MSNBC contributor Touré slammed CNN's Piers Morgan via Twitter starting last night, criticizing the Piers Morgan Tonight host's interview with Robert Zimmerman, Jr., brother of Trayvon Martin killer George Zimmerman (who claims self-defense in the shooting). Morgan and Touré traded barbs on Twitter, until Morgan challenged Touré to come on his show to debate the topic. Alas, the invitation conflicts with Touré's MSNBC schedule, so they had to work something else out.

"Piers did not challenge Robert Zimmerman the way a professional journalist should,"  tweeted during the broadcast, adding "@piersmorgan Allowing Rob Zimmerman to spout unchallenged lies further poisons a tense moment in American history. Be professional."

Morgan responded just as his show ended, tweeting "Oh Toure, you're such a tedious little twerp," adding a characteristic dig at his opponent's follower count. "ps @Toure – 71k tweets for just 57k followers? Ouch. Ever get the feeling you're doing a LOT of jabbering but nobody's listening?"

Touré continued to slam Morgan's interview, tweeting things like "Rob Zimmerman's story makes no sense after video of George walking uninjured & unbloody thru Sandord PD," and "If at a crucial moment in American history, ie now, you allow people on your show to spread misinfo & lies you are damaging America."

"With respect @Toure – I don't think I'll take professional journalist lectures from a 'bull-dodging rodeo clown,'" Morgan responded.

"@piersmorgan Glad you've seen my George Plimpton show," Touré said. "You should watch my interview show where I challenge people on bs when they spout it," then explained Morgan's reference by adding "On my show I'll Try Anything Once I was a bull dodging rodeo clown & a skydiver & a sumo wrestler & a snake & bee wrangler & movie stuntman."

Touré then zinged Piers for his own TV silliness, tweeting "Not sure what my hosting I'll Try Anything Once has to do with anything when @piersmorgan was a pawn on Donald Trump's show.#GlassHouses'"

Morgan issued a rather narrow challenge. "OK @Toure – we're on. Get to my CNN bureau in NY between 3-5pm ET and we will do this debate on air tonight. Deal?" Morgan tweeted, then goaded "Come on @Toure – everyone's waiting. You man or mouse?"

"I'm on MSNBC today, doing Tamron & Dylan's shows. That's my 2-5pm," Touré responded.

Morgan taunted Toure awhile with Britishisms like "all mouth, no trousers," while Toure pointed out that he was unavailable because he had to go to his, you know, job. Finally, Morgan asked "OK @Toure – when ARE you available? Stop the excuses & the bull…. – give me a day and let's debate this on CNN," to which Touré replied "Tuesday."

Something must have happened to Morgan's trousers (whatever that means), because he responded "Tuesday is Primary night @Toure – can do it Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday."

"Ugh. No can. Mon Fuse. Wed Iowa. Thrs St Louis. Fri MSNBC," replied Touré, exposing the real weakness in the 21st Century's new "booking by flame-war" procedures: you can't really do both things well. "I'll have Sheila call your booker…also YOU GOT PWNED!"

Touré added "If you knew me you'd know I'd love to do this. Will be valuable TV. (The you're chicken ploy is lame. No one's scared of you.)"

Such a debate would undoubtedly make for great television, but hopefully, the discussion would focus more on this galvanizing national tragedy, and less on the wounded egos and interviewing chops of various media figures.

Update: In a crackling Twitter exchange, Morgan and Touré came to terms, and the result will air tonight at 9 pm. The real-time Twitter booking (the first of its kind?):

Morgan: Hey @Toure – just saw you on MSNBC. We're ten blocks away, come down for a REAL debate on my show. #CNN

Touré: .@piersmorgan I'm free now. Are you still taping?

Morgan: Yes – come to CNN bureau at Time Warner now RT @Toure .@piersmorgan I'm free now. Are you still taping?

Touré: I'm at CNN in the chair waiting. Why is @piersmorgan keeping me waiting? You won't like me when I'm angry.

Oh, my God, Piers, the Tweet is coming from inside the house!

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If those are the numbers on your Mega Millions lottery ticket, you've won a jackpot worth an all-time record of at least $640 million.

As scores of wanna-be multimillionaires held their collective breath, lottery officials in Atlanta drew the numbers at 11 p.m. ET Friday. It might take a while to exhale: a confirmation where the winning ticket — or tickets — were purchased won't come until early Saturday morning, due to the sheer volume of tickets sold, says Georgia Lottery CEO Margaret DeFrancisco.

• PHOTOS: Mega Millions madness

• STORY: Lottery winners can easily lose money

• VIDEO: What would you do with $500 million?

The payoff : a pre-tax, lump sum worth $462 million.

