Entitled, immature and outhustled: K-State's season ends as it began -- mercurially
KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- The last shot of a lost season was perfect and awful and awfully perfect: A banked 3-pointer at the horn by Wesley Iwundu, too stinking little, too bloody late.
TCU 67, Kansas State 65.
One circus folds up the tent.
Another pulls out the stakes.
You coming back, Marcus Foster?
"Yeah," the Wildcats' sophomore shooting guard replied softly. "That's the plan for right now."
You coming back, Jevon Thomas?
"That's my plan," the K-State point guard replied, also softly. "If others (have) other plans, I can only say what I'm going to do."
You coming back, Wesley?
"Yeah, I'm definitely coming back next year," the sophomore forward replied, "so there's no other options for me. I chose K-State for four years, so I guess this is where I want to be."
If you thought the past six months of Wildcat basketball were interesting -- and after a 15-17 mark, the first losing season since 2002-03 (pre-Bob Huggins), the first sub-20-win season since 2005-06 (also pre-Huggs) and the first non-NCAA Tournament season since 2008-09, the answer to that one is likely "Hell, no" -- then you're going to love the next month or two.
Or not.
We're not sure.
With these Wildcats -- up down, up down, up down -- who knows?
Scribes and cameramen picked through the bones of K-State hoops 2015-16 late Wednesday evening at Sprint Center, after the eighth-seeded Wildcats sort of Wildcatted their way around a first-round matchup with the ninth-seeded Horned Frogs.
The low point of a low first period came with 3:24 before halftime, when Nigel Johnson and Stephen Hurt tried a handoff at the left elbow, only to slam into each other, accidentally, in a Three Stooges-style collision. The rock squirted free and wound up in the arms of TCU guard Kyan Anderson, who turned insult into injury with a feed to Trey Zeigler for the one-handed slam, putting the Frogs up 33-21.
"We gave them a 10-0, 12-0 run," senior forward Thomas Gipson said, "and it's tough to come back from that on anybody."
While Foster sat (and sat, and sat), seniors Gipson and Nino Williams accounted for eight of the dozen points the 'Cats scored during a 12-6 run to open the half, helping to shave an eight-point deficit at the break.
Gipson and Williams, by the way, are outta here.
Foster, the sophomore from Texas whose season went off the rails, might be, too.
Et tu, Marcus?
"Just clear my head and get ready for the offseason," Foster replied.
Et tu, Wesley?
"We have to grow up," Iwundu replied. "If the seniors weren't saying something, then nobody else was saying (anything)."
Et tu, Jevon?
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"I think it starts off the court," Thomas replied. "I just think we needed to spend more time together, do more bonding .... I don't see anything (wrong) in the locker room. On the court, we were pretty much tight. Like (in) previous years, like last year, a lot of guys, we hung out together with Shane (Southwell, a senior last year) and everybody, we hung out and watched TV, watched games, did more bonding. I think it was just that.
"I think we just relied on one thing ... we just relied on sticking one way. I don't know. Like we didn't really make good adjustments."
Et tu, Bruce?
"I think it goes back to taking (things) for granted," Weber replied, "and it's a little bit of youth, a little bit (of a) maturity issue."
Just before Christmas, K-State took this same court in downtown Kansas City and handled Texas A&M (20-10, 11-7 SEC), now an NCAA bubble team, relatively comfortably. On Wednesday, Gipson and Williams and Thomas notwithstanding, these same Wildcats struggled to get stops against non-bubbling TCU (18-14, 4-14 Big 12).
And out came the theories. Mea culpa, baby.
"We kind of took a step back from (A&M)," Iwundu said. "We went home (for the holidays), came back and it was like we were satisfied.
"We didn't even work hard," Thomas said. "I'm not going to lie; we just had a bad offseason."
"We weren't as focused as we were last year about winning games," Foster said. "We didn't take advantage of days that we should've been in the gym. I'm the main one, honestly."
Foster is taking a lion's share of the blame right now -- at least the share that isn't being thrown like bloody meat onto Weber's back.
"I just change my mind, just play through it," Foster said. "People are going to doubt me, but I've just got to keep competing and keep working."
"When you're one of the best players on the team, everybody's going to think that you're supposed to be the leader or the most vocal person, and I think we kind of did miss that a little bit from (Foster)," Iwundu said. "That did hurt us a little bit.
"But at the same time, he's never been a vocal leader. He just always went out and played his game; he helped his team do what it had to do to win, and that was it."
Whether the 'Cats were immature, entitled, divided, or some bizarre combo of all three, this much was clear: The Horned Frogs were none of the above.
TCU looked as if it had stronger players -- and better players, too, which is a problem. One of several. The Frogs, who draw top-seeded Kansas early Thursday afternoon, are far from artistic, but they have big, tough, skilled bodies and they'll fight for 50-50 balls until their fingernails fall off.
The Froggies won the count on second-chance points Wednesday, 21-16, and fast-break points by a margin of 8-4. In short, they do the scrappy things K-State, in recent vintage, had become famous for doing -- or famous for doing under Bob Huggins and Frank Martin, at least.
At the center of the identity crisis is Foster, either a prima donna or misunderstood, depending on the day, depending on whom you ask. He said, again, for now, he wants to stay. Whether that affection is shared in kind by his head coach remains to be seen. Nobody in purple wants to go through again what they just went through this winter. Weber least of all.
"Naw, (fans) they really don't understand how me and Coach Weber are," Foster explained, "because me and him can be mad at each other, but at the end of the day, we still love each other."
You still love him?
"I still love Coach," Foster replied. "He's always going to be my favorite coach, because he gave me a chance when nobody else wanted to."
But even charitable coaches have a breaking point.
Charitable fans, too.
"People appreciate guys that will work their tails off and compete and battle every day and be good citizens," Weber said. "And if you do that, (the fans here) will love you forever. That's what we've got to make sure that from now on and in the future that we have in our program."
Of course, they've said all the right things before, dozens of times. The time to act, the time to change the paradigm, starts now.
After all, they've got all the time in the world. Too much damn time, now that you mention it.
You can follow Sean Keeler on Twitter at @SeanKeeler or email him at seanmkeeler@gmail.com.
