SLATE: Your Supervillian Kansas State Wildcats

To the surprise of nobody whatsoever, the historic significance of tonight’s second-round game between K-State and UMBC has not been lost upon the media. As a result, we’ve got a ton of links for you to wade through today, and we’re going to dive right in, but first:

Today’s Slate was prepared at 2:00am, so if you see any interesting early morning stories which we missed due to early prep, please do share in the comments.

Local media:

• In a really entertaining piece in which you’ll get to know the Retrievers pretty well, the Star’s Vahe Gregorian examines the mental state of both K-State and UMBC heading into tonight’s game.
• At the Star and Eagle, Kellis Robinett reports that in a surprising turn of events, Bruce Weber was apparently prepared for UMBC, but UMBC knows diddly about K-State.
• Robinett also zoomed in on K-State’s sudden role as the Disney villain out to destroy all that is wonderful.
• Robinett previews tonight’s game, with added predictions from Gregorian and Blair Kerkhoff. They’re all in agreement: it won’t be a blowout, but the Cats will survive the weekend.
• At the Capital-Journal, special correspondent David Smale checks in on Dean Wade, who may still be unavailable tonight. Of course, that may be a good thing given the matchup.

Baltimore media:

• Don Markus of the Baltimore Sun checks in with Baltimore coaching personalities in the wake of UMBC’s win, and in the process looks back at the last time a Baltimore team pulled a massive NCAA Tournament upset. Coppin State toppled 2-seed South Carolina in 1997 and their coach, Fang Mitchell, correctly notes the one ever-present truth: good guards can beat anyone.
• The Sun’s Brendan Marks has a good feel for the UMBC mindset.
• The Sun’s Jonas Shaffer tells you everything you need to know about UMBC but were afraid to ask.
• Finally, venerable Sun columnist Peter Schmuck editorializes on the aftermath of Friday’s win.
• We’ll call the Washington Post “Baltimore media” here. Matthew Giles says UMBC needs to be perfect again to advance.

National media:

• SB Nation’s Mike Rutherford offers three reasons why UMBC can win tonight.
• The AP’s Steve Reed, via the Washington Post, writes about UMBC’s guard combo of Jairus Lyles and K.J. Maura.
• Mike McGuirl was the unlikely hero K-State needed, writes Kenan Goyette of Sporting News.
• Also from Sporting News, but uncredited and via Yahoo!, K-State feels like the underdog.
• Normally we dodge paysites, but we’ll make an exception for the Athletic. Roger Rubin also knows who the bad guy is tonight.
• ESPN’s John Gasaway has a lot of interesting numbers, including the fact that low seeds actually perform better in the second round (when they make it) than they do in the first. Gulp.
• Scott Fowler of the Charlotte Observer dissects what UMBC is going to have to do tonight to keep their glass slippers.
• Athlon’s Kyle Kensing also has a game preview. He’s picking the Cats by nine.

Women’s Basketball

The women also play tonight, but pretty much everyone is just going to have to settle for finding out what happened later. K-State (17-15, 7-11 Big 12) faces the Utah Utes (18-13, 8-10 Pac-12) at Bramlage with a 5pm tip, meaning their second-round WNIT game probably won’t even be over before the men take the floor in Charlotte — and it’s not televised anyway. You can follow along at K-StateHD.tv, at least.

The teams have met six times before. Utah leads the series 4-2, 2-1 in Manhattan.

Baseball

K-State (10-8, 0-0 Big 12) lost the series to College of Charleston (15-5, 0-0 Colonial) yesterday by falling 6-0. It’s the second straight shutout loss for the heretofore slugging Cats. The series concludes today with the first pitch at noon.