Much of the nation was gripped by Mega Millions fever this week, as hopefuls spent nearly $1.5 billion for a chance at the Friday jackpot. From Vermont to Louisiana and New York to California, a fast strike to instant mega-wealth had been the banter of TV talk shows, social media sites, office water coolers and dreamy high-rollers for the past week, electrifying ticket sales with a frenzy that amped up in final hours ahead of Friday night's drawing.

"We're holding our heads in disbelief," says Virginia lottery director Paula Otto, who may deploy some sales officials to assist retailers with today's ticket buying onslaught.

The pot has grown nearly $300 million since Tuesday's Mega Millions drawing failed to draw a top prize winner for the 18th consecutive time since late January.

"It's uncharted territory," says Buddy Roogow, director of the Washington, D.C., lottery, which issued a commemorative "I Played The World's Largest Jackpot" ticket this week. A typical Mega Millions drawing sells 250,000 tickets in the nation's capital. Friday sales were expected to top 1 million.

Social media users were buzzing about the jackpot on Facebook and Twitter, mostly about what they would do with the money, but also about the tiny possibility of winning the top prize. (About 1 in 176 million).

"I'm reading an article about what to do after you hit the mega millions jackpot. Next article, how to housebreak your unicorn," says @scottbhuff on Twitter. Some posters link to a someecards.com poster that shows a man consoling a woman, and include this phrase: "Plenty of people don't win the lottery the first few thousand times they play."

Many in Indiana were further encouraged by the promise of freebies: Hoosier Lottery officials gave away one free Mega Millions ticket to each of the first 540 players at several outlets around the state Friday — a plan announced before the jackpot grew.

Thursday lines for tickets at Bluebird Liquor in Hawthorne, Calif., stretched a half block down Hawthorne Boulevard and around a side street for another half block. Some, such as Zulodius Morgan, waited in line for three hours to purchase tickets at the store, which has a reputation for being lucky for lottery players. Hawthorne resident Vianca Zaragoza bought tickets Wednesday with family members and was back purchasing 65 for a 10-person office pool at a local clothing company.

"Business is great," says Bluebird owner James Kim, working furiously behind the counter with four employees.

Manhattan lottery ticket buyers tapped into various rituals and quirky procedures in hopes of building their luck. Some of the folks buying tickets at the newsstands down 1st Avenue in New York City used numbers that were printed on Chinese fortune cookies. Others used birth dates, while some went to different retailers on the same block.

Idaho, one of 42 states to offer Mega Millions tickets, typically sells 200,000 to 250,000 tickets. "We're at 800,000 right now and expect to sell over 1 million by Friday night," says state lottery director Jeff Anderson.

Lorraine Malkmus, manager of the Maverick Country store in Meridian, Idaho, added additional clerks to handle demand.

"We've been jammed since Tuesday," Malkmus says. "We're selling over 2,000 tickets a day — 400 to 500 is normal. People who've never played before are coming in for tickets."

Customers at Merola's Market in Burlington, Vt., were lined up at the lottery counter eight to nine deep for much of Thursday. "It's been very, very busy," clerk Eric Foy says. "They all want their shot."

In Southern California's Coachella Valley, consumers spent up to 10 times more than usual on Mega Millions tickets, says David Woosley, field consultant for several 7-Eleven stores.

"It's been outrageous," Woosley says.

In Minnesota, some outlets pre-printed Mega Millions tickets to speed sales. Jason Schutz of St. Cloud bought 11 tickets at a SpeedStop. "My 401(k) is worth so little. My only chance to retire is Mega Millions," he says.

In Wilmington, Del., Greg del Rio, a supervisor at Hotel du Pont, bought 38 tickets for a workers' pool. If they win? "We'll have no more employees," he says. "Nothing will get clean."

At Mike's convenience store in West Ocean City, Md., Lorrie Flather, snapped up six tickets. Flather, 74, won $600 and $1,300 in previous lotteries.

"They say the third time is the charm, so I'm bound to win, you know," she says.

Ray Springer, an unemployed Navy veteran, purchased a Mega Millions ticket and state game tickets at a southwest Atlanta Shell Food Mart.

"I normally don't play Mega Millions because those jackpots are normally not won in Georgia," he says.

Many ticket buyers let computers pick numbers. Others, such as retiree William Dillard, have their own system. "I play my kids' birthdays, mine, my brother's plus my mother's and father's," he says.

New Orleans resident Lisa Freeman had never bought a Mega Millions ticket before. At 7:30 a.m. Thursday, she received a text message from her twin sister in Jackson, Miss., with a list of numbers they should play. Lisa bought 12 tickets.

"It's something people here can really look forward to," Freeman says.

