Following the Vic Schaefer introductory press conference, a handful of us reporters caught up with MSU athletics director Scott Stricklin and asked him about a couple of other topics. One of those was men's basketball coach Rick Stansbury, who's taking a lot of heat from fans for failing to lead the Bulldogs to the NCAA tournament.

MSU (21-11) plays host to UMass (22-11) at 6 p.m. today in the first round of the NIT.

Asked about Stansbury's job security, Stricklin rebuffed the question and said, "We're going to talk about women's basketball today. Looking forward to the NIT game tonight and rooting the team on. We're going to talk about women's basketball."

I then asked about the season as a whole being a letdown, and Stricklin said, "It's not over. So we'll talk about it when it's over."

And that was that. But prior to that exchange, Stricklin gave us an update on expansion of Davis Wade Stadium. He said he expects renderings of the work to be approved by the state's IHL board, which meets Thursday. Bids on the work will go out this summer, and once they're awarded, the work will begin.

MSU is hoping to start some of the basic expansion work before the season begins, then the major work will be done after the season.

As for the Leo Seal Jr. Football Complex, Stricklin said, "They're working seven days a week and really making great progress. And we're still looking at the first of the year coming back from that bowl game and moving in."