SLATE: Kansas State track and field faces major competition at the Razorback Invitational

We’re super late, so we’ll get right to business.

Men’s Basketball

With the squad on a winning streak and a couple of big games on the horizon, talk has naturally turned to tournament hopes. Yesterday, Luke Thompson checked in with this week’s edition of Tournament Thursday, but as we’ll see in a moment one component of his discussion has done a heel turn.

Kellis Robinett writes about how the experts aren’t sold on K-State, including quotes from a phone interview with Jerry Palm of CBS expressing regret at having included the Cats in the field in his Monday bracket; this morning, Palm gave in to his misgivings and took K-State back out.

But SI’s Michael Beller, after including K-State as team number 68 on Monday, balanced the scales by dramatically upgrading the Wildcats yesterday, boosting them all the way to a 10-seed. (Luke covered this in his article, but it’s from within the last 24 hours so here we are.)

The Star’s Blair Kerkhoff and Pete Grathoff rank the Big 12/SEC Challenge games by watchability. Fire up your disrespect machines.

A couple of Jayhawk news items which are interesting enough for us to care about: Geoff Grammer of the Albuquerque Journal reports that New Mexico will be Carlton Bragg‘s transfer landing spot, and the Star’s Maria Torres profiles Lawrence Free State point guard Garrett Luinstra, who plans to walk on at Kansas. It’s a nice story, because Luinstra’s dad was Brian Luinstra, an athletic trainer for the Oklahoma State men’s basketball program who perished in the 2001 plane crash which took ten lives on the way home from a road game in Boulder.

Women’s Basketball

ESPN’s Mechelle Voepel, the go-to journalist at the Deathstar when it comes to female college athletes, takes time to profile two-sport Wildcat star Peyton Williams.

Football

Someone at Vanier has been busy down in Louisiana, specifically at University Lab in Baton Rouge. Gabe Brooks at 247 reports that Christian Harris and Makiya Tongue, both three-star athletes starring for the undefeated Louisiana Division II state champs, received offers from K-State this week — and that the Wildcats may not be done handing out offers at U-High. Both players see action on both sides of the ball; both are receivers, while Harris is a potential linebacker and Tongue a linebacker or safety.

And yes, Tongue is the son of former Chief Reggie.

Track and Field

K-State is in Fayetteville for the Razorback Invitational, one of the most prestigious indoor events of the season. On the women’s side, nine of the top 25 teams in the nation (including K-State, ranked #24) are in attendance, while six top-25 men’s teams are participating. Action commenced at 12:45pm, and you can tune in on the SEC Network, SEC Network+, and WatchESPN.

Other

Savanna Maue of the Capital-Journal reports on yesterday’s Forum Hall appearance by Martin Luther King III.