Slate: We’ve got a bunch of basketball news

So, uh, yeah. A few things have happened since you last got a Slate (sorry about that!!).

Previously

Here at BotC, we brought you our two rebuttals to Luke S.’ post from Friday: the Case for 2011, and the Case for 1999. Plenty of good arguments made, and we even left out 1997. I think it’s safe to say that Bill Snyder has had several teams that were pretty great and still didn’t win a title (which speaks to the overall strength of the conference when HoFHCBS was building his dynasty).

Drew dropped in yesterday to bring a bit of “outside” perspective to the significant roster turnover for Bruce Weber this season. And there is a bit of a staff disagreement over whether this reset or the 2015 reset (Foster year) were bigger (they’re both not great, Bob).

Basketball

So, yeah, roster reset. Last Wednesday, Rudi Williams and Seryee Lewis became the 5th and 6th signees to the 2020 recruiting class. On Monday, Carlton Linguard, a 6’11” 200lb C/PF out of San Antonio (Stevens HS/Temple College [Texas]), signed his letter of intent to become the 7th member of the 2020 class. Linguard is a a lanky post player, who received just scant interest out of high school and so spent his freshman season at junior college where ranked 4th in blocked shots and 5th in offensive rebounds in the NJCAA, and averaged 13.3 points and 9.5 rebounds per game for the season. Linguard somes to K-State as a true sophomore, meaning that he still has three years of eligibility and a redshirt season available if needed.

It’s been one-in, one-out lately, and this was no exception. On Tuesday, senior-to-be Levi Stockard announced his intent to leave K-State and enter the transfer portal. Based on Weber’s comments, it’s possible that Stockard will actually be graduating in May and could be a grad-transfer.

Over on the women’s side, Peyton Williams was named the 2020 Big 12 Women’s Basketball Scholar-Athlete of the Year on Tuesday. It’s the second straight season that Williams has won the award, becoming the first student-athlete in Big 12 history to win the award twice. Last year she became the fourth Wildcat to win the award, and with now the 5th award for the program, a K-State student-athlete has won the award five of the eight times it’s been awarded (first awarded in 2013).

Jeff Mittie also added a JUCO transfer to his roster this week with the signing of Makayla Pippin, a 6’1” guard/forward out of Central Arizona College who will have two years of eligibility remaining. The Bethesda, MD native (well, that’s what K-State says; her CAC bio says Indianapolis) was ranked Top 150 by the women’s basketball recruiting services coming out of high school, but ended up at CAC for her first two seasons. She earned NJCAA Third-Team All-American honors for her efforts last season.

Miscellany

Kellis Robinett came up with five things we’ve learned about the football team this spring, even without practice. Who knew that having a solidified starter at QB would be beneficial??

K-State Athletics announced it has changed it’s licensing partner to Affinity Licensing, ending a long-running partnership with The Collegiate Licensing Company (a division of K-State’s media partner Learfield Sports/IMG College). Affinity Licensing appears to be a smaller outfit, and K-State would be it’s most prominent client (passing the University of Hawaii), while CLC services nearly all P5 schools in the nation.

It’s April 22nd, 2020 (EARTH DAY!), and today in Manhattan, the Greater Manhattan Community Foundation is hosting their annual Grow Green Match Day. This is an opportunity to support Manhattan-area not-for-profit organizations by giving a gift that will be matched up to 50%. Normally, all the funds raised go into the organization’s GMCF endowment fund, but for 2020 all donations will be going straight to the not-for-profit groups to meet current needs with only the match dollars going to the endowment account. If you are able, this is a great chance to give back to groups that support Manhattan and K-State students!