K-State Slate: 3.12.14

It's Wednesday. Wednesday's not supposed to be this busy.

Previously on BotC:

On this week's Bring on the Podcast, Ahearn and Derek chatted with SB Nation's own bracketologist, Chris Dobbertean of Blogging the Bracket.

Men's Basketball:

The USBWA's District VI awards (for which Kitchen is a voter) were announced yesterday. The 'Cats came up empty on a list covering Iowa, Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Nebraska, and the Dakotas.

Marcus Foster's getting play mid-week. Andy Newberry of The Wichita Falls Times-Record takes a look at how their hometown boy measures up, The Capital-Journal's Ken Corbitt says Marcus is ready for the postseason, even though The Star's Kellis Robinett reports Foster is "admittedly tired". I'd be tired too, carrying Manhattan on my back for four months.

Big 12 Tournament Previews: K-State's official preview of Thursday's game, Rob Dauster at NBC's College Basketball Talk previews the tourney, The Star's quick meet-and-greet of the ten teams, Blair Kerkhoff thinks there's eight teams who could win this thing and also looks at the rocky roads Baylor and Oklahoma State took to get where they are. We've got three items from The Collegian today; Timothy Everson thinks Oklahoma's going to win the tournament, Tate Steinlage has a short By the Numbers piece, and John Zetmeir previews Thursday's game against the Cyclones.

Mark Thompson at the Greensboro News-Record looks back at the 1974 ACC Tournament and NCAA Final Four, held in Greensboro. Both tournaments were epic, a conclusion to a game-changing season; because of how things played out, it was destined to be the final year in which only one team per conference was allowed into the tournament.

Sound horns of doom and thunder: ESPN's Andy Katz reports that the NCAA Tournament Selection Committee "will be in contact" with Kansas regarding Joel Embiid's injury. There's only one thing that can come of that, and it involves an arrow pointing downward.

And while I have no issue with Wichita State, I know some of you will spend all morning laughing about this one: a concession stand at Koch Arena was cited by the state health department because of a cockroach infestation.

Automatic Bid Tracker:

As the day began, Coastal Carolina, Delaware, Eastern Kentucky, Harvard, Manhattan, Mercer, Wichita State, and Wofford had all earned trips to the NCAA Tournament. Today, they were joined by Gonzaga (West Coast), Mount Saint Mary's (Northeast), North Dakota State (Summit), and Wisconsin-Milwaukee (Horizon).

NIT automatic bids were already in place for Belmont, Davidson, Florida Gulf Coast, High Point, Iona, and Vermont, as well as Wisconsin-Green Bay, assuming the Phoenix don't sneak into the big dance as an at-large selection. (That's highly unlikely.) They're now joined by Robert Morris (Northeast), the only regular-season champion to fall tonight.

Women's Basketball:

Another take questioning John Currie's decision to terminate Deb Patterson, this one from Josh Kinder at The Manhattan Mercury (and, surprisingly, free-to-view). Again: before judging Currie harshly, this season's failures have to be looked at in comparison with the men's team, which faced almost exactly the same challenges.

Automatic Bid Tracker:

Prior to yesterday, Albany, Baylor, Connecticut, Fordham, Marist, Nebraska, Notre Dame, Southern California, Tennessee, Tennessee-Chattanooga, Tennessee-Martin, and Winthrop had earned bids to the NCAA Tournament. To that list we now add DePaul (Big East), Gonzaga (West Coast), Pennsylvania (Ivy), and South Dakota (Summit). Half of the autobids are now settled.

As for the WNIT, which we'll remind you is highly dependent on the bubble, the following teams should have secured automatic bid before yesterday: Alabama, Belmont, Furman, Iona, Liberty, Miami, Minnesota, Saint Bonaventure, South Florida, Stony Brook, Texas Christian, and Washington. Princeton, upset by Penn tonight for the Ivy League title, appears to hold the tiebreaker over Harvard for the Ivy's automatic WNIT bid. Creighton (Big East), IUPUI (Summit), and Pacific (West Coast) are also set to join the party.

Baseball:

The BatCats take on Nebraska-Omaha this evening in a one-off mid-week contest beginning 6:30pm at Tointon. K-State's official preview and the Omaha World-Herald's Rob White get you started. Righty Nate Griep (0-0, 1.59) -- from Omaha -- gets the start for the Cats, who are 4-0 all-time against the Mavericks. He'll be up against lefty Steven Schoonover, getting his first outing of the year. The game will air on KMAN and at K-State AllAccess, and can be viewed on K-StateHD.tv.

Other:

The Star has previews of... some of the KSHAA basketball playoffs, both the boys and girls.