SLATE: Taishia Pryce moves atop NCAA women’s long jump ladder

K-State only won two events at the Texas Relays this weekend, one on Saturday and one on Sunday. One of them, however, was a nuclear first strike. Jamaican national Taishia Pryce, a junior transfer from NAIA school Wiley College, now holds the top 2019 NCAA outdoor women’s long jump mark.

On her second attempt of the day, Pryce became the first competitor in the event to clear the six meter mark. She blew up for a 6.60m jump on her third attempt, good enough to win the event and put her atop the college leaderboard.

Sunday’s winner was, once again, Kassidy Johnson in the women’s 800m. Johnson, a sophomore from Maize, also won the event at the TCU Invitational two weeks ago.

Other top-three finishes included second-place marks by Shardia Lawrence in the women’s triple jump and the women’s 4x800 relay team of Alex Ferguson, Cayli Hume, Morgan Coffman, and Johnson on the anchor. Ranae McKenzie, Lauren Taubert, Lavaun Stephenson, and Ferguson finished in third place in the 4x400 relay.

And that was it. We’re just not used to this type of uninspired showing from the Wildcats.

A small contingent of Wildcats was also in Texas, but in San Marcos on Friday for day two of the Bobcat Invitational. Colin Echols took second in men’s discus, while Helene Ingvaldsen had an uncharacteristically poor showing in the women’s hammer throw, only managing a seventh-place finish.

Basketball

Bruce Weber may have burned some of his goodwill tickets last weekend, but Arne Green at the Capital-Journal reports that Dean Wade and Barry Brown Jr. are both still squarely in his corner despite being the putative victims of Weber’s errors over the final two weeks.

Sid Hartman of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune was probably not just trying to get wildcat00’s attention by mentioning K-State‘s 68-58 1951 championship game loss to Kentucky. With the Final Four set to begin in the Twin Cities next weekend (and congratulations to Texas Tech and Virginia for punching their tickets last night), Hartman revisits that seminal moment... which took place in Minneapolis.

What Hartman recalls for the reader: the scandal which would cost Kentucky their entire 1952-53 season, the one which we still insist was so brazen that K-State should be declared the 1951 champions, was already all over the newspapers before that game was even played.

At fivethirtyeight, Jake Lourim’s headline says it all: March Madness has weaponized the zone. Yes, the good guys get a mention for obvious reasons.

Fortsphere

K-State (11-15, 0-4) dropped both games of their Saturday doubleheader in Lubbock, getting rocked 11-4 in the first game before giving up a 3-0 lead and losing 4-3 to 18th-ranked Texas Tech (18-6, 3-2) in the second. Our old pal Greg Woods has more at the Mercury.

In Friday’s Sports Extra, Corbin McGuire checks in with catcher Chris Ceballos.

Tennis

After opening with a miserable four-game road trip to start the Big 12 campaign, K-State finally got to have their home opener while clinging to a spot in the ITA top 50 at #48. Unfortunately, the losing streak continues as the Wildcats (10-8, 0-5) fell 4-2 to TCU (12-5, 4-1).

It doesn’t get any easier today; the Cats face #25 Texas Tech at 11:00am.

Golf

K-State’s women will be heading to Argyle, Tex., for the Bruzzy Challenge on Monday and Tuesday. They’ll be joined by the four Big 12 teams from Texas as well as Houston, SMU, Texas A&M, and the hosts from North Texas; other invaders from out of state include BYU, Iowa, Maryland, Miami, Mississippi, and Missouri.