The Brother's Food Mart in the Lower 9th Ward also had a steady stream of Mega Millions customers — many first-time buyers, manager Ali Sylla says.

One of his customers was Patrice Gordon, a first-time Mega Millions buyer, who bought three tickets each for herself and her friend, Dionne Knight.

Knight, 43, says the Mega Millions jackpot has been the topic of non-stop talk at the bar she owns, The New Place. Just the prospect of the mammoth payout has been good for the city, she says, which in recent years has weathered devastating floods, oil spills and, more recently, a series of sanctions on their beloved NFL team, the New Orleans Saints.

"It's well-needed here," Knight says. "It'll be great for the city if someone here won."

Insurer Progressive parlayed Mega Millions fever into a marketing event, says Chief Marketing Officer Jeff Charney. Progressive's TV ad icon, "The Messenger" (actor John Jenkinson) gave away nearly 2,000 lottery tickets on Decatur and Canal streets Friday at 9:30 a.m.

Typically, a store earns five to six cents from each ticket sold, plus a commission for selling a winning ticket. Demand for Mega Millions tickets boosted overall retail sales at many convenience stores.

"It's an amazing opportunity to introduce yourself to new customers," says Jeff Lenard, spokesman for the National Association of Convenience Stores. "For a lot of stores, this is their debutante ball."

RED BUD, Ill. (AP) — The Mega Millions winners — at least three of them — stayed out of sight. The losers, who could number 100 million, had plenty to say Saturday about losing out on the world's largest-ever lottery jackpot and their dashed dreams of colossal wealth.

Journalists descended on convenience stores in Illinois and Maryland, and lottery officials there and in Kansas proudly proclaimed they sold winning tickets in the $640 million world record-breaking Mega Millions jackpot. The winners will earn $213 million before taxes. Three other ticket holders became millionaires.

But on the street, online and outside the stores where the winners had purchased their tickets, Americans grumbled about hopes that were raised, and then vanished. And they mused about what they would have done with the money.

"What do I do with this useless lottery ticket now?" Laurel Ashton Brooks of Greensboro, N.C., asked on Twitter.

As the jackpot got bigger by the hour on Thursday and Friday, Americans had snapped up tickets while dreaming of quitting jobs, paying off debts, building hospitals, buying an island. On Saturday, they took to Twitter and Facebook to bemoan their lost, razor-thin chance at millions.

"I knew that when I bought the ticket, that I wouldn't win. But I did it anyhow," said Sean Flaherty, a video game tester in New York City. "The whole notion of 'what if' still has some currency with me."

Even President Barack Obama's re-election campaign tapped into the widespread lottery letdown. It sent a fundraising email with the subject "Jackpot" that began: "Yeah, we didn't either. So we're still at."

All told, Americans spent nearly $1.5 billion for a chance to hit the jackpot, which amounts to a $462 million lump sum and around $347 million after federal tax withholding. With the jackpot odds at 1 in 176 million, it would cost $176 million to buy up every combination. Under that scenario, the strategy would win $171 million less if your state also withholds taxes.

Illinois' winner used a quick pick — an automatically generated set of digits — to select the winning numbers at a convenience store in the small town of Red Bud, south of St. Louis, Illinois Lottery spokesman Mike Lang said. The winning numbers also were purchased at a 7-Eleven in Milford Mill, Md., north of Baltimore, and somewhere in northeast Kansas.

"It's just unbelievable. Everyone is wanting to know who it is," said Denise Metzger, manager of the MotoMart where Illinois' winning ticket was sold.

"All day yesterday I was selling tickets and I was hoping someone from Red Bud would win. Never in my wildest dreams did I think this. I'm just tickled pink," added Metzger, whose store will receive $500,000 for selling the winning ticket, lottery officials said.

Paramedic Dan Parrott walked away from the store with $5 in winnings after checking numbers on his $40 worth of tickets. That won't pay for the new house, new car and the new ambulances he'd decided the jackpot would help him buy in this farming community of 3,700 about 40 miles south of St. Louis.

"I'd love to have all that money, but with all of that money comes responsibility," he said outside the store. "But it'd still be awesome."

James Sitzes emerged from the MotoMart where his check of his six plays flopped. "I bought them at the right place," he shrugged. "I just didn't have the right numbers."

"I've been thinking for years what I'd do with all that money," said Sitzes, 70. He'd pay off the house, invest the rest and give away his small plating shop.

In Maryland, TV cameras descended upon the 7-Eleven where the state's winning ticket was purchased. The harried manager repeatedly said "No interviews" to reporters pressing for details as customers pushed through the media crush for their morning coffee.

