Tonight, we bring you escapism.
Put your phone down. Stop doomscrolling. Ain’t nobody gonna know nuthin’ until long after this game’s over anyway. Besides, you’d rather watch basketball than the parade of numbskulls that’ll be on every network tonight, and you know it.
The Game
The Kansas State Wildcats (19-15, 8-10 Big 12 last year) visit the New Orleans Privateers (10-23, 4-14 Southland last year).
This is the second meeting all-time between the schools. The first was 25 years ago, a 62-47 Wildcat win at Bramlage in December 1999.
New Orleans has a somewhat interesting sports history. Its baseball program has provided quite a few noteworthy MLB players, including Jim Bullinger, Randy Bush, Wally Whitehurst, and former Royal Johnny Giavotella. The basketball team was a charter member of the Sun Belt back when the Sun Belt was a legitimate 3-4 bid conference — its membership included Jacksonville and UNC-Charlotte, the former having made the Final Four just six seasons prior and the latter would do so in the league’s first season after defeating UNO in the Sun Belt tournament final. UNO would win the conference tournament the following year.
But in 1980, the Sun Belt kicked New Orleans out because their gym was too small, and they wandered the wilds as an independent for several years — still landing an NIT bid in 1983 and an NCAA bid (with a first-round win over BYU) after a 26-4 season in 1987. They joined the American South that summer, and in that conference’s four-year existence the Privateers landed three NIT bids and another NCAA appearance under Tim Floyd. The American South merged with the Sun Belt in 1991, returning New Orleans to its former home; in the next six years they’d reach the NIT twice and the NCAA tournament twice.
And then they disappeared. Over a decade of failure was exacerbated by Hurricane Katrina, and in the wake of the massive financial burden that disaster placed on the school, they announced a plan to move to Division III and start a football program. Then they changed their minds and said they’d go to Division II. Then they changed their minds again and stayed in Division I, without football, and joined the Southland Conference.
They had a brief resurgence in the years before COVID, winning the Southland in 2017 and getting minor post-season bids in 2018 and 2019, but the pandemic derailed their progress and they’ve been mediocre since. Last season was their worst since joining the Southland, and Mark Slessinger, who’d been in charge for 13 seasons, decamped to a job as an assistant at Indiana State.
The new boss is New Orleans native Stacy Hollowell, a former D-II player at St. Edwards in Texas who spent nine years as the head coach of NAIA Loyola (LA), reaching the NAIA tournament six times and winning it all in 2022. That got him snatched up as an associate AD at Ole Miss for a year, then as an assistant at Texas Southern, where he spent a year before being lured back home when Slessinger departed.
Nobody on the Privateer roster managed double figures in scoring last year, and the portal did not provide any proven quantities. Tonight should not be problematic.
Tipoff
Tuesday, November 5, 7:00pm CT at Bramlage Coliseum (11,010) in Manhattan, Kansas.
Tickets
It will come as no surprise to you that a home opener against a weak mid-major on Election Night would have ready ticket availability from the box office itself. You can grab four seats for $50, or indies starting at $15.
Odds
The Cats opened at -29.5, and DraftKings now has it at -30.5 with the over at 148. That suggests a 89-59 win for K-State. The money line is -5000 for K-State, +1800 for New Orleans. Oddshark’s computer — heck, I don’t even know whether their basketball computer can count to ten, but we’ll keep an eye on them. It thinks this game’s going to be a lot closer, a 77-73 win for the Cats.
Television
LOL nope.
Radio
Wyatt Thompson and Matt Walters on the K-State Sports Network as well as via satellite on SiriusXM 382.
Internet Streaming
The game will stream on Big 12 Now on ESPN+ (subscription required). Audio available via kstatesports.com. Live stats provided by StatBroadcast, but no link provided yet.
Editorial note: comments are disabled on How to Watch posts to combat illicit streaming spam.