Texas Gameday!

Football

Kansas State hosts Texas today in the finale of the weirdest regular season in collective Wildcat memory. Kickoff is scheduled for 11 AM and the game can be seen on FOX.

The Wildcats have lost four straight Big 12 games, but a win today would allow the program to have back-to-back winning conference records.

This might be a tall order. Kansas State is still leading the series against Texas since the inception of the Big 12, but Tom Herman has never lost to the Wildcats as head coach for the Longhorns.

Still, the last time the Wildcats closed out the season hosting Texas, Collin Klein and his teammates ran off into the sunset with a Big 12 title while Willie danced on the old press box. Good times!

It’s Senior Day in Manhattan, but with players able to return next season, it’s not clear if we’re really saying goodbye to these seniors just yet. Still, 21 players will be honored today, Skylar Thompson, Harry Trotter, Briley Moore, Jahron McPherson, Elijah Sullivan, Justin Hughes, Drew Wiley, and Blake Lynch among them.

Some pre-game notes in no particular order:

— ICYMI: JT’s latest Big 12 Power Rankings

— The K-State Q&A riffs on which seniors Kellis Robinett would pick to return next year.

— Former Kansas State punter Devin Anctil offers some insight and suggests Blake Lynch might play at the next level.

— Barking Carnival’s K-State Pregamer is weird, and almost avoids all allusions to wizardry. Almost.

— Is Tom Herman on the hot seat? Probably, and with ESPN’s David Pollock throwing Matt Campbell-flavored grease onto the Longhorns’ tire fire, Herman’s seat just got even hotter.

Win the dang pound stone. Or something.

Basketball

Kansas State takes on UNLV tonight at Bramlage Coliseum. Tip-off is at 7 PM. This is the eighth meeting of the two programs, with UNLV holding a 4-3 edge, but Kansas State won the most recent meeting.

The Wildcats are coming off their first win of the season, but a good defensive showing wasn’t the only thing in evidence, as Eric Rubottom notes in his early holiday present to BotC.

Meanwhile, the women’s team will hit the road to play the Central Arkansas Bears today at 2 PM. The Wildcats are coming off a loss to Kentucky where both Christiana Carr and Rachel Ranke hit multiple threes.

Track

(At least we’re still a track school?!)

The track teams are finally back in action after having missed the entire outdoor portion of the season last spring. At the Carol Robinson Winter Pentathlon, senior TJ Shankar set a new school record in the men’s pentathlon with 4,343 points to eclipse Steve Fritz’s mark. In the process, he set the best pentathlon scores for a Wildcat in long jump, high jump (duh!), and the 1000m race. The performance was also good enough for 4th all-time in the NCAA.

On the women’s side, senior Lauren Taubert, competing unaffiliated, won the pentathlon with 4,168 points. Teammate Ariel Okorie finished in second place.

The teams are back in competition today at the K-State Invitational at Ahearn Fieldhouse.