Kansas State basketball searching for cure to road woes against Texas

Nearly a week has passed since Kansas State played its last men’s basketball game, but the Wildcats have not treated the schedule break as down time.

When coach Bruce Weber gave them a full day off Wednesday, telling them to rest their legs and stay off the practice court before departing for the final game of the regular season at Texas on Saturday, they gathered as a team and watched scouting video.

“We are taking this game a little more seriously than the rest of them,” junior K-State guard Justin Edwards said.

The Wildcats are justifiably focused. K-State can clinch the No. 6 seed and a first-round bye in the Big 12 Tournament by beating Texas. A loss will drop the Wildcats to the No. 8 seed, matching them up with TCU and then No. 1-seed Kansas if they advance. They have not played on the opening day of the league tournament since 2006. A K-State victory over Texas will also secure a finishing record of at least .500, which would give it a shot at the NIT. The game could also have NCAA Tournament implications, with the Longhorns fighting for an at-large berth and the Wildcats pushing to get on the bubble.

The game is on the road, which has not been kind to K-State. The Wildcats are 3-16 in true road games the past two years, including 1-9 this season. Their only victory came in overtime at Oklahoma, while the nine losses included clunkers against Long Beach State, TCU, Tennessee and Texas Tech. They have lost six straight on the road.

The Wildcats also will lack senior Nino Williams and sophomore Jevon Thomas at Texas. Williams will not travel with the team for personal reasons but re-join the team on Monday as it prepares for the Big 12 Tournament. Thomas won’t travel to Austin because of an unspecified decision by coach Bruce Weber.

“Unless you are winning the league, you are not going to have the greatest road record,” Weber said. “It’s probably having that focus and maturity on the road. You don’t have that emotion and energy you get from the crowd at Bramlage. You have to bring that on your own. We don’t always do that.”

Texas won the first meeting in Manhattan 61-57 behind its defense, including four blocks from center Prince Ibeh. The 7-footer disrupted countless K-State shots in the paint, holding Thomas Gipson without a made field goal.

The Longhorns used a 2-3 zone in that game and clogged up every inch of space inside the three-point arc with tall defenders. They have since switched to man defense. K-State players are preparing for both.

Gipson hopes he can recreate his last game at the Erwin Center, in which he scored 24 points, and forget about the matchup from last month.

“I just have to try and get them in foul trouble and do the things that I did do last year to help us score,” Gipson said. “It is a lot harder going against their 2-3 zone, because they have a lot of length. It’s not just that first person you have to get by, it is that other 7-footer who is coming to block your shot, as well. I just have to play tough in the post.”

As a team, K-State hopes to play tough like it did at Oklahoma.

“We were just locked in on defense versus Oklahoma,” K-State sophomore Wesley Iwundu said. “Coach gave us tasks. The scouting report, we studied it over and over and our mindset was just different going into that game.”

Different until now.

“We are just getting a lot more prepared, because we have these days off and not back-to-back games,” Gipson said. “We are going to take this game just like all the others and try to go into it mentally prepared, but I think the film sessions and walk-thrus helped us a lot.”

This story was originally published March 6, 2015 at 1:09 PM with the headline "Kansas State basketball searching for cure to road woes against Texas."