Slate: Basketball Cometh

Basketball

After last seeing the Kansas State Wildcats back on March 11th, before their season and the rest college basketball world came to a screeching halt (brings a whole new meaning to “March Madness”, eh?), things are finally ready to restart. And for the Wildcats, it starts early today with a 1:00pm start from Bramlage Coliseum to tip-off the Little Apple Classic against the Drake Bulldogs. Be sure and check back around 12:30pm today, we will have our regular open game thread ready to go.

Bruce Weber is excited for today’s game, as well all should be, and even more excited that he finally had enough players available to practice 5-on-5 beginning late last week. Hopefully that bodes well for the start of the new season, where Bruce will be leaning heavily on seven newcomers to the program and just one senior.

K-State basketball’s participation in Fort Riley’s Operation Santa Claus will have a different feel this year, and the Wildcats have turned it into an opportunity for a virtual clinic and skills competition for kids. Proceeds and donations from the event will go to Operation Santa Claus, in lieu of the normal toy donation at games, to help service members and their families provide gifts to their children during the holiday season.

Football

Tuesday’s football press conference revealed a few helpful bits of information on the roster front, as Klieman expects both Malik Knowles and Jaylen Pickle to be available against Baylor this weekend. Thanksgiving will be especially weird this year, as due to the schedule and COVID protocols, players will not be able to travel home, even those that live close by. The entire team will do Thanksgiving from the West Stadium Center where they will have plenty of room to spread out yet remain together as a team. Klieman is also working hard with the Big 12 to allow K-State to expand the travel roster for this Saturday’s game, even if those players can’t suit, so that no one is forced to be stuck alone in their dorm room for Thanksgiving.

K-State also had positive news on the recruiting front, as Topeka-Hayden product Desmond Purnell, a 6’ 195lb Safety, committed to the Wildcats for the 2021 class. He joins Trey Krause in announcing for the Wildcats this week, as Krause, 2021 safety prospect from Olathe (who finished his season at West Des Moines’ Valley High School), accepted a PWO offer on Monday.

While we’ve generally tried to remove last Saturday’s debacle from our collective conscious, Luke Thompson and Drew Schneider did take about a half-hour to discuss all the things, and there’s a lot of things that needed to go right for the Wildcats that just didn’t in Ames. We’ll also have our regular edition of Bring on the PodCats later this week as we look ahead to the game against Baylor this weekend.

K-State Athletics has their weekly review of Wildcats in the NFL, and this week featured Tyler Lockett, who is still turning heads in Seattle, and Byron Pringle, who was the beneficiary of one of Andy Ried’s famous trick plays in the Chiefs win over the Raiders on Sunday night.