Nyeri Murphy, holding two scratch-off tickets, said she normally plays Powerball but drove to a nearby county to buy $70 worth of Mega Millions tickets this week. "I should have bought them here," she said.

Maryland does not require lottery winners to be identified; the Mega Millions winner can claim the prize anonymously. The store will receive a $100,000 bonus for selling the winning ticket, which was purchased Friday night.

The third winning ticket was purchased in northeast Kansas, but no other information would be released by the Kansas Lottery until the winner comes forward, spokeswoman Cara S. Sloan-Ramos said. The Kansas location that sold the ticket will receive $10,000.

No winner had contacted the agency by Saturday morning, Kansas Lottery Director Dennis Wilson said. "We sure want to meet the winner, but we want to tell them, sign the back of the ticket and secure it."

Kansas law also allows lottery winners to remain anonymous, though lottery winners in Illinois are identified.

The winning numbers in Friday night's drawing were 02-04-23-38-46, and the Mega Ball 23.

Maryland Lottery spokeswoman Carole Everett said the last time a ticket from the state won a major national jackpot was in 2008, when a ticket won for $24 million.

"We're thrilled," she said. "We're due and excited."

The holder of the winning ticket in Maryland has 182 days to come forward and claim the prize. Winners in Kansas and Illinois have up to one year; but if the Illinois winner wants to be paid in a lump sum, they have to come forward in 60 days, Lang said.

Even though just three tickets matched all the winning numbers, the jackpot made a millionaire of at least three other winners and gave a windfall to more than 100 others. Three ticket-holders won $1 million each, and 158 won $250,000 for matching the first five numbers drawn, said Chuck Strutt, executive director of the Multi-State Lottery Association in Urbandale, Iowa.

The estimated jackpot dwarfs the previous $390 million record, which was split in 2007 by two winners who bought tickets in Georgia and New Jersey.

For some, the dreams were enough. Katie Kapczynski bought her first-ever lottery ticket with a roommate at a Washington, D.C., gas station. The attendant had to show her how to buy one.

"We kind of went more for the experience than the 'what if'," she said.

On Saturday morning, Kapczynski, a visitor services manager at the Newseum who was in New York on vacation, had left her $6 in tickets behind at home.

She still doesn't know if she won.

___

Associated Press reporters Jeffrey McMurray and Jason Keyser in Chicago, Kasey Jones in Milford Mill, Md., John Hanna in Topeka, Kan., Samantha Gross in New York, Margery Beck in Omaha, Neb., and Ed Donahue in Washington contributed to this report.

Well, he's sure a lot different than Frank Martin.

And if that's what Kansas State athletic director John Currie was going for in picking former Illinois

Bruce Weber will be trading in this orange coat jacket for a purple one as he is scheduled to be named Kansas State's new men's basketball coach today.

coach Bruce Weber to replace Martin as the Wildcats' men's basketball coach, then he knocked this one out of the park. K-State is holding a 3 p.m. news conference today to announce the hiring.

Otherwise, this hire strikes me as a weak grounder to second base.

First and foremost, why the rush? And why is K-State announcing the Weber hire on the day of the national semifinals in the NCAA Tournament? Talk about being relegated to the back page.

Just four days after Martin accepted the South Carolina job, Currie pulls Weber out of his hat? It's hard to fathom. Reportedly, the College of Charleston was trying to lure Weber. Southern Illinois, where Weber coached for five years before going to Illinois in 2003, had some interest in bringing Weber back, but nothing materialized.

Remember, Weber lost his team this season at Illinois. The Illini looked like an NCAA Tournament lock early, then went 2-12 to end the season. Weber was canned and Illinois is still looking for his replacement.

Weber is a good guy. He won't scowl at his players or cause little old ladies at Bramlage Coliseum to pray to the heavens, the way Martin did. He fits the mold for the coach many of us expected Currie to hire. I just didn't expect it to be Weber, who outside of his first three seasons Illinois – during which he coached a lot of Bill Self's former players – didn't do a whole lot.

In those first three seasons, Weber led Illinois to an 89-16 record and was 39-9 in the Big Ten. The Illini reached the national championship game in 2005 and won eight NCAA Tournament games overall.

But in the past six seasons, Weber and Illinois were 121-85 overall, 50-56 in the Big Ten and captured just one NCAA Tournament victory.

It's fair to say that after the Self influence departed the Illinois program, Weber was unable to do a whole lot. And now he's the guy Kansas State expects to stand toe to toe with Self and his Kansas program in the Big 12?

Yeah, good luck with that.

I can't fathom why Currie was so quick to pull the trigger here. How much did he shop the Kansas State job around? It's a great job and surely could have attracted a nice list of top candidates. In talking to reporters here at the Final Four in New Orleans over the past couple of days, I had become a big believer in Kentucky assistant Orlando Antigua, one of the country's top recruiters and brightest up-and-comers.

