SLATE: KU looking forward to docile Bramlage Coliseum

How cold did it get at your place overnight? On my wilderness hilltop in Jefferson County, the home weather station read -17.1 degrees Fahrenheit at 7:30 this morning. Mercifully, the wind was not blowing, making it merely a miserable icebox, rather than an insufferable one. Silver linings!

The weather or indifference borne of collective Wildcatland misery must have ground poor Kellis Robinett down, because he has published no K-State articles since Saturday. Of course, maybe he’s been swept up in the Southwest Power Pool’s rolling blackouts fiasco that has numerous plains dwellers suffering through rolling 30 to 60-minute outages. At least we’re not in Texas, where the combined effect of increased demand/reduced supply, along with the usual breaks in service attendant to severe winter storms, has forced 3.9 million Texans to huddle without electricity during the longest, coldest spell the state has endured in decades.

Enough stalling on the sports news? Okay, then.

Previously

Drew made use of the for-the-love-of-God-stay-in-the-house conditions to ruminate on the upcoming nonconference football schedule, noting that it is atypically daunting for a K-State slate. (See. See what I did there?)

Basketball

No preview up yet at kstatesports.com for the second edition of the Sunflower Showdown. But the game is scheduled for Wednesday at 7 p.m. Start your hate engines now and get them nice and warm.

Ryan Black at the Mercury forwarded Bruce Weber’s message to K-State fans amid the 12-game losing streak: The guys on this team have improved, and they have shown that they don’t quit. The natural inference being that, given time, this squad can win games. So please, please, give all of them time.

How do you know you’re at the bottom of the sports hierarchy? The other team starts talking about “not overlooking” you, as the Jayhawks did with regard to the Wildcats this week. At least Ochai Agbaji admits that he’s looking forward to playing without the eight-sided torrent of hate normally focused on Bill Self’s team in a packed Bramlage Coliseum.

The women’s squad, fresh off of ending its own long bout of futility, travels to Stillwater for a 3 p.m. matchup tomorrow. When the teams met on January 25, the Cowgirls outscored the Wildcats 25-11 in the 4th quarter to run away with a 69-55 victory. Let’s hope the last-stanza swoons are in the past now.

Golf

Ricardo Leo carded a career-best -4 (68) in the second round Monday at the Mobile Bay Intercollegiate in Mobile, Alabama stand at even par and improve from 64th in the field to 24th. The team is tied for sixth with Davidson at 5-under par 571. Junior Will Hopkins leads the Cats with a cumulative 4-under, which has him in a tie for 10th heading into this morning’s final round.

That’s it, until the learned press gives us more content to shovel your way. Stay warm, all.