K-State Q&A: Is it time for Bruce Weber to change his starting lineup?
It’s time for another K-State Q&A.
This is the last mailbag before Christmas, so let me start by wishing all of you a happy holiday season. Here’s hoping you get something as cool as all lavender basketball uniforms from Santa Claus.
As always, we’ve got lots of good topics to cover. So let’s jump right in. Thanks for your participation.
You can certainly make an argument that David Sloan belongs in the starting lineup.
His pass-first mentality is something Kansas State needs more of on offense. Cartier Diarra has dished out assists at an impressive rate this season, but the Wildcats seem best served with him playing off the ball and letting Sloan run the point.
K-State raced to a double-digit lead over Mississippi State with Sloan running the offense and distributing to his teammates last week, but the Wildcats struggled to score in the second half with him on the bench and ultimately lost the game on their way to a discouraging 6-4 start.
It feels like time to try something new.
Bruce Weber brought up a good point about inserting Sloan into the lineup on Thursday, though. If you do that, it means the Wildcats have to remove someone else like Mike McGuirl (the team’s best, and only, reliable three-point shooter), Xavier Sneed (senior leader) or Diarra.
I think most fans would happily swap Sloan for McGuirl, but that ignores all the little things McGuirl does right. He’s arguably been the team’s best all-around player lately.
Sloan also is still learning how to defend at the Big 12 level. The junior-college transfer can be a liability on the defensive end, and that needs to change before the coaching staff can trust him in pressure situations.
Perhaps small ball is worth exploring. I’m not suggesting it’s the answer, at least full time, because I like Sneed much better at the three than I do at the four. But that would allow the Wildcats to play Sloan, Diarra, McGuirl and Sneed at the same time. Combine them with Makol Mawien, Montavious Murphy or Antonio Gordon at the five and that’s probably their best offensive lineup.
But that also creates some problems on defense.
I’m not sure there is an easy fix for this team right now. As much as we talk about Sloan deserving more minutes, there are plenty of other problems, particularly in the front court. What has happened to Mawien?
Weber could tinker with the lineup a bit, but K-State players also need to produce at higher levels regardless of how much they play.
They can’t hurt.
That is worth remembering as K-State continues to roll out alternate uniforms at an Oregon pace.
My Twitter mentions featured several comments from people this week suggesting that the Wildcats should stop with the uniform reveals and focus on free throws until they start winning more games. Some folks also suggested the script “Cats” helmets were a distraction for the K-State football team this season and blamed them for losing a home game to West Virginia.
While I understand that sentiment, that is a bunch of a malarkey.
K-State players and coaches don’t take time away from practice to model uniforms during the week. The basketball uniforms were ordered months ago and the reveal video that K-State used to promote them was filmed long before this week.
Their preparation didn’t change because of new uniforms.
The players show up on game day and wear whatever the equipment manager tells them to wear. It has no negative impact on anything.
After experiencing new uniforms for the first time, I can say they are more for the fans than the players.
If you haven’t seen it yet, check out the lavender sweats Bruce Weber (video above) wore at his weekly media availability on Thursday.
The Wildcats are wearing lavender from head to toe this week and so is he!
I have never worn a sweat suit to a game before, and I’m not sure I want to start. Weber has enough swagger to pull it off. Not sure I can say the same.
Here’s hoping he wears it on the sideline Saturday inside the Sprint Center during the game. Now that would be awesome.
I’m going to put my own twist on this question and share some clips from my favorite K-State games of the last decade.
The best football game of the bunch is an easy selection for me.
K-State’s victory over Baylor in 2011 had a little bit of everything, but nothing beat the ending when Arthur Brown stopped Robert Griffin III with the game on the line. The best K-State football player of the last decade held his own against a Heisman Trophy winner.
That was a really high level game that showed the Wildcats were ready to contend for a Big 12 championship.
In basketball, the choice is very obvious.
K-State beat Xavier 101-96 in double overtime to advance to the Elite Eight. What a night that was in Salt Lake City. This game was made even more excited for me, because I was seated directly behind Gus Johnson as he called the action, and he went absolutely crazy.
