K-State picked up a quality win -- but was missing quality at times, too
KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Team Strangelove isn't bad, they're not great, but they are, most certainly, weird: On Saturday night Kansas State lost pretty much every major "hustle" stat -- rebounds (25-24), turnovers committed (12-6), points in the paint (40-34), points off turnovers (14-12), second-chance points (9-4), fast-break points (9-6).
And still won by seven.
And, heck, were rarely threatened -- at least not until the final 90 seconds or so.
"We always know that this (Kansas City) game is big," forward Nino Williams added. "It might be (the) biggest game of the season, and we just harped on how big of a chance this was for our season. I think this was our best game we've played overall this season, as a team."
Well. Alrighty, then.
A couple of Decembers ago, an up-and-down Wildcat squad, coach Bruce Weber's first, used an emotive, 68-61 victory over then-No. 8 Florida at Sprint just before Christmas as a springboard to a Big 12 co-championship.
This one was nice -- same site, same basic timeframe, same matchup with an SEC dance partner. But the Aggies (7-3) of now aren't as good as the Gators of then. And as for these Wildcats (7-4), well ... who bloody knows?
The upside is we've seen the upside, and Saturday wasn't exactly it. K-State didn't play particularly well, but played well enough to keep control, pretty much the entire night, against a Ratings Percentage Index Top 50 (Texas A&M came in at No. 42) opponent at a neutral -- OK, semi-neutral -- site.
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It was a quality win that lacked a certain, shall we say, quality.
The 'Cats pinned the Aggies against the wall on both shoulder blades with a no-look, over-the-shoulder pass from Wesley Iwundu to Williams for the layup to go up 61-48 with 5:41 left. But as the pro-purple crowd roared, A&M went to work, chipping away with a 13-4 run to trim the lead to 65-61 with 1:15 left. K-State was 10 of 19 from the charity stripe in the second half, including a stretch in which they missed five out of six with three minutes remaining in the tilt.
So, basically, it's a nice team that will nonetheless drive you -- and Weber, no doubt -- bonkers over the little things, such as failing to box out or leaving a jump shooter open on the wing. Or a motion offense that occasionally goes nowhere, still. Rushed passes deflecting off fingertips. A zig when somebody else expected a zag. Unforced error after unforced error.
"Even some of the turnovers -- Jevon (Thomas), he had (open) guys for a layup and threw it behind them," Weber lamented. "Wesley gets in there right away and makes a casual pass, and that's how he had been playing, and Thomas (Gipson) had a few but it really wasn't Thomas' fault, because everyone else didn't do what they were supposed to do. ... But obviously, if we take care of the ball, it's going to help us."
Over the first 20 minutes, K-State was either throwing it away (eight first-half turnovers) or laying it up. The 'Cats connected on 14 of 17 shots in the first period, a rate of 82.4 percent, the third-highest field-goal percentage for a single period in school history, and the highest since 1994.
Which proves the old adage yet again: It's far easier to handle glaring, screaming, stupefying inconsistencies when you're sitting on a lead.
"I think there were a lot of high expectations," Weber said. "I kept saying, 'We have to be cautiously optimistic.' And people don't want to hear that, our ticket-sellers, our promotions people don't want to hear that.
"But I knew, we still have young guards. And then we have guys transferring (in) that haven't played for a year, and in Brandon (Bolden's) case, two years. So ... we have a lot of things to figure out."
As the Big 12 beckons, questions remain. Is Gipson fully up to speed? Will the free-throw line be a friend or a gaping wound? Which lineup fits best? Everything we were told transfer Justin Edwards was -- scrappy, decisive with the ball, almost cocksure -- senior swingman Williams has been instead. And that's OK.
The point isn't that Foster can't do the heavy lifting alone.
The point is that he shouldn't have to.
"Yeah, it doesn't get any easier for us from this position right now," Foster said. "We go from playing Texas A&M (and) Texas Southern to Georgia, and then playing in the best basketball conference in the country.
"So you know, we've just got to keep it up. We've got to keep playing like that. Honestly, we can't go back to how we played. We've got to keep playing how we played (Saturday), with a lot of energy. We've got to figure out how to get a win on the road."
The 'Cats are winless in two true road games to date and are now, technically, 1-2 at neutral sites. Saturday's narrative was "must-win," but pretty much every tilt between now and that Jan. 3 visit to the better-than-we-thought Cowboys (9-1) falls into that particular camp. K-State hits Christmas with zero wins over the RPI Top 50, one over 50-100 (the Aggies, having dropped from 42nd after Saturday's loss) and, more problematically, a 23-point thrashing at the hands of 88th-ranked Pittsburgh in Hawaii sticking out like a canker sore.
There aren't a lot of bad losses, per se, but there weren't many victories of at-large significance -- an "almost" against Arizona on the islands doesn't count -- coming into the weekend, either. A&M helps somewhat, with a 53-ranking nationally on KenPom.com as of late Saturday night. Georgia (No. 58 RPI, No. 41 KenPom as of late Saturday) could provide a little lift there, too, and Texas Southern (No. 109 RPI, No. 210 KenPom as of late Saturday) just beat Michigan State in East Lansing, a result that amused the basketball gods but Tom Izzo, not so much.
"I think it was too much for the kids early," Weber said of the preseason expectations. "And I tried to, you know, keep it at a level.
"If you talk to them, I think they felt -- even Marcus felt -- a lot of pressure. Then when they didn't (start well), I don't know if they thought if it was going to come easy, and then when it didn't ...."
Weber extended one hand to show a level, stopping at his shoulder.
" ... And then all of a sudden, they went from being, thinking here ..."
He lowered the hand to his belt.
" ... to now they're lower than a snake belly. We just need (to be) a little bit hungry and humble, right in the middle.
"I think we can be competitive (in the Big 12). But it's not going to be easy. We've just got to worry about Texas Southern right now."
They're not there yet, wherever "there" is. The ceiling, like this roster, remains an enigma. No one can say for sure how often that mojo can be tapped, or how much juice is actually in the tank to begin with. This much, though, is certain, and Foster said it best: At this point, there's no turning back.
You can follow Sean Keeler on Twitter at @SeanKeeler or email him at seanmkeeler@gmail.com.
