SLATE: Big 12 indoor track championships begin

Today’s top story emanates from Lubbock, where the Big 12 Indoor Track and Field Championships will commence at 10:00 CT this morning at the Sports Performance Center in Lubbock, Tex. K-State has had some trouble at the indoors; while the women have twice hauled in back-to-back outdoor titles, neither squad has ever walked away with the Big 12 title under a roof.

Five Wildcats — Tejaswin Shankar (men’s high jump), Aaron Booth (heptathlon), Shardia Lawrence (women’s triple jump), Helene Ingvaldsen (women’s weight throw), and Lauren Taubert (pentathlon) enter the event with the best Big 12 marks of the year. Another 23 Wildcats hold top-eight positions on the leaderboard.

Unfortunately, because the Big 12 is immensely stupid, the event is only available for streaming on FloTrack Pro, a service which costs $11.95 a month. So unless you want to cough up the bucks, you’ll just have to follow @KStateTFXC on Twitter to follow along with the action.

Men’s Basketball

At GPC, D. Scott Fritchen previews tomorrow’s game, while Xavier Sneed is the focus of this morning’s Sports Extra with Corbin McGuire.

Ryan Black at the Mercury reports that Dean Wade and Kamau Stokes aren’t practicing, but should be available to play tomorrow against Oklahoma State. Both have nagging foot issues.

In that story (and also in Kellis Robinett’s recap of yesterday’s press conference at the Eagle), you’ll note that Bruce Weber refers to using Wade as a decoy. In today’s Q&A, Robinett explains why that may lead to a loss down the stretch as he breaks down the Big 12 title race. Robinett also answers an important question, noting that the only time the Big 12 Player of the Year was a teammate of the Big 12 Preseason Player of the Year was when Raef Lafrentz outplayed Jacque Vaughn back in 1997. It’s an important question because it may happen again next month. Kellis also names his all-time post-Huggy team, talks about Weber’s redemption, forecasts next season, and touches on how Chris Klieman is in fact working harder at recruiting that Bill Snyder did.

Football

Speaking of Klieman, ESPN’s Mitch Sherman shines a bright spotlight on K-State’s unprecedented use of social media to douse the fires after Klieman was hired. Within the story: the tale of how Collin Klein felt relief when Klieman offered to keep him on staff, and how Klieman felt relief when Klein said yes.

At the Tulsa World, Mark Cooper has a story to tell about Oklahoma State‘s new offensive line coach, Charlie Dickey. The star of that story? Dalton Risner.

Women’s Basketball

Peyton Williams has been named to the Google Cloud District VII All-Academic Team (which those of you who care remember as the COSIDA District VII All-Academic Team). She’s joined by Texas Tech’s Brittany Brewer, Idaho’s Mikayla Ferenz, Amanda Johnson of Houston Baptist, and Wyoming’s Clara Tapia. Williams and Brewer are the only Big 12 honorees (Iowa State is in District VI and West Virginia is in District II).

Williams and her four district teammates join 48 other players as finalists for the All-American All-Academic Team, which will be announced in March. Meanwhile, the Cats will take on TCU at 5:00 Saturday evening in Fort Worth.

Tennis

The Wildcats ever so barely slid back into the ITA Top 50 on Wednesday — at #50. They capitalized on their good fortune by notching their first win this season over a ranked opponent, winning three straight singles matches to eke out a 4-3 win over #39 SMU at Body First yesterday. The Mustangs took the doubles point, winning two out of three matches, and led 3-1 after three singles matches were complete (with Margot Decker claiming K-State’s only singles win to that point).

But Karine-Marion Job, Anna Turco, and Maria Ponomareva roared back, winning their matches in straight sets (although Turco needed tiebreakers to get past Katherine Jakeway in the first set). Job was also part of the winning Wildcat doubles squad, making her the defacto MVP of the match, right?

Next up: a doubleheader at home tomorrow with Cincinnati at noon followed by UMKC at 5:00.

Baseball

K-State led in the top of the first, and again in the top of the eighth. But other than that, Division I newbies California Baptist did not trail, and a pair of runs in the bottom of the eighth led the Lancers to a 7-6 win yesterday at James W. Totman Stadium in Riverside, Calif. The win leaves Cal Baptist at 5-0, and they’re now 1-0 against Power 5 teams. Great.

K-State heads down I-15 to San Diego to participate in the Tony Gwynn Legacy over the weekend. They’ll face host San Diego State as well as Fresno State and Utah; all games are audio only. Fresno is this afternoon at 3:00 CT, with Utah at the same time Saturday. The finale against the Aztecs is Sunday at 4:00 CT.

Volleyball

Yes, we even have volleyball news here in February. If you’re in town, head to Ahearn at 6:30 tonight to catch a free open scrimmage with Wichita State. Actually, you can drop by as early as 4:30 and spy on an open joint practice with both teams, if you’re inclined.