K-State Slate: 5.28.15 - Crowd control for Big 12 fans

Yesterday featured a flurry of activity to compensate for the relative lack of news. First, Jon Morse confirmed that Wamego star Lanie Page finally signed her letter of intent to Kansas State. She'll join her sister Kaylee who recently transferred from Nebraska. For more on the Page story, read here (Ken Corbitt, Topeka Capital-Journal).

Jon was busy yesterday, as the APR report was released. Kansas State did well, with scores of 948 or more across the board, including a conference-leading 976 for the football team. More details on the APR report are available here (Staff, Capital-Journal).

Finally, we asked our staff which schools they wanted to see on their non-conference wish list. The results were interesting and a bit confusing.

Say this for Kansas State, if nothing else. We're frequently the cause for a rules change. The Big 12 conference is holding its annual spring meetings in the Dallas area, and the big news yesterday was the conference's efforts to control unruly fan behavior (Jimmy Burch, Fort Worth Star-Telegram). Yesterday, the conference authorized commissioner Bob Bowlsby to penalize schools when postgame celebrations get out of control, as they did when Kansas State beat Kansas earlier this year.

It is not yet clear what penalties are being considered, but the punishment could range from a simple reprimand to stiff fines and even the potential loss of future home games.

The other snippet of news from the meetings is that conference schools are being "encouraged" to schedule FBS opponents going forward, but will not be barred from scheduling FCS schools. Bowlsby generously noted that the FCS schools within the Big 12 footprint need the revenue from FBS games to support their athletic departments. He did not, however, rule out the possibility that FCS schools may be barred from conference schedules at some point in the future.

The TCU and Baylor fans need no excuses to hate each other, and last year's One True Champion fiasco only served to fan the flames of an already raging fire. The recent success of the two teams has made the rest of the world take note of this revivalry though (Brice Cherry, Waco Tribune).

Finally, closer to home, there's this story on Stanton Weber, a lifelong Catbacker and finally, as a senior, a scholarship player and team captain (Corbitt, Capital-Journal).

The track and field team will be in Austin for the NCAA West Preliminary Rounds starting today. The outcome is critical for securing bids to the NCAA Championships in June. To qualify for an event at the NCAAs, an athlete must finish in the top 12 (out of 48) of that event.

The women's team features 16 athletes in competition this week, including four high jump stalwarts who have already recorded top 12 finishes in the outdoor season: Kim Williamson, Akela Jones, Alyx Treasure and Rhizlane Siba. They join other Wildcat women who have also finished well in their respective events: A'Keyla Mitchell (200m), Dani Winters (shot put), Sara Savatovic (hammer throw), and Danie Plank (javelin).

The men's team features eight athletes including high jumpers Christoff Bryan, Nate Gipson and Zach Riley, long jumper Ifeanyichukwu Otuonye, javelin experts Ivan Hartung and Dwight Davidson, and track stars Kain Ellis (800m) and Terrell Smith (200m).

You can follow the day's action by tracking the #KStateTF tag on Twitter.