K-State coach Bruce Weber looks ahead to next season and shares a recruiting need

Bruce Weber wasn’t joking when he said it would take a few sleepless nights before he could move past the disappointment of Kansas State losing in the first round of the NCAA Tournament two weeks ago.

“I had a couple really bad nights after that,” Weber said. “It was disappointing and sad to realize it was our last time with Barry (Brown), Dean (Wade) and Kamau (Stokes). It was a tough finish. We had high expectations. It’s always sad when it ends.”

That being said, K-State’s coach is already starting to smile again. The main reason why: He feels optimistic about the future of Wildcats basketball, even with three accomplished seniors leaving the program.

Most expect K-State to take a step back from its recent heights next season, but that doesn’t mean the team will tumble to the bottom of the conference standings. Far from it. Weber thinks the Wildcats have enough returning experience and incoming talent to keep on winning.

Assuming Xavier Sneed returns for his senior year, he will form a promising core along with Cartier Diarra, Mike McGuirl and Makol Mawien. The Wildcats will bring back four players with starting experience and surround them with a recruiting class that looks like Weber’s best since Brown, Stokes and Wade came aboard four years ago.

“We will have a group of guys who have been starters and played major minutes on teams that went to the Elite Eight and won the Big 12,” Weber said. “You feel like you have a pretty good nucleus. The key will be how far the other guys come along and how much the new guys can give us.”

The new guys are:

• DaJuan Gordon, a 6-foot-3 guard from Chicago who was recently named the city’s player of the year by the Chicago Sun Times. He is a top 150 recruit nationally.
• Montavious Murphy. Another top 150 recruit, the 6-9 forward was one of the best high school players in Houston this season, and he is still growing.
• Antonio Gordon, a three-star prospect that put up big numbers as a senior in Lawton, Okla. It wasn’t strange for the 6-8 forward to score 40 points in games.

Weber is excited to coach all three. He says Murphy has the skills of a guard and the body of a forward. He says Antonio Gordon “can really score and do a lot of things with his size.” But he speaks most glowingly about DaJuan Gordon, who came on strong during his final year of high school.

“He is a combo guard who could play the one, the two or the three,” Weber said. “He is a little bit like Barry, personality-wise. He loves to hoop and play all the time. He plays harder than anyone else in the gym. He is very good at slashing, he will go rebound and he makes plays. He is very determined and very confident. He feels like he is a good player and he wants to show it.”

The Wildcats were also hoping to use Goodnews Kpegeol next season, but the freshman guard announced Thursday that he will transfer after one semester on campus. That means K-State will have at least one open scholarship to recruit with this spring.

Weber already knows the type of player he wants to add.

“Shooting will be a factor,” Weber said. “All the teams at the Final Four have guys putting it in the basket. You hope DaJuan, Antonio and Montavious can bring some scoring ability, but we need more. If you look at our roster, we have really good athletes. If we can add a little more skill, that would be something big we will look for.”

The Wildcats could have more scholarships open up. Additional low-minute players could transfer. And though odds are good Sneed will return to college next season, Weber said the junior swingman will request feedback from NBA teams and likely test the professional waters by declaring for the NBA Draft without hiring an agent.

Brown did the same thing last spring before returning to college as a senior.

Sneed projects to be K-State’s best player next season. But Weber is already challenging him to be more than that. He wants him to be a leader.

With that in mind, Weber called a meeting with Sneed, Diarra and junior walk-on Pierson McAtee a few days ago. He wanted to talk about leadership. For the past two years, they all looked to Brown. Now, young players will be looking to them. Can they help their teammates on and off the court? Will they demand extra work after practice? Are they ready to make clutch shots?

“It was easy for Barry,” Weber said. “Now someone else has to step up and do it.”

Weber said he is already planning to put his veterans in situations over the summer that force them to lead.

He’s interested to see how they respond. The Wildcats look promising on paper next season, but it will take more than that to replace three do-it-all seniors.

“They played a lot of minutes in so many games,” Weber said. “It will be a little different prep. Last year, we were working on skill development and keeping guys fresh. Next year, we will have to work a lot more five-on-five and team stuff, because you are going to have a young roster trying to figure things out.”

This story was originally published April 4, 2019 at 3:48 PM with the headline "K-State coach Bruce Weber looks ahead to next season and shares a recruiting need."