From K-State Sports Extra, Kelly McHugh checks in on Rodney McGruder, who's having a grand old time balling in... Hungary? Rod's dropping 14.6 a game and getting 28.3 minutes on a team which played (not particularly well) in this season's EuroChallenge, which is the third-tier European basketball competition. This week's actually big stuff for Rodney and his teammates (including Ball State's Jarrod Jones and Cincinnati's Deonta Vaughn); they have a pair of games against Szolnoki Olajbanyasz which may determine the Hungarian A-Division regular season champion, though there's an eight-team knockout playoff after that. The two teams are tied with only their two games against each other remaining. I don't have the faintest idea how they go about breaking a tie, but hey, you already know way more than you did five minutes ago if you actually read the Slate, but you don't anyway, right?
The good news for McGruder and company: in between those two games, Szolnoki has to play in the Eurochallenge semifinals, and that game absolutely eclipses the league championship in importance... because if Szolnoki wins that semifinal on Friday, they automatically qualify for Eurocup, which is the second-tier competition. Should Atomeromu win the Hungarian championship, they'd also qualify for next season's Eurocup, and that'd be swell.
Oh, yeah, Kelly also runs down what's up with other Wildcat alums playing in the NBA, D-League, and internationally. Quick highlights: Lance Harris is third in scoring in the Russian Superleague, Jake Pullen is currently the backup point guard at FC Barcelona and set the Spanish league record with 12 3-pointers in one game last month, and Michael Beasley is curiously absent.
In other news, with the coaching carousel rolling from California to Tennessee to Southern Mississippi, there's a name on the Golden Eagles' short list that will upset you: Brad Underwood.
This was touched on in comments yesterday, but Olathe South's Kylee Kopatich has flipped her commitment from K-State to That School Down the River. Although Kopatich was tight with the former coaching staff, the article does note that part of her decision was that the K-State staff hadn't even confirmed she still had an offer, which strikes me as the sort of thing you don't forget to do unless you're not that high on a player.
Bakersfield? Seriously? They were a Division II school like fifteen minutes ago. The BatCats coughed up the lead in the sixth, and couldn't even score one more run, much less the three they ended up needing. Down two with one out in the seventh, Ross Kivett was doubled off third base, unassisted, off an Austin Fisher line drive to end the inning; down three in the eighth, the Cats got a pair of runners on with two outs but Blair DeBord lined out to left; still down three in the ninth, K-State got two on with one out but Fisher again lined into an unassisted double play. Ugh.
Pairings have been announced for the Big 12 men's golf championship. K-State is the ninth seed, and here's where I point out that West Virginia doesn't sponsor men's golf. The men are paired with seventh-seeded TCU and eighth seed Kansas, starting off the 10th tee at Whispering Pines in Trinity, Texas (about a half an hour north of that hellhole TB thinks is a great city) at 8am on Friday.
John Currie has received the Outstanding Civilian Service Award from the US Army for his efforts to bring Fort Riley and K-State closer together.
Erin Poppe at The Collegian celebrates Willie the Wildcat's 47th birthday, and a former Willie commits the unpardonable sin of revealing himself.
Finally, Missouri State finished in the top five in the collegiate club roller hockey championship, which is only relevant because I now know that K-State has a club roller hockey team competing in the Great Plains Collegiate Inline Hockey League alongside Illinois, Mizzou, and others. Can haz Big 12 roller hockey?