Baylor women destroy Kansas State

Happy post-bowlus Friday, citizens!

Let’s see. What’s going on as we begin the final weekend of 2016?

Women’s Basketball

Well, for starters, K-State got blasted into smithereens last night at Baylor (AP via the Star). The third-ranked Bears (12-1, 1-0) started hot and then rolled to an 87-57 win at the Ferrell Center in Waco. Five Bears hit double figures, led by Kalani Brown’s 22-12 double-double.

For K-State (10-3, 0-1), if we’d told you that Kindred Wesemann scored 16, Bre Lewis 14, and Karyla Middlebrook 13, you’d have thought it was a game. Unfortunately, nobody else in purple had more than three points on the night.

Next up, the Wildcats host 12th-ranked West Virginia (13-0, 1-0) on Sunday. The Mountaineers opened Big 12 play by thrashing TCU 83-61 in Fort Worth.

Men’s Basketball

Big 12 play starts tonight as K-State hosts Texas tonight at Bramlage. Kellis Robinett has a preview, and be sure to look for more coverage from our team through out the day.

Football

Oh, the media. They like us, they really really like us. For now.

ESPN’s Sam Khan Jr. was effusive in his praise for the Wednesday night win. Our own editorial guru Spencer Hall dropped another paean to the enigma of Bill Snyder. At FanRag, Wendell Barnhouse has a balanced analysis of the game, but more importantly joins the list of folks posting your benevolent despot’s Real Texas State Champs tweet and mildly mocks A&M’s “We Run This State” motto. Finally, Kellis Robinett is back, taking a look at the future.

Kellis’s article makes us wonder: do “having a team set to win next year” and “winning this year’s bowl game” just go hand-in-hand with Bill Snyder? They won in 1993, and had Chad May returning. They won their bowl game in 1995, but lost a lot of guys from that team, so 1996 wasn’t a step forward. They won the Fiesta Bowl after the 1997 season, and again had a ton of talent (including Michael Bishop) returning. 1999? Bowl win, Beasley returning, and for the only time in K-State history they followed up with another bowl win before the shoes fell off in 2001. 2002? Bowl win, Roberson and Sproles returned, and we know what happened in 2003. 2013, beat Michigan, Waters and Lockett returned and nearly stumbled into a New Year’s Six game in 2014.

The only pair of years which don’t really fall into the pattern are 2011 and 2012, and the glaring difference there is that the near-title run in 2012 wasn’t preceded by a bowl win. Maybe that should have been an omen.

We often complain, in the aftermath of a bowl loss, that Snyder was too busy preparing for the following season to concern himself with the bowl game itself. While that may or may not be accurate, what certainly seems to be is this: when the team he’s preparing for the next season happens to be the team that’s taking the field at the end of the year, good things happen. Something to think about.

Especially since so much of what will be on the field in 2017 will be back again the following year.

Oh, and lest we forget: our own Greg Woods informs you of a curious clause in Jim Leavitt’s new contract at Oregon...