Weekend Edition

We’re just 78 days from Kansas State’s 2018 football season, and BracketCat marks the milestone with this profile of #78 defensive tackle Tyquilo Moore.

Two Kansas State freshmen are participating in the the USATF Junior Championships in Bloomington, Indiana this weekend. Cara Melgares (3000m steeplechase) and Taylor Latimer (shot put; discus) qualified for the event earlier in the year by hitting the minimum marks required. A top two finish at the USATF Juniors would mean a chance to compete at the World Junior Championships in Finland later this summer.

Alas, it was not to be, at least for Melgares. She ran a strong and consistent race but dropped back to fifth place by the end, finishing the 3000m steeplechase with a time of 10:57.35.

Latimer, who still has a chance to make the Worlds via the shot put competition tomorrow, finished 14th in the discus event, with a 44.71m throw on her final attempt.

Meanwhile, in lieu of real news not involving Kansas State track and field athletes, here’s a quick recap the week’s highlights:

In yesterday’s Slate, our Benevolent Despot recapped the inductions to the Kansas State Athletics Hall of Fame headlined by Terence Newman and Mark Simoneau, and also noted the Kansas Sports Hall of Fame inductions which included David Allen, Clarence Scott, and Laurie Koehn.

This week, Bruce Weber was announced as one of seven inductees into the Southern Illinois University Athletics Hall of Fame. At SIU, Weber led the Salukis to a 103-54 record as head from 1998-2003. The team won back-to-back Missouri Valley Conference regular season titles and made the NCAA Tournament 2002 and 2003, as also reported in the Slate a couple of days ago.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock and/or don’t read the K-State Slate (GASP!), you know that Kansas State has a new head baseball coach. Pete Hughes was announced as the new coach this week. Our own JT VanGilder was underwhelmed, and in this week’s K-State Q&A, Kellis Robinett takes a more neutral stance, although he doesn’t seem all that enthusiastic either.

This is the time of year when athletic directors make the rounds of their state/donation base. At Kansas State, this takes the form of the Catbackers Tour, which made its Manhattan stop last night and included a not-entirely-unexpected comedic sidebar from Bill Snyder.

New Nebraska athletic director Bill Moos is making a similar tour of his own state and has repeatedly brought up the idea of adding former Big 8/12 opponents Kansas and Kansas State to the Huskers’ future non-conference schedules. Our frenemies at CornNation debate the issue, and seem to think they’re better off playing Texas than either of the Kansas schools. Um, it might be worth remembering the bridges you turned into giant gas-fueled conflagrations on your way out, Husker fans.

The consensus here is staunchly anti-Nebraska (as in Big Red Is Dead, and we are more than happy to dance on the rotting corpse), but query whether it might be nice to play the occasional non-conference road game that Kansas State fans can easily travel to. That might be the only reason to schedule Nebraska. Or Missouri, for that matter.

Speaking of non-conference games, the 2018 college football slate includes a number of great early season match-ups. For some reason, Kansas State’s tilt against Mississippi State didn’t make SB Nation’s cut. DISRESPECT!

Who are the Big 12’s top football coaches? Athlon ranks the coaches, and there are no surprises, although I’m surprised at how consistently Mike Gundy outranks Bill Snyder in these types of rankings. Then again, he is 40, he is a man.

Finally, Bring on the Cats wishes everyone who’s been a part of the village it takes to raise a child a very happy Father’s Day. For those of you who may still be looking for appropriate gifts to mark the occasion, the mothership has your back.

Happy weekend, all!