Antigua, I can assure you, was never contacted by Currie and Kansas State. Outside of Weber, who was? There wasn't time to contact many coaches. It will be interesting to hear Currie explain the process that was used to determine Weber was the best fit for the K-State job.

Weber, 55, did spend 19 years as an assistant to Larned native Gene Keady, first at Western Kentucky for one season and at Purdue for the next 18. Keady played at Kansas State from 1954-58 and is currently working on Steve Lavin's staff at St. John's.

Did Keady push hard for Weber? I guess we'll find out today.

But even if he did, didn't Currie owe it to Kansas State fans, the athletic department and the basketball program to turn over more stones before picking a coach?

There was a lot of furor Friday over the possibility of ESPN basketball commentator and former Oklahoma State player Doug Gottlieb perhaps emerging as a candidate at Kansas State. That was a ridiculous notion, but at least it got some Wildcats fans excited.

I don't imagine the hiring of Weber is having the same effect.

This is a decision that, in the long term, will help define Currie's reputation. Who knows, perhaps it will turn out to be a brilliant hire.

In the short term, though, it looks like an over-eager athletic director has stepped out onto a shaky limb.

MANHATTAN — Bruce Weber is well known in coaching circles and is one of the most recognizable faces in college basketball, but he comes to Kansas State surrounded by uncertainty.

His back story is filled with successes and failures. Few can focus on the same areas.

The Wildcats' new coach has been to the Final Four and was within a few points of the 2005 national championship. He was consensus national coach of the year that season and has taken eight teams to the NCAA Tournaments after success as an assistant with Purdue.

He is part of Gene Keady's coaching tree and also lists Eddie Sutton as a mentor.

"We've got a head basketball coach who has been there and knows the route and the path to that destination," K-State athletic director John Currie said. "In his career he has developed and mentored NBA lottery picks."

But he is also fresh off being fired. His final team at Illinois went 17-15 and missed the postseason. He hasn't taken a team to the Sweet 16 since 2005, and his best seasons with the Illini came with players Bill Self recruited before leaving for Kansas.

Though he accomplished much in his five seasons as Southern Illinois' coach, taking the Missouri Valley Conference team to the Sweet 16 in 2002, he finished in the top three of the Big Ten once in his final five years and didn't reach the Sweet 16 in that span.

Because of that, some K-State fans reacted negatively to Weber's introduction on Saturday. A small group of fans protested his hiring outside Bramlage Coliseum. One booster, who asked not to be named, said he won't renew his season tickets. Career scoring leader Jacob Pullen, who played for Frank Martin ending in 2011, criticized Weber on Twitter.

"I think K-State can do a lot better," Pullen wrote.

Weber, a 55-year-old Milwaukee native, will be paid $8.5 million over five years. He'll have to deal with those dueling perceptions as he tries to keep the Wildcats on the path Martin created before leaving for South Carolina on Tuesday.

K-State has played in four of the past five NCAA Tournaments. Weber is hopeful he can guide it back there next season. He has a message for fans until he takes the floor.

"Give me a chance," Weber said. "It doesn't matter where you go or which coach they hired, it was always going to be a question mark. There's no doubt about that. That is part of college sports today. I think my track record shows what I've done as a coach."

Dave Dreiling, a major K-State donor, said he was willing to give Weber that much despite not knowing much about him beyond the fact that he was recently fired from Illinois.

"I trust in president Kirk Schulz and John Currie to make the right decision," Dreiling said. "That doesn't mean they are going to be right every time, but in this case I know John has been studying this. That's his job. When this came up, this was his moment to shine. For me to look over his shoulder and second guess would be completely unfair."

Keady, now an advisor to the St. John's staff, thinks the Wildcats will win right away under Weber.

"He's one of the best five coaches in the country," Keady said by phone. "He was with me for 18 years at Purdue, and he was very instrumental in our success. We won a lot of games, and he's won a lot of games since. That won't change."

Weber will now try to win over more fans as he settles in at K-State. But first, he says he needs to win over the current players. He has already met with most of them, though K-State's freshmen were out of town and Rodney McGruder was recovering from a surgical procedure on his foot, and is looking forward to working with them on a limited basis starting Monday.

He said he will emphasize defense, and an offensive style that works both in transition and the half court.

"I'm excited," sophomore Will Spradling said. "I feel like he has been in this situation before and was very successful. I'm just ready to get started."

"He's a great coach," junior Jordan Henriquez said. "I'm not into the positives or negatives people are saying on the Internet, I just know growing up I watched him in the Final Four. I'm excited to play for him … I'm happy that the team is sticking together. I don't think there will be any changes made with us. Nobody is leaving."

