SLATE: Kansas State almost pulls off a double

Last night, as expected, Kansas State ended its men’s basketball season with a loss to Baylor.

But it wasn’t the loss you’d have expected based on the previous two meetings. The Wildcats actually held a lead in the second half until Baylor rallied for a 74-68 win in the Big 12 quarterfinals, as detailed by our own Luke Thompson.

Baylor’s Twitter feed characterized it as a “gritty” win, but our pals at Our Daily Bears were more honest: it was a “struggle”.

At the Eagle, Kellis Robinett reports on the rumors that Bruce Weber is going to retire. After the game, Weber addressed the matter, stating that the rumors were unfounded and strongly indicating that he’ll be back in the fall.

The women, seeded tenth, pulled a small surprise. Backed by yet another double-double by Ayoka Lee (21 and 12) along with seven blocks, the Wildcats upset seventh seed Texas Tech 75-65. How’d they do it? By outscoring the Red Raiders 29-17 in the fourth quarter and outshooting them for the game 46.7% to 35.2%.

Yes, you read that right.

Christianna Carr added a game-high 22, while Sydney Goodson hit double figures on the nose with 10 bench points. Tech also had three players in doubles as Lexi Gordon had 19, Vivian Gray 15, and Bryn Gerlich added 13 off the bench.

The ladies advance to take on the second seed, West Virginia, at 5:30 this evening on ESPN+. We’ll actually have a game thread for you, so drop by.

Baseball

The BatCats are in Houston, where they’ll be facing Northern Illinois at noon today and again at 11:00 tomorrow. They’ll play Rice on Saturday evening and Sunday afternoon to close the weekend. Kasey Ford will start today against the Huskies, with Carson Seymour drawing the early Saturday contest; Saturday evening’s game against Rice will be the responsibility of Jordan Wicks while Connor McCullough gets the Sunday start.

All three teams will have double-headers this weekend; Northern Illinois today as they take on Rice at 5:00 tonight, K-State on Saturday, and Rice on Sunday as they meet the Huskies again that morning.

Now for the bad news: the Northern Illinois games are not being broadcast on video at all, and the Rice games will require Conference USA’s video platform. No ESPN+ baseball for you this weekend, alas.

Track and Field

As noted earlier in the week, K-State is in Fayetteville for the NCAA Indoor Championships. No Wildcats competed on Day 1, as the only Thursday events were the first parts of the pentathlon and heptathlon. Today, Tejaswin Shankar will compete in the high jump starting at 11:30, Chantoba Bright and Taishia Pryce will hit the long jump pit at 6:30, and Vitoria Alves will try to qualify for the 60m hurdles at 7:15.

Tomorrow, Shankar will compete in the triple jump at 1:00, while Bright and Rihanna Phipps will do the same at 3:30; if Alves qualifies for the 60m hurdle final, that will be at 6:10.

You can catch the action both days on ESPN+ or follow along on live results. (Yes, for those of you who hover over links first, that is certainly a weird URL, but it is legit.)

Tennis

K-State — now ranked at #43 — visits #33 Texas Tech today at 3:00, and if you’re really interested Tech is actually providing video of the match. They’ll then dash over to Fort Worth to meet #49 TCU on Sunday.