Slate: Late night basketball brings heartburn

Previously

Wednesday was a bit of a wild ride at BotC.

First up, we had the start of first-ever early signing period for college football. The K-State football coaches did about as well as we all expected, signing the bulk of their 2018 class that had been committed to this point, with a couple of signing-day announcements going in the Wildcats favor. The biggest news was the very early signing of Christian Duffie, OL from Houston, who was the overall top-rated player on the Wildcats commit board. We covered the full day with a live thread if you want to go refresh yourself on who has been signed. We’ll have a full recap for you this weekend once the early period has closed.

In preparation for next Tuesday’s Cactus Bowl, we had two pieces of bowl-related content for you yesterday. First up, Luke Thompson brought Ben Bolch, the Los Angeles Times UCLA beat writer, on to Bring on the PodCats to talk about Josh Rosen, the UCLA Bruins, and their Pac-12-worst rush defense. A little later in the day, AMS went back into the archives and started to recap all the bowl games from K-State history, starting back in the Dark Ages and ending with the 1997 Cotton Bowl.

Finally, and more on this later, there was a basketball game late last night. Luke Sobba is the real hero here, and stayed up late to get a recap of the come-from-ahead-to-come-from-behind 68-65 victory over the Washington State Cougars in Spokane.

Football

Since the early signing period started yesterday, we’ll lead will football news.

First up, Bill Snyder had his pre-bowl press conference yesterday, and left us all with more questions than answers, including that he still hasn’t made up his mind about coming back for next season (Robinett, Eagle). Dennis Dodd’s #hottaek is that Snyder is holding the program hostage by not making a decision, and by his clear favoritism of his son, Sean.

With the bowl game so soon, and with heavy prep underway for that, K-State coaches were pulling double-duty to get the 16-member early-signing class inked (no, it’s not quite 17 yet, as JUCO DB Darreyl Patterson has not signed his paperwork yet, and won’t until after the first of the year) (Corbitt, Capital-Journal).

K-StateSports.com has their full recruiting HQ up with bio’s on all the newest Wildcats.

Basketball

The Wildcats blew a 17-point lead, but a big late effort from Bobby Barry Brown Jr., as well as a career night from Makol Mawien, pushed the Cats over the edge to escape Spokane with a victory (Ryan Black, Mercury). It was Brown’s 7th career 20-point game, and every bit was needed after Wazzu’s Carter Skaggs played 31 minutes off the bench and knocked down six 3’s to put the Cougars back in the game (Robinett, Eagle). K-StateSports.com also has the official K-State recap of the game.

The Wildcats women’s basketball team is in action tonight from Bramlage. The Cats will be looking to avenge a loss last season as they take on the Northern Iowa Panthers in a home-and-home return trip. Almost exactly one year ago, the Wildcats visited Cedar Falls, IA and left with a 67-59 defeat. That Panthers team was loaded with seniors and finished the 2016-17 season with a 24-9 record and a first-round exit in the NCAA Tournament. This year’s Panthers aren’t as daunting and enter tonight’s contest at 3-7 on the season, but do hold a victory over Iowa State.