Kansas sports are changing.

In the past year, a new men’s basketball coach — just the seventh in the program’s 105-year history — made his first NCAA Tournament appearance. The football team defeated both of its rivals in the best 4-7 season in the sport’s history.

Nonrevenue sports are thriving as well. The soccer team won its first Big 12 Championship and is primed to threaten for future national titles. The volleyball and soccer teams, guided by well-respected coaches, are on the verge of becoming regular visitors to the postseason.

A new women’s basketball coach, just the first in more than 35 years, has experienced mixed success with a tough schedule.

The bowling team has established itself as one of the top squads in the country, and we have seen former track star Charlie Gruber represent the United States and the University of Kansas in the Olympic Games.

To adapt to the changing face of Jayhawk athletics, The University Daily Kansan is changing the way it covers sports. This semester, one of the largest, most talented sports staffs in the newspaper’s 100 years of production will add coverage of nonrevenue sports, such as track and field and golf, and out-of-season teams, such as soccer and volleyball.

Club sports, such as bowling and ice hockey, will see increased attention, as well. The goal is to fill the pages of the Kansan with news you can’t find anywhere else.

Jayhawk fans have had much to be proud of in the last year, but they are hoping for an even better conclusion. Sixteen of our peers have a chance to sing “One Shining Moment” in the shadow of the St. Louis arch on April 4, while hoisting Kansas’ first NCAA Championship trophy in more than a decade.

That men’s basketball team has already done amazing things, and the Kansan will follow the squad until the end of its season, whether it’s in St. Louis or, with deep reporting, fact-based opinion pieces and a revamped Web site so readers can follow the team when they’re away from campus.

Highlighting the changes in sports will be the new kansan.com as well as more fact-based, timely sports commentary from three regular columnists, all of whom have spent time as reporters.

Kansan.com will become a destination for Jayhawk fans with breaking news, up-to-the-minute game coverage and, in time, multimedia content which will bring readers closer to the games.

As with any semester-long undertaking, plans will change as the reporters and editors of this section learn what works and what doesn’t.

As editors, we hope that you will help steepen our staff’s learning curve with e-mail feedback and comments on the Web site.

Look at our section as fans and as peers of KU student athletes.

Whatever changes we make for the spring semester, our goal is to provide readers with news relevant to fans and peers of the athletes that fans admire.