Slate: Pre-Vegas Hoops Tune-ups Complete

Yesterday brought another win for Bruce’s boys, as expected. What will today bring?

Previously

Getting into the hoops groove, we brought you Precap, Game Thread and Recap. Man, basketball creates a lot of work. If the ‘Cats play well in Vegas this weekend, will you buy in?

Men’s Basketball

Yes, the Wildcats beat Northern Arizona convincingly, in the process tying a school record for steals, with 19. About the only part of the contest the visitors won was the rebounding battle, 36-28. That stat is misleading, though, since they failed to get a shot up on 31 possessions due to turnovers. No need to rebound when Barry Brown is pilfering the ball and running the other way to dunk it.

Other good news from the game: The Big Four all had solid outings. Brown led with 20 points on 9-13 efficiency, along with four assists and six steals. Kamau Stokes scored 16, with two assists and three steals. Dean Wade added 15 points, five rebounds and five steals. Xavier Sneed filched a comparatively paltry 2 steals, but scored 12 and assisted on seven buckets.

Aside from our own recap by AMS (also linked above), you can read about it here:

K-State Logs Another Easy Win before Hard Games begin in Las Vegas (Kellis Robinett, KC Star)

K-State Steals Victory over Northern Arizona (Ken Corbitt, Topeka Capital-Journal)

Brown comes close to Career-high in Win over Northern Arizona (Greg Woods, the Mercury)

Wildcats Tie Record with 19 Steals en route to 80-58 victory (kstatesports.com)

It gets real now, boys and girls. K-State plays Arizona State (4-0) on Thanksgiving at the Continental Tire Las Vegas Invitational (strange sponsor for Vegas, huh?), followed by a Friday game against either George Washington (2-2) or No. 15 Xavier (4-0).

In other basketball news, Jacob Pullen was recalled from the Phladelphia ‘76ers’ G-League affiliate, where he was averaging 18.7 points and 4.3 assists per game. In Jake’s own words, “What a feeling.”

Football

The Jim Leavett story didn’t even die in the wake of K-State’s biggest road win five years. Coach Snyder says that Leavitt turned down an offer to join the coaching staff. (Kellis Robinett, Wichita Eagle) Snyder addressed the issue during the Big 12 Coaches Teleconference, but did not specify when the offer was made. (Greg Woods, Mercury)

Now about that game that the Big 12 media apparently wants to forget: The Football Writers Association of America named K-State its National Team of the Week after Saturday’s road upset of No. 10 Oklahoma State. The league, meanwhile, named Byron Pringle Big 12 Offensive Player of the Week after he became the first player in league history to record three touchdown catches and a kick return touchdown in the same game. Sklyar Thompson was named league Newcomer of the Week for his 10-13 accuracy and 284.9 passer rating in Saturday’s Oklahoma gale.

Tyler Lockett’s 234 all-purpose yards highlighted the week for K-State alumni in the NFL.

In what has become a time-honored tradition, Pat Forde speculates that Bill’s time at K-State may be up. Speculation is cheap, Pat. If you keep guessing, someday you’ll be right by default.

Volleyball

K-State middle blocker registered a league-best 16 blocks last week. For her efforts, she was named Big 12 Defensive Player of the Week. (kstatesports.com)

Women’s Basketball

Rachel Ranke was named Big 12 Freshman of the Week, after averaging 19 points, 3.3 rebounds and 1.7 steals per game over three ‘Cat wins. (kstatesports.com)

K-State Sports Extra (Corbin McGuire) profiled two-sport athlete Peyton Williams, who not only excels on both the volleyball and basketball courts, but also in the classroom. Since we already partner with Nike, could we get some “Peyton Knows...” commercials? That would be awesome.