SLATE: Midweek Roundup

Well it’s been a hot minute, but we’re back again to get us all caught back up on the happenings in Wildcatland.

Basketball

Kansas State greats Barry Brown and Xavier Sneed have returned to the USA from the international pro ranks to join the NBA Summer League, which runs from Sunday, August 8th to Tuesday, August 17th in Las Vegas. BARRY will play for the Orlando Magic Summer League Team, while X will play for the Charlotte Hornets Summer League Team. The Magic team beings play on Monday, August 9th at 7pm CT against Golden State, while the Hornets start on Sunday at 5pm CT against the Trail Blazers. Both games can be seen on NBA TV (streaming).

Football

Andrew Leingang isn’t just a good football player, he’s also a standout in the classroom, recently earning a national award for his academic work in high school. The incoming freshman offensive lineman from North Dakota was one of 64 players (from a pool of over 3,500 student-athletes) named to the National Football Foundation’s Team of Distinction, an initiative honors that the country’s best student-athletes while also highlighting the work of the NFF Chapter Network.

If you’ll be in Manhattan on Saturday, August 7th, you’ll have the opportunity to go to the last 45 minutes of football practice. Gates B & D (main west gate and SW corner gate) will open at 11:45am, and you’ll be able to watch practice, as well as tour the new Shamrock Zone south endzone area.

Soccer

Brooklyn Entz continues to etch her name into the K-State record books, this time as she became the first Wildcat soccer player to earn a nod on the Preseason All-Big 12 Team. Entz is returning to K-State for one more season despite being selected in the 4th round with the 38th overall pick by Kansas City NWSL in the 2021 NWSL Draft this past January (K-State’s first draft pick). Entz is the only Kansas native on the preseason list, and the only member from either of the Kansas schools.

Realignment

We’ll drop this in realignment even though it’s technically football. Thanks to Texas’s impending move to the SEC, K-State AD Gene Taylor is expected to be named as the Big 12’s CFP Playoff Committee representative as Texas’s Chris Del Conte will step down from that role due to conflict of interest. K-State Sports appears to have jumped the gun just a smidge on the announcement and a Google search revealed that KStateSports.com posted the news (Original link that’s now broken >> “https://www.kstatesports.com/news/2021/8/3/athletics-k-state-ad-taylor-named-to-college-football-playoff-selection-committee.aspx”) and has since removed it. But it’s the Internet, and Google caught it before it was removed, so it lives forever now.

Kellis Robinett takes a look at the potential impact of realignment on K-State football recruiting. And it’s likely already hurt the chances with one of the Wildcats top targets, who now may be strongly considering an offer from one of the SEC’s lower-tier schools.

Originally reported by The Athletic’s Max Olson, Big 12 commish Bob Bowlsby and Pac-12 commish George Kliavkoff met on Tuesday, for nearly 6 hours, to discuss long term strategies, like scheduling alliances, between the two conferences.