Eustachy didn’t seem embarrassed as he chatted on the phone en route to Texas, where he planned to do some recruiting before winding up in College Station for Wednesday night’s Iowa State-Texas A&M game.

Indeed, Eustachy seemed pretty chipper while talking about the Cruiser, his newest form of transportation for road games.

"I’m already on my way," said Eustachy, the man who has absolutely no interest in piling up Frequent Flier mileage. "I’m recruiting in Texas and the team will meet me here. The players have a day off today, and we’ll practice in College Station at 7 o’clock Tuesday night."

Eustachy was asked about the long drive back.

"You’ll have to ask my drivers because I’ll be sleeping," he said. "I think it’s about 15 (hours). But I’ll be back for my TV show. We never miss an appointment here in the Cruiser.

"We’ve got a bathroom and a bed. I’m watching Texas A&M (on tape) right now. I might turn it off. It scares the heck out of me. I may turn this Cruiser around."

In a game that was the ugliest that Eustachy and the Cyclones have been involved in for a while—at least since their 83-54 loss to Kansas on Jan. 6 in Ames--the coach was ejected after drawing two technical fouls with 12:08 remaining.

Ironically, Eustachy got the heave-ho for arguing a call that had been changed. While he bitched about a charging call against Cyclone player Jackson Vroman, the violation was changed to traveling.

In addition, there was a near-brawl between players from both teams, which resulted in two more technicals being called.

Vroman shoved Kansas’ Wayne Simien, who was playing for the first time since missing 11 games with a dislocated shoulder. The Cyclones’ Jared Homan stepped in front of Simien to keep him from going at Vroman, then Kansas’ Aaron Miles shoved Homan from behind.

A shoving foul and a technical were called on Vroman, putting him out of the game with six fouls, and a technical was called on Miles.

Asked today if Miles should have been ejected from the game, too, Eustachy said, "I can’t answer that. I don’t know the rules."

After Eustachy was kicked out, TV analyst Jon Sundvold—brother of Iowa State assistant coach Bob Sundvold—said on the air that Eustachy had "abandoned" his team.

I don’t know if "abandoned" was the right word, but I do feel that Eustachy would have done his team more good by being on the court than being in the locker room.

"I’ve never had a team that was more together. There seems to be some rift that this team isn’t together or something. I don’t know why that’s out there. It really doesn’t matter if it’s out there.

"Our team is real close and we feel real comfortable coming into this home stretch (of the season)."

If Eustachy says his team is close, who am I and who are you to argue? He sees much more of the Cyclones than the rest of us.

If there’s a feeling "out there" (Eustachy’s words) that the Cyclones aren’t together, it must be because guard Jake Sullivan said after last week’s loss to Texas Tech that he was "ticked off" that there weren’t 13 guys on the team "bringing it night in and night out."

Outspoken Jake added that there wasn’t enough energy and enthusiasm on the team to suit him.

I guess things have changed since then.

Iowa State’s records have sunk to 12-9 overall and 2-8 in the Big 12 heading into the Texas A&M game. The disappointing Cyclones obviously are paying the price for having a soft non-conference schedule, and they’re in danger of playing themselves out of contention for a spot in the NIT.

What’s more, the fans appear to have given up. With just three home games left in the regular schedule, there won’t be a sellout at Hilton Coliseum all season.

Asked how he feels about basketball players getting paid, Eustachy said, "I think it’s great. For some of them, with their backgrounds, they hardly have enough money to eat properly on.

"They create a lot of revenue. A lot of people get rich (because of) them, including the coaches. To take a stipend out of the coaches’ checks—to do something like that—I don’t think there’d be a coach in the world who would be opposed to it.

"I know I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t want to give ‘em $20,000 a week. But something reasonable—an extra $100 a week would go a long way. They’re not the normal student. They’re asked to do a lot of stuff outside the classroom…..

"I read an article about, ‘Larry, open up your wallet,’ and I’m not opposed to it at all. That would be great if we could get some kind of coaches’ contribution along with the NCAA’s money."