SLATE: Fall camp rolls along with lots of positives

Basketball

It’s been a while since we’ve heard anything on the basketball front, but the deadline to get someone added to a roster for the fall semester is rapidly approaching with classes starting next Monday, Aug. 22nd. While Jerome Tang still has a couple spots on the men’s basketball roster headed into the season, apparently Jeff Mittie also had a spot still open on the women’s basketball roster. Kansas State has announced that the Wildcats have added transfer forward Sarah Shematsi to the 2022-23 roster. Shematsi will use her final season of eligibility to play in Manhattan after spending the last two seasons at LSU. The 6’2 forward from Annecy, France saw action in 35 games in those two years for the Tigers, recording just two starts. She averaged 2.3 points per game and 1.2 rebounds per game during her time in Baton Rouge. She began her collegiate career in Texas, playing for two seasons at South Plains College before heading off to Louisiana. Prior to college, she won a gold medal with team France in the 2016 FIBA 3×3 U18 European and World Championships.

Football

The Wildcats will start the 2022 season outside the Top 25 in both major polls, after the AP released it’s preseason poll to start the week. Like the Coaches Poll released to start last week, K-State did receive votes, and holds a tie with Florida for 37th place.

Fall camp continues this week, and this week it was the defensive coaches chance to meet with the media. Assistant Head Coach & Cornerbacks Coach Van Malone led the press conference, and raved about both older players and younger players would had been standing out in practice, and, like the offensive coaches, was very positive about where the Cats were overall at this point of camp. D. Scott Fritchen also emptied his notebook on the defense for today’s Sports Extra.

Just because it was defense day this week for the media doesn’t mean we’re done talking about the offense, and Kellis Robinett has a look at how Collin Klein is helping his new protege shed his reputation for being turnover prone. Of course, it helps that during his time on the field, Klein was one of the best at limiting giving the ball away, but, like Drew likes to point out in his awesome film reviews, it’s going to help a ton that Adrian Martinez won’t be running for his life every snap. And, like Drew points out, Klein has already made his mark on the K-State offense, and if he can keep it up, it should help the Wildcats win a lot of games.

Unfortunately it’s not all great news. Former Wildcat Wyatt Hubert announced on Sunday that he would be retiring after just one season in the NFL due to medical reasons. Hubert was drafted by the Cincinnati Bengals in the 7th round of the 2021 NFL Draft, but the Topeka native sustained an injury to his pectoral muscle in camp and was never able to see action.

K-State has announced a “Meet the Cats” autograph session for Saturday, August 27th. Prior to the Covid pandemic-related shutdowns, the Wildcats had hosted an annual open-practice and autograph session for fans at one of the final practices of fall camp. This won’t be an open practice, but fans will be able to meet the players and get autographs from 2-3pm on the concourse of Bill Snyder Family Stadium.

Soccer

The SoccerCats officially open their 7th season of action on Thursday, Aug. 18th (tomorrow), as they host the Wildcats of Northwestern at 7pm from Buser Family Park. This is the first meeting of the two purple Wildcats programs, though K-State has yet to find much luck against the Big 10, going just 0-2-1 in program history. The Wildcats will continue their home-opening stand on Saturday, Aug. 21st, as they host the Bears of Northern Colorado at 1pm. If you can’t make it out to the park (and the weather should be great with a high of 87F on Thursday and 85F on Saturday), both games will be broadcast on Big 12 Now on ESPN+ with Brian Smoller doing play-by-play, Oscar Montenegro providing color analysis, and Jazsmin Haliburton reporting from the sideline.