No one's happier to hear that than Weber. When Currie first contacted him Tuesday, Weber said he told him he viewed K-State as a Sweet 16 team next year.

Though he said he interviewed with several other schools, including College of Charleston and SMU, in the past few days, that potential sold him on K-State as much as anything else.

"From all my peers and the people I trust, the No. 1 thing they said is make sure you take a job where you can have success," Weber said. "You deserve that … To me, this was the best situation — an area and a community and a university that I'm familiar with and great tradition. And it's nice to have some pretty good players coming back."

He will need to look into building a coaching staff first, though. He said he would like to hire someone with K-State ties or the old staff. That would make associate head coach Brad Underwood a candidate. But he may also look to his past successes. Former Southern Illinois coach Chris Lowery, fired after this season, worked under Weber for several years and could be a possibility.

Weber discussed all that and more while eating dinner with Keady in New Orleans on Friday night.

"He's got a lot of energy and is very excited about this," Keady said. "He will be well organized and bring in a good group of assistants. He is very unselfish and very loyal. He will talk to alumni groups and anything else he is asked to do. He's not just a coach. He's the whole package."

Weber has a career record of 313-115 and was 210-101 at Illinois in nine seasons. But he failed to lead the Illini to three of the past five NCAA Tournaments. Illinois must pay Weber $3.9 million to make up the final three years on his contract.

He said that downturn humbled him. But he didn't want to stay out of coaching long.

"I have got to be who I am and what I believe in," Weber said. "My teams, they have been blue-collar, hard-nosed, they have defended. I think sometimes if I did anything I was trying to please everybody instead of doing what I know is successful and will be successful in the future."

By Alfie Crow

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Mar 31, 2012 - The Kansas State Wildcats have been on the search for a new head coach ever since Frank Martin left for the South Carolina head coaching job. The Wildcats have found their new coach in former Illinois Illini coach Bruce Weber, according to a report by Jeff Goodman of CBS Sports.

The former Illinois coach, who was let go by Illinois a few weeks ago, has been hired to replace Frank Martin at Kansas State, sources told CBSSports.com. Weber will be introduced Saturday at 3 p.m. in Manhattan, Kansas.

Before landing the Kansas State job, Weber had also interviewed for the vacant SMU head coaching job according to a report Kate Hairopoulos of the Dallas News. Weber met with the SMU athletic director Steve Orsini on Thursday in New Orleans, according to Hariopoulos, but ultimately decided to ink a deal with Kansas State.

Prior to the hiring of Weber, ESPN analyst Doug Gottleib expressed interest in the head coaching vacancy, but instead of going with a "famous face" with no head coach experience, the Wildcats offered the position to Bruce Weber.

For more on the Bruce Weber hiring and Kansas State basketball, be sure to visit SB Nation's Kansas State blog Bring On The Cats.

Read More: Kansas St. Wildcats

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Bruce Weber, who underachieved at Illinois the last few years, is going to be named the coach at Kansas State, replacing Frank Martin. What in the Wide Wide World of Sports is going on here?

Bruce Weber may be a big name because he coached at Illinois (and was fired), but his recent history suggests this is not a good hire. He was at Southern Illinois. He took over for Bill Self at Illinois, having initial success with the players that Self recruited, as Illinois went to the Championship Game in his second season. When he then had to build his own program, he failed.

At a press conference after the Purdue loss, he talked about now building a winning culture–in Year Nine! His last six seasons, since 2007: #12 seed, first round loss; missed tournament; #5 seed, first round loss; missed tournament; #9 seed, second round loss; missed tournament. Three misses and only one win in the NCAA tournament over six years. This year's team lost 12 of its last 14 games.

Now, he gets to go against Bill Self's players rather than get to coach them for a few years.

Former Kansas State star player Jacob Pullen is not a fan of the move, either, to say the least.

Reaction in Kansas State nation is likely to be negative. Frank Martin was very popular. In recent days, ESPN Analyst Doug Gottlieb had even popped up in conversations and was interested in the job. That would have been a risk, but at least something different. Bruce Weber's last six years don't inspire confidence that he will continue what Martin started after the dust settles in a few years. The main thing to look forward to is what shade of ugly purple jacket Weber will sport.

[US Presswire]

The result of Friday Mega Millions winning numbers drawing. Who will won the $640M Mega Millions jackpot after the drawing results have been announced. The winning numbers are 2-4-23-38-46, MB 23!!!!!

Record Mega Millions numbers: 2-4-23-38-46, MB 23

Across the country, Americans plunked down an estimated $1.5 billion on the longest of long shots: an infinitesimally small chance to win what could end up being the single biggest lottery payout the world has ever seen.

