Notes and quotes while wondering who forgot to pack the smoke and mirrors for the Royals’ current road trip …

No evidence exists that embattled Iowa State coach Larry Eustachy ever partied with Kansas University students after the Cyclones played in Lawrence. Then again, this year’s KU-ISU game in Allen Fieldhouse tipped off at noon on a Sunday, a time hardly contrived to promote postgame revelry. …

Any day now we should learn the names of the members of the committee charged with identifying a new Kansas University athletic director. In fact, those names could be revealed at this afternoon’s regularly scheduled KU Athletic Corp. board meeting. You won’t see the name of a head-hunting firm, that’s for sure. Not after last time. …

Let the record show former Lawrence High standout Lee Stevens went 0-for-4 in his last game as a professional baseball player. Stevens, who’ll turn 36 in July, bowed out Wednesday with the minor-league Indianapolis Indians. Stevens now lives in the Denver area with his second wife and three stepchildren. Stevens also has two boys from his first marriage. …

With Stevens retired, Kevin Hooper is the lone former Lion in professional baseball. Hooper, an infielder, is with the Florida Marlins’ Triple-A farm team in Albuquerque, N.M. …

Will Danny Manning be the next former Lion to hang up his uniform for good? Manning, who’ll turn 37 this month, still is in the NBA playoffs as a reserve with the Detroit Pistons. If Manning does retire, it has been speculated he might be invited to join the staff of new KU men’s basketball coach Bill Self. …

Meanwhile, Roy Williams has announced the third full-time slot on his North Carolina staff will be filled by former Kansas guard Jared Haase, his administrative assistant at KU. If Williams had remained with the Jayhawks, he revealed this week, he planned to flip-flop the responsibilities of Haase and aide Ben Miller next season. …

Williams, by the way, has visited 11 states in the last week in an slam-bang attempt to fill an available scholarship at UNC. “I don’t want to take an average guy because you can get too many average guys,” Williams told Tarheelblue.com. …

According to the NCAA, the Kansas-Syracuse men’s basketball championship game had a huge 40.3 television rating in the Kansas City metropolitan area. A distant second at 25.0 was, surprisingly, Louisville. The Syracuse area didn’t even make the Top 10. …

Texas sophomore guard T.J. Ford’s decision to turn pro means the entire first unit of the All-Big 12 Conference men’s basketball team won’t be back next season. The other four were seniors — KU’s Kirk Hinrich and Nick Collison, Texas Tech’s Andre Emmett and Oklahoma’s Hollis Price. …

Great Unanswered Question of 2003: How could Ford win both the prestigious Wooden and Naismith awards and not even be player of the year in his own conference? KU’s Collison was the league coaches’ player of the year. The writers voted that honor to OU’s Price. …

They call the last player selected in the NFL Draft “Mr. Irrelevant.” What about the player who leads the nation in basketball scoring every year? This year’s national leader was Ruben Douglas of New Mexico at 28.0 points per game. Does anybody care? …

You have to hope Bob Hill’s basketball coaching career didn’t end when the 54-year-old former Kansas aide resigned under pressure this week at Fordham. Hill had the unusual distinction of working under two KU head coaches. Hill was hired by Ted Owens in 1977, then when Owens was fired in 1983, successor Larry Brown retained him. …

Rumors that Red Dog Days, Lawrence’s unique community exercise program, wouldn’t be able to use Memorial Stadium this summer aren’t true. However, it is true that KU officials have liability concerns after a Northwestern football player died in an unsupervised workout last summer, and are working with Don “Red Dog” Gardner to resolve insurance issues. …

If you’re counting, it took Kansas seven days to hire Self as Williams’ replacement and it took Illinois eight days to replace Self with Southern Illinois’ Bruce Weber.