT fans and very respectful of Kansas. The stupidest thing I have ever sen was when a lady sat next to me on a plane wearing a giant Mizos short,. She was a talker and I mean she wouldn’t shut up. She was such a happier that she didn’t see my Jayhawk logo on my shirt. Eventually she saw it and immediately started calling for the flight attendant saying she needed to change seats. I had not really said a word. She actually changed seats. Pretty funny. The second rude experience I had was in a hotel happy hour in Walnut Creek by San Francisco. I was sitting enjoying a glass of wine with my KU hat and short. I was with my wife just enjoying our wine when a guy sees my short and hat and walks over to begins to stat talking some ridiculous trash about Kansas. Just really stupid stuff meant to get my goat. After about a minute of non-stop trash talk I just smiled and turned to my wife and said, “there is an example of an unhappy person.” The third example was recently. I was at my golf club, with my KU hat of course. Two gentlemen walked in that I had not seen before. O en of them walks up to me and said something to the effect of “I’m surprised you are willing to wear that gear in public. Aside from KU being a trash school, they are pretty much known across the country as being the biggest cheaters in college sports.” I truly wish I would have had the presence of mind to say something witty and smarmy. All I could think to do was look at him, smile briefly, turn and walk away. I don;t know him but I saw him later and he had a Pistol Pete head cover on his driver. As for a positive story, I was invited to a KU game at Frank Irwin center many years ago by a good friend who was also a UT booster club member. After the game we went to the Burnt Orange room where the boosters go after the game. Part of the after game festivities, the UT coach comes into the room and speaks for a few minutes to the boosters and takes a few questions. The coach at the time was Tom Penders, KU won the game. There were maybe close to 200 people in the burnt orange room and easily 25% or more were wearing KU gear. So one of the UT boosters actually asked Penders a question about that something to the effect of why is it that we are in the Burnt Orange room and there are so many KU fans and probably 30% of the crowd during the game was KU fans. Tom Penders gave a really great answer. He said something to the effect that Texas is the greatest University in the country and has a football program second to none. Then he went on to say that when it comes to basketball his goal was to elevate the status of UT basketball to equal that of football. Then he said that what you are seeing with KU’s support of their team is the standard and whil Texas is the gold standard for college football, Kansas is the gold standard for college basketball and that he was shooting to elevate UT to the status of KU in basketball. He really was complimentary. He also said something I though very interesting. He said (I forget the number) but quite a few season tickets were sold to KU fans who buy the tickets only for the KU game in Austin and sell all their tickets for the other games. He gave some stats about the number of season tickets that were put back into the pool for sale each game and that by far, fewer tickets were put back in the poll for resale for KU games than any other game. That was very early in the Big 12 era so things have probably changed now. But I found that interesting,