It seems hard to believe that logo fails still occasionally happen during sports broadcasts, but ESPN made a major one on one of its graphics during Monday’s NCAA Baseball Championship Selection Special.
Kansas State was uncertain of its fate heading into Monday, but the Wildcats ultimately earned an at-large bid. They’re heading to the Fayetteville Regional, hosted by No. 5 national seed Arkansas, where they will face Louisiana Tech on Friday.
This is the first NCAA Tournament berth for Kansas State since 2013. Unfortunately, when their name was revealed on the broadcast, a logo for the rival Kansas Jayhawks was used when ESPN cut to happy Wildcat players celebrating the news.
“The Kansas State Wildcats are in!”
*Kansas Jayhawks logo appears* pic.twitter.com/FQgq1Bni54
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) May 28, 2024
Complicating matters was the fact that Kansas was on the bubble and hoping to hear its name called.
Ultimately, the Jayhawks were left home, even though they finished with the same conference record (15-15) as Kansas State, beat the Wildcats in the first round of the Big 12 Tournament and finished just one game worse (31-23 vs. 32-24) than their in-state rivals.
“Not the news we hoped to receive today, but we’re going to keep building here Jayhawk Nation, thank you for the support all year long #RockChalk,” Kansas baseball wrote on X/Twitter after being left out.
As for Kansas State, they are one of six Big 12 programs to make the tourney. Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Texas, UCF and West Virginia were the others.