Kansas State NCAA Tournament selection reactions

We’ve had a night to digest Kansas State’s selection as the final team in the NCAA Tournament field, and now it’s time to sort through the fallout. There’s a lot to sift through, so we’ll again result to the trusty bullet list.

Announcement reactions

• Our quick hit announcement
• SB Nation’s Chris Dobbertean is a bit non-plussed
• Kellis Robinett of the Star/Eagle reports on the wait
• Ken Corbitt of the Capital-Journal also discusses the Cats sweating out the reveal
• Also at the C-J, Kevin Haskin on all three Kansas teams making the cut
• Dan Collins of the Winston-Salem Journal reports on Wake Forest’s selection, and by extension K-State’s
• Robert Reinhard of SB Nation’s Wake blog Blogger So Dear also announces the matchup
• Mike Waters of the Syracuse Post-Standard dissects committee chairman Mark Hollis’s explanation of why K-State is in and Syracuse isn’t
• Zach Helfand of the Los Angeles times on the three-way battle between USC, K-State, and Syracuse for the final two spots
• Mike Helfgot of the Chicago Tribune on anger and outrage at Illinois State
• Jason Butt of the Macon Telegraph isn’t arguing that Georgia should have gotten in, but he does a side-by-side comparison of K-State and Georgia to explain why they didn’t

Preview materials

• SamuraiFoochs of Blogger So Dear likes Wake Forest’s chances
• Kyle Boone of CBS dot com previews the game and picks the Cats
• AP preview via FOX

Other minutiae

• CBS’s Matt Norlander power-ranks the 68-team field, and he’s got K-State higher than Middle Tennessee State, at least
• ESPN’s Andy Katz has more from Mark Hollis, but it’s about the top seed decisions, not K-State
• And finally, in keeping with the sub-heading, ESPN’s Keith Lipscomb has a metric ton of random facts about the tournament field

And the award for epic trolling by a tournament selection committee? The NIT sent UNC-Greensboro... to Syracuse.

Women’s Basketball

K-State awaits its NCAA destination (and there’s no doubt about this one), but handed out its team awards yesterday. The senior recipients of the top two awards are completely unsurprising; Breanna Lewis repeated as Nicole Ohlde Defensive MVP, and Kindred Wesemann was named Kendra Wecker Offensive MVP. Junior Shaelyn Martin earned two awards. She claimed the Priscilla Gary Hustle Award, and shared the Dr. Pat Bosco Academic Award with senior Kelly Thomson. Junior Karlya Middlebrook was named most improved player, and sophomore Kayla Goth won the day’s most awkwardly-named award: the First Infantry Division Sustainment Brigade Tammie Romstad Durable Award.

Today, the women’s field is announced, and we’ll have more on that for you as the day progresses. What should you expect? ESPN’s Charlie Creme has the Cats pegged for a six seed.

Baseball

The BatCats fell in the rubber match of their three-game set with Cal-Riverside, getting pummeled 11-2. That drops K-State’s record to 12-4. They return to action with games on Tuesday and Wednesday at Tointon against, respectively, Creighton and Nebraska-Omaha.

Track and Field

wildcat00 already told you that Nina Schultz and Kim Williamson earned first-team All-America honors in heptathlon and high jump at the NCAA indoor championships in College Station. High Jump U nabbed another honor on Saturday as Christoff Bryan finished tied for fifth in the event, also claiming the title of All-American. Two Wildcats also earned second-team nods, as Janee’ Kassanavoid finished ninth in the women’s weight throw and Shardia Lawrence took tenth in the women’s triple jump.

If you’re counting, that’s a total of five All-American honors, which is coincidentally the number of Wildcats who qualified for the NCAA championships.

Tennis

The tennis team fell to 0-2 in conference play after losing a heartbreaking 4-3 decision to TCU on Sunday. Down 3-1, K-State got back in the match with back-to-back singles wins from Ana Garcia Navas and Livia Cirnu, and Maria Panaite then took the first set against Caroline Wegner 6-2 to give the Wildcats the edge. But Wegner won the second set 6-4, and then the two went into tiebreaker territory for the third set. Wegner prevailed 7-5, however, ending the K-State hopes.

The Cats go back out of conference and hit the road this weekend, playing at SMU on Saturday and Texas-Arlington on Sunday.

Golf

Madison Talley posted her second top-five finish of the season with a 2-under 214 at the MountainView Collegiate in Tucson. That helped the Wildcats to a sixth-place finish in the event, although they were 38 strokes adrift of champions Arizona. Those other Wildcats were led by Wanasa Zhou, who recorded an impressive 13-under on the weekend.

Next up, in two weeks, is the John Kirk Panther Intercollegiate at Stockbridge, Ga. hosted by Georgia State.

Other Stuff

Olivia Musser at the Daily Beast reports on former Baylor scumbag Dave Bliss, who’s still claiming Patrick Dennehy was a drug dealer.