Mega Millions winning numbers - [click to see gallery]

The numbers drawn Friday night in Atlanta were 2-4-23-38-46, Mega Ball 23. Lottery officials expected to release details about possible winners a couple of hours after the 11 p.m. Eastern drawing.

Forget about how the $640 million Mega Millions jackpot could change the life of the winner. It's a collective wager that could fund a presidential campaign several times over, make a dent in struggling state budgets or take away the gas worries and grocery bills for thousands of middle-class citizens.

And it's a cheap investment for the chance of a big reward, no matter how long the odds — 1 in 176 million.

"Twenty to thirty dollars won't hurt,'' said Elvira Bakken of Las Vegas. "I think it just gives us a chance of maybe winning our dream.''

So what exactly would happen if the country spent that $1.5 billion on something other than a distant dream?

For starters, it could cure the everyday worries of hundreds of thousands of American families hit by the Great Recession. It costs an average of $6,129 to feed the typical family for a year — meaning the cash spent on tickets could fill up the plates of 238,000 households.

As gas prices climb faster than stations can change the numbers on the signs, the money spent on tickets could fill the tanks of 685,000 households annually.

Or it could play politics. So far in this campaign, Republicans and President Barack Obama have spent $348.5 million. The amount spent on Mega Millions tickets could cover that tab four times over.

Could the money dig governments out of debt? That's a problem that even staggering ticket sales can't solve. It could trim this year's expected $1.3 trillion federal deficit by just over a tenth of 1 percent. In Illinois, the money would disappear just as fast into that state's $8 billion deficit.

On a personal level, that much money staggers. Giving $1.46 billion to a broker could purchase 2.4 million shares of Apple stock. (It would also be enough to buy about 2.4 million iPads at the starting price of $499. That's almost as many as the 3 million new iPads that Apple has already sold.)

Or consider the whimsical: A family of up to 12 could live for more than a century at Musha Cay, magician David Copperfield's $37,000-a-night private island resort in the Exuma Cays of the Caribbean.

For a more celestial vacation, the nearly $1.5 billion wagered could purchase about 7,300 tourist tickets for a ride into space aboard Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo. And it would pay for 26 rides for U.S. astronauts to the International Space Station aboard the Russian Soyuz spacecraft.

It would even buy a stake in pop culture. Want to influence the next winner of American Idol? If it costs a quarter to text in a vote to Ryan Seacrest, and it takes 122 million votes to win as it did last season, the money could control the outcome of the next 47 seasons.

For the states that participate, the money spent on lotto tickets is hardly a waste. It doesn't all end up as the winner's personal fortune — much of it is used by states to fund education and other social service programs, which is why advocates promote the lottery.

Though the specifics vary among the 42 participating states and the District of Columbia, only about half of ticket sales go into the actual jackpot. Another 35 percent goes to support government services and programs, while the rest funds lottery operating costs.

On Friday, the lottery estimated that total ticket sales for this jackpot, which has been building up since Jan. 28, will be about $1.46 billion, said Kelly Cripe, a spokeswoman for the Texas Lottery Commission.

You're about 20,000 times more likely to die in a car crash than win the lottery, but that doesn't matter to most people.

"Part of it is hope. … The average person basically has no chance of making it really big, and buying a lottery ticket is a way of raising the ceiling on what could possibly happen to you, however unlikely it may be,'' said George Loewenstein, a professor of economics and psychology at Carnegie Mellon University who has studied how rich and poor consumers make a choice to buy lottery tickets.

The odds are much better that someone will begin their weekend a winner. Aaron Abrams, a mathematician at Emory University, said he calculated that there was only a 6 percent chance that no one would hold the winning numbers.

"Every time the jackpot gets higher, more and more people buy tickets, which makes it more and more likely that someone will win,'' Abrams said. "So the chance that it rolls over this many times in a row is very small. It's quite a rare event.''

The estimated jackpot dwarfs the previous $390 million record, which was split in 2007 by two winners who bought tickets in Georgia and New Jersey.

The rarity of Friday's jackpot was fueling the fervor. Lines formed at grocery stores, gas stations, liquor stops and other venues across the country.

In Arizona, a café worker reported selling $2,600 worth of tickets to one buyer. In Indiana, hundreds lined up for a giveaway of free tickets. Hundreds from Utah and Las Vegas streamed in to neighboring California or Arizona to buy tickets because their states don't participate.

Accountant Ray Lousteau, who bought 55 Mega Millions tickets Friday in New Orleans, knows buying that many tickets doesn't mathematically increase his odds, and that his $55 could have gone elsewhere. He spent it anyway.

