If a Kansas University non-revenue sports team falls to last place in the standings and nobody is there to hear it, did it really happen? Yes. Does anybody care? Maybe, which is another way of saying maybe not.

For KU’s stealth sports, the bummer of living in the massive shadow of the perennial national powerhouse basketball program lies in not getting talked about or even thought about by the masses.

Actually, it’s not such a bummer now. No news coverage is good news for the Kansas teams that routinely take their beatings in front of small crowds.

The softball team ranks dead-last in the 10-team Big 12 with a 1-13 conference record.

On Sunday, bloody Sunday, a number of KU’s under-the-radar teams got tagged. Men’s golf finished 12th in the conference tourney played in Trinity, Texas. Nate Barbee led KU golfers, but did no better than 27th place. The women did no better, also finishing last. The team’s top finisher, Emily Powers, placed 28th.

Tennis, anyone? No? Didn’t think so.

On Sunday, bloody Sunday, visiting Baylor skunked KU’s netters, 7-0. The Jayhawks are 1-10 in conference matches heading into today’s Big 12 tourney opener against Oklahoma in Austin.

The USTFCCCA Div. I men’s outdoor track and field poll has Kansas 23rd in the nation, which puts it behind six Big 12 schools: 1. Texas A&M, 6. Texas Tech, 11. Oklahoma, 19. Kansas State, 20. Nebraska. 21. Baylor. Six women’s track and field teams from the Big 12 are ranked in the top 25. Kansas is not one of them.

At least the baseball team is competitive. The Jayhawks have a 25-16-1 overall record and a 6-8-1 mark in the Big 12. They’re in contention to earn an NCAA bid, provided they reverse the recent fortunes of a weary pitching staff. In the past three games, all losses, Kansas has allowed an average of 18 runs.

As long as that’s an aberration, KU baseball will remain an entertaining product, replete with bat girls who add a most-welcome sparkle to the experience, student hecklers, a bona fide superstar in third baseman Tony Thompson, a web gem of a second baseman in Robby Price and a hitting machine of a center fielder, Brian Heere. The ballpark’s a nice one, and the new clubhouse gives the program a big-time feel. But when a team that has surrendered 54 runs in three games easily qualifies as the post-basketball highlight, you know it has been a long spring.

Many of the KU teams’ facilities can’t compare to baseball’s, and a Plan B looks as if it will be necessary to change that.

The grand plan called for the Gridiron Club to raise so much money that Kansas Athletics, Inc., could not only construct and maintain the club, but also finance an Olympic Village that would boost facilities for the non-revenue sports and have enough left over to donate a big chunk to the university.

That project, not realistically priced, has stalled, which is a shame for KU’s minor sports, though nowhere near as significant as had the basketball team failed to sign Josh Selby. Stone me for saying this, but the Selby signing alone made it a positive spring on the KU sports scene, did it not?