Sunflower Throwdown Suspensions Announced

The Big 12 announced right around 5 PM local time the suspensions of four players involved in the brawl that followed the end of the KU-KState game on Tuesday night.

KU’s Silvio de Sousa was suspended for 12 games, while David McCormack got 2 games.

Meanwhile, K-State’s James Love got an 8-game suspension, and Antonio Gordon will sit out 3 games.

The first thing to notice is this keeps Silvio out of the rematch in Manhattan on February 29. In fact, he won’t be eligible to play until the regular season finale in Lubbock on March 7.

Bob Bowlsby’s statement was predictively generic:

“This kind of behavior cannot be tolerated and these suspensions reflect the severity of last evening’s sporting events.”

Do they, Bob? Do they really?

Much to the chagrin of folks in purple, Marcus Garrett was not suspended, so I’m sure you’ll hear lots of whining that KU got off easy. But then again, neither were the five or six players that vacated the K-State bench (including Makol Mawien and Levi Stockard) who cornered Silvio and really escalated the situation.

Also suspiciously missing is any suspension for Cartier Diarra, who was on Instragram threatening KU fans following the game.

So let me get this straight. K-State picked a fight. K-State escalated a fight. K-State players tried to continue the fight online afterward. And their punishment is the suspension of an injured player as well as their 7th man, while KU loses two of its three bigs.

Meanwhile, the guy who started it all, DaJuan Gordon, got off scot-free. (EDIT: I have actually changed my mind on this. Brannen Greene didn’t get suspended for this, but sure got an earful from his coach. I feel like this is something we should see out of Weber, but he’s obviously not the same kind of coach Bill Self is.)

Oh boy, Big 12, I bet K-State really learned their lesson here. This one sure is going to stick with them for a long, long time.

How this is a KU problem and not a K-State problem is well beyond me. This is the school that chants “Fuck KU” at basketball games (regardless of the opponent). This is the school that lets their band shove a phallic symbol down a Jayhawk’s throat during a halftime routine of a football game (again, when they aren’t playing KU). This is the school that sees no problem with their fans taunting and literally bouncing off of KU basketball players ON THE COURT in the rare instance when they actually do get a win. And this is the school that apparently sees no problem with their BENCH players reacting like this to a staredown after a blocked shot:

K-State got off massively lightly here. Diarra, Mawien, Stockard, and DaJuan Gordon should also have faced suspension in addition to the two who did get suspended. Marcus Garrett probably should have as well, but the Kansas bench didn’t clear until the K-State bench did. However, if you wanted to suspend Garrett for leaving the bench, I can see the logic in that.

But Silvio picked up a chair! Yeah, well, he also dropped said chair within a second or two. His arms never swung over his head like he was actually going to use it. It’s unfortunate that’s all people are going to remember about this incident.

What a weak show by the Big 12. Shame on you, Bob Bowlsby. You had a chance to take a stand - to make the words you say mean something - and you blew it again.

Oh, and still no comment from K-State or its AD. Apparently they’re just going to sit back and let KU (and Silvio) take all the blame on this one.