"Mathematically, it doesn't make a difference, and intellectually we know that. But for some reason buying more tickets makes you feel more lucky,'' Lousteau said. "Even people who know better are apt to feel that way.''

In Chicago, Peter Muiznieks bought a ticket at a liquor store. He knows his chance of winning is a long shot, and that the money the country is spending on tickets could go elsewhere. He still couldn't help himself, and laughed as the apparent contradiction of his opinion and his actions.

"Lottery and games of chance are a stupidity tax and the more we all buy into this, the less rational we are as a society,'' he said. (Noreen Gillespie and Paul Wiseman, AP – Boston.com)

ST. LOUIS (AP) — Congratulations, Mega Millions winners! You've just won the biggest lottery in history! Move over Bill Gates and Warren Buffett!

Not so fast, Richie Rich.

There's no doubt that you're now each a member of the 1 percent. A life of comfort and leisure awaits, and managed wisely, it just might await your friends and family for generations to come.

Let's just not get carried away.

A luxury box at the stadium you can afford, but forget about buying the franchise and becoming the "No. 1 fan" of your
favorite NFL or Major League Baseball team. The Los Angeles Dodgers just sold for $2 billion, besting the NFL record price of $1.1 billion for the Miami Dolphins by nine times your take-home winnings.

If you'd like to turn the keys at the sweetest pad in New York City — an $88 million apartment at 15 Central Park West — you'll have to spend nearly all of it to close the deal. But don't get into a bidding war: You're sure to lose out to the current owner, the 22-year-old daughter of a Russian billionaire.

Even if you're looking to become the next great philanthropist, your good deeds can't compete — at least in terms of dollars and cents — with that Gates guy. His foundation has given away close to $26 billion since it was established in 1994.

So, you've got some catching up to do. Don't worry, you're starting from a good place.

In the hours before the dramatic Friday night drawing, the jackpot was estimated at $640 million. If you each take the
lump-sum payout, the cartoon checks made out to you will be worth about $150 million. Uncle Sam gets his share, and your state might, too.

All told, you'll each have roughly 100 million reasons to call April 2, 2012, the best Monday morning of your life.

If you follow the advice of those who know money, you won't splurge on those big-ticket items that you can afford, such a
top-of-the-line Gulfstream G650 jet ($64 million, excluding pilot, maintenance, hanger and fuel costs) and a place to fly it, your own private island (let's call that $25 million even).

Had you won the whole pot, and invested the $300 million conservatively, Steve Fazzari, an economics professor at Washington
University in St. Louis, said you could have expected to collect a nice "salary" of about $7 million "after taxes every year for the rest of your life and the rest of the life of your heirs."

Put another way, that's $19,000 a day. Forever. And even a one-third share of that is pretty sweet. "If you put it in
perspective, you're pretty rich," Fazzari said.

It's more than enough to join up with the 1 percent, which the Congressional Budget Office pegged as households with incomes that average more than about $350,000 a year.

But it's still not all THAT much, at least according to those buzzkills at Forbes. Just 30 years ago, the total after-taxes take of $300 million would have been more than enough to land a single winner on the magazine's annual list of the 400 richest Americans. In 2011, you would have needed $1.05 billion to tie four others for last place on a list topped by Gates.

In fact, your $100 million isn't even two-tenths of 1 percent of Gates' estimated $61 billion net worth. Using Fazzari's math on conservative investing, the Microsoft co-founder can expect to bring in an annual salary of $1.4 billion — or 14 times your share of the historic jackpot.

But that's Bill Gates, America's richest man. Surely you'll be the richest guy on your block?

Perhaps, but not in the city centers of New York, Chicago and Los Angeles. In Chicago alone, Forbes says there are 18
billionaires, including six members of one family.

Even in a smaller city such as St. Louis, you're likely to find yourself a handful of zeros from the top: Under the Gateway Arch, the big money belongs to Enterprise Rent-A-Car's Jack Taylor and his family. They're worth an estimated $9 billion.

But none of that matters, right? So what if there are hundreds of billionaires out there whose wealth makes yours look like that of a pauper, or that there are limits you never imagined facing to a jackpot you could ever imagine winning. Surely that $100 million will at least solve all your cares and provide a lifetime of happiness.

Yeah, not so much.

"After they win the jackpot, most of them self-destruct and they end up much more unhappy than they were before," Dr. Tom
Manheim, who offers financial therapy in Solana Beach, Calif. "It's really kind of a sad state of our economy where we think
that money, once again is going to bring us happiness, and it doesn't."

So, uh, yeah, congratulations, we guess, to the Mega Millions winners.

(And no, those of us who didn't win aren't bitter. Not one little bit.)

(Copyright 2012 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)