SLATE: The dance is over for the Wildcats

Basketball

The Kansas State basketball 2021-22 season has officially come to an end after the 9-seed Wildcats fell to 1-seed NC State 89-57 on Monday to cap off the program’s 54th season and 17th NCAA Tournament appearance. The MittieCats finish the season at 20-13, and were again paced by the duo of freshman Serena Sundell and 2022 All-American Ayoka Lee. Sundell recorded her 19th game in double figures with a team-high 17 points, three rebounds and three assists.

Lee finished with 12 points and eight rebounds, which helped her nab the school record for rebounds in a season with 339; besting the record held by Tammie Romstad of 337 from the 1979-80 season. Lee also ended the season with 727 points to rank second in school history for points in a season, and she becomes the first player in the 54-season history of K-State women’s basketball to register a season of 700 or more points, 300 or more rebounds and 90 or more blocks.

And she will be back next year.

Over on the men’s side, unless you’ve been living under a rock since Sunday, you’ve seen that K-State has hired Jerome Tang as the next men’s basketball coach. He is the 24th head coach of the Wildcats (though 25th in order, since Jack Gardner left and came back), and Tang is already hitting all the right notes with K-State fans, and has been getting big shout-outs from across the country, including the head coach and staff of his former team (beyond just the “we’re excited for him” standard responses).

We’ll have more on Tang’s hire later today from our own Drew Schneider, so be sure and check back for that.

In a move that shouldn’t be a concern for fans (and is actually a good thing in many ways), All-Big 12 guard Nijel Pack has declared for the 2022 NBA Draft. This move allows Pack to test the NBA waters, and see where he needs to improve to boost his draft stock. And Pack will be able to return to K-State if he withdraws his name by the deadline on June 1, 2022 at 11:59 p.m. EDT.

Baseball

Baseball might have been rained out yesterday, but it wasn’t all sour news to start the week. Josh Nicoloff, fresh off a week where the senior transfer from Columbia slashed .467/.556/1.067 with three doubles, two home runs, and eight RBI, was named Big 12 Newcomer of the Week on Monday by the conference. Nicoloff is the first Wildcat to receive a weekly award from the conference this season.

No make-up game for yesterday’s wash-out, but the Cats and Falcons still play today, with K-State and Air Force set to square off at 4pm CDT from Tointon Family Stadium. Today’s game can be seen on Big 12 Now on ESPN+ and radio coverage is available in Manhattan on News Radio KMAN (93.3 FM, 1350 AM) with free audio available at K-StateSports.com and the K-State Sports app.