SLATE: Spring Sports and More Basketball Talk

Track and Field

As much focus as we place on football and basketball, the most accomplished group of athletes at K-State this year may be performing in track and field. After Wildcat00 covered the women’s dominant win at the Jim Click Shootout in Tucson yesterday, the Mercury provided a summary, as well.

As noted in yesterday’s slate, a number of current and former K-State athletes are competing in the XXI Commonwealth Games, being held at Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia. While we slept in the U.S., former K-Stater Ifeanyi Otuanye put in a personal best performance in the long jump to automatically qualify for the finals on distance. Otuanye, jumping for Turks and Caicos Islands, leapt 8.03 meters (26 feet, 4 inches for the metric system impaired readers) on his first jump of the competition, with 7.90 required to automatically advance. Only two athletes posted better marks in the preliminaries, and both had more assistance from the wind.

Men’s Basketball

It’s April 10, and people are still talking about K-State basketball. And in a good way. Kellis Robinett says there is “less guesswork than usual” about how Wabash Valley Junior College transfer commit Austin Trice will fit in at Kansas State, and that he expects Trice will contribute immediately. The article contains a highlight package featuring post moves, drives, defensive blocks, put-backs and an assortment of ferocious dunks. If his game translates, look out.

For completely unbridled optimism, take a look at this video piece from KSN’s Elliot Polakoff, who says merely shooting for a Final Four is not aiming high enough for Bruce and the guys. Is football season going to be merely a tasty appetizer for basketball in 2018-2019? What kind of generational time warp is going on here?

Men’s Golf

K-State’s men are second after the first found of the Tiger Invitational in Columbia, Missouri. K-State shot a collective -7, to sit six shots back of host Mizzou, which leads the event at -13. The field also includes Missouri State, Creighton, Illinois State and UMKC. K-State’s Jacob Eklund (-5) is tied for second, and Jeremy Gandon (-4) is solo fourth. The second round got underway at 8 a.m., with the final round to follow this afternoon.

Soccer

K-State soccer has announced its 2018 schedule. Highlights include road games against national power Santa Clara and against San Jose State and Indiana. The ‘Cats will also play exhibition matches against Arkansas (away) and Minnesota (home). Wildcat00 may have to commission a special GopherCat jersey for that one.

Baseball

Postponing the start of the Oklahoma State series may not have bought the baseball team much better weather, and it certainly did not earn them the results they wanted. Though the ‘Cats led the series finale 6-4 after seven innings, they surrendered a grand slam in the 8th and dropped the game 13-8. After the Oklahoma State sweep in Manhattan, K-State is now 15-17 on the year, 2-7 in Big 12 play.

Tonight K-State hosts Nebraska, a team with a comparable record of 14-16, 2-6 Big 10. Hold on to your hats (and not just because of cap-thieving bugeaters, Furnace), as the weather forecast calls for gusty winds today and for the rest of the week.

Miscellaneous

K-State, in partnership with the University of Texas, has received $10,000 from the NCAA Innovations in Research and Practice Grant to study programs to enhance the financial literacy among student athletes. The K-State/Texas consortium is among five groups to be awarded grants from a pool of 84 proposals.