SLATE: Spurned! Kansas State basketball still has a scholarship

Previously

BracketCat provided a profile of #58, offensive lineman Shane Cherry.

Basketball

K-State still has a scholarship to fill for the coming year, as San Antonio-Wagner guard Kevin McCullar has chosen to follow in his daddy’s footsteps and attend Texas Tech. Kellis Robinett has the relevant details. The elder McCullar was a linebacker for the Red Raiders, and it should terrify you that it was recently enough that he actually played against K-State.

What we’re saying here is “you’re old”.

Football

A couple of former Wildcats are getting mentions, and we believe in keeping up with our transfers when we can. At Athlon, Kevin McGuire lists the Group of 5 players who might make a big splash in 2018 and you’ll find the name of one Bryce English, now plying his trade on the North Texas defensive line. Meanwhile, over at the Winston-Salem Journal, Ethan Joyce takes a shot at deciphering Appalachian State‘s two-deep and says wideout Corey Sutton has a shot at Sun Belt Newcomer of the Year.

Unrelated to K-State in any way, but still a cool story: remember Jalen Watts-Jackson? He’s the guy who returned that fumbled punt for the last-second game-winning touchdown when Michigan State knocked off Michigan back in October of 2015.

You also probably remember that his career was basically derailed when his teammates mobbed him in the end zone, breaking his hip. He did manage to play some over the last two seasons, and he’s always going to be a Big Damn Hero in East Lansing, but he chose to take a graduate transfer for his final season.

But there’s a twist: he’s going to Air Force, and he’s not even going to play football this year. Watts-Jackson wants to go into cyber security. You go, dude. Good on you.

Volleyball

In today’s Sports Extra, Corbin McGuire checks in with senior libero Riley Killeen after her summer experience in training camp with the US women’s national team organization.

General College Sports

Pat Forde at Yahoo! engaged in some mindless slideshow journalism, ranking all 65 Power 5 conference schools based on their combined standings in the Learfield Cup rankings over the last five years. Of course, this is an absolutely stupid method, since the Learfield Cup has just a wee bit of a bias toward schools who sponsor sports not a lot of other schools sponsor, and a massive bias against schools who only have 16 varsity programs.

In other words, K-State ranked 61st because we don’t have softball, wrestling, water polo, rifle, beach volleyball, men’s volleyball, gymnastics... well, you get the drift here.

Moving on.

Kansas finally got their man to replace former Wildcat mole Sheahon Zenger. Of course, there’s some folks to the southeast who might be laughing pretty hard about their decision, as Kansas chose to hire former Arkansas athletic director (and former College Football Playoff committee chairman) Jeff Long to fill the vacancy. Long was a casualty of the years-long hate-hate relationship Arkansas fans had with former Wildcat assistant Bret Bielema, and his arrival in Lawrence automatically makes Bielema a potential candidate to replace David Beaty if things go south.

Won’t that be interesting if it happens?

Finally, long-time Clemson Tigers sports information director Tim Bourret is retiring, which is of mild interest in these parts because he very well could have been long-time K-State sports information director Tim Bourret. Back in 1978, he interviewed for assistant SID position at both schools, and ended up in South Carolina instead of Manhattan. He’s been there ever since, and Bob Spear looks back on his career in The State.