Walter Neil is certainly deserving of an athletic scholarship, but he doesn’t require one.
The junior defensive back from Lawton, Oklahoma is the rare walk-on who doesn’t have to pay his own way through college. His tuition is covered because his father works in the military. Neil’s financial aid comes via the G.I. bill instead of K-State athletics.
K-State recruited Neil as a walk-on out of Oklahoma, and he has since established himself as a starter on defense. Most other players in that situation would have been elevated to scholarship status by now. Neil has never pushed for that, though. He wants the Wildcats to use that scholarship on another player that will make the team better.
Neil essentially gives K-State 86 scholarship-worthy players instead of 85.
Well, Josh Rivas will probably start at one of the guard positions. I can tell you that.
Projecting the rest of K-State’s 2020 offensive line is as difficult as finding a Turbo Man doll on Christmas Eve.
The Wildcats will lose all five starters after the Liberty Bowl, as Scott Frantz, Evan Curl, Adam Holtorf, Tyler Mitchell and Nick Kaltmayer are all seniors.
Other than Rivas, here are a few names to keep an eye on: Noah Johnson, Christian Duffie, Kaitori Leveston, Ben Adler, Harrison Creed and Cooper Beebe. Junior-college transfer Dawson Delforge should also factor into the competition.
I’m confident K-State will get things figured out rather quickly at center and guard, but tackle is a bit of a mystery. I don’t see a plug-and-play blocker with size on the current roster or group of 23 Chris Klieman signed earlier this week.
K-State offensive line coach Conor Riley will figure something out, I’m sure. But I don’t know what to expect this far in advance.
The oddsmakers don’t think much of the Big 12 this bowl season. The conference sent six teams to bowl games and its over/under win total is only two.
Sadly, that seems about right. The Big 12 will face some tough matchups this postseason. Here’s how I see things playing out:
Texas Bowl: Oklahoma State will beat Texas A&M by at least a touchdown. Chuba Hubbard is expected to play for the Cowboys, and that’s all I need to know.
Camping World Bowl: Notre Dame will cover the spread against Iowa State. The Cyclones will bring lots of fans to Orlando, but they won’t have much celebrate on Dec. 28.
Peach Bowl: There’s a reason LSU is a big favorite in this game. I don’t see Oklahoma getting enough stops to get its first playoff win.
Liberty Bowl: K-State will sink Navy. That’s my first nautical pun leading up to the Liberty Bowl. Hopefully I can come up with more after I arrive in Memphis late next week.
Alamo Bowl: Call me crazy, but I think Texas pulls off an upset here against Utah. I wouldn’t rank this pick very high in my confidence pool, but I like the Longhorns over the overrated Utes.
Sugar Bowl: As long as Georgia comes to play, it will beat Baylor. But the Bears might care more about this game than the Bulldogs, so who knows what will happen.
Big 12 bowl prediction: 3-3.
It’s too early for me too make a record prediction for K-State football in 2020. I want to see what the Wildcats have planned on the offensive line and defensive line before I go there. But I will say this: K-State’s schedule is very favorable next year.
If Klieman can shore up a few positions, the potential for a Baylor type run will be possible.
The junior-college transfers will make the biggest impact in the short term. K-State needs someone to step in on the offensive line and lead the way at defensive tackle next season. So Robert Hentz, Derick Newton and Dawson Delforge could all start next year.
I could talk myself into half a dozen choices when it comes to long-term impact. But I will narrow my choices down to incoming quarterback Will Howard and incoming linebacker Jay Harris.
Howard is the dual-threat type of quarterback Klieman has won with in the past and he seems really passionate about getting on campus a semester early and joining the position. I also like Harris because he comes from a winning program in Texas and he looks great on video.
It’s a welcome change to see K-State add so many players in December.
Under the previous coaching staff, recruiting was an afterthought between September and January, so K-State’s recruiting classes typically shrunk between the start of the season and this time of the year because of players choosing to sign elsewhere.
But Klieman and his coaches pushed hard on the recruiting trail whenever they could during the season and delivered a promising core group of incoming players.
The Wildcats won’t have to scramble for recruits this February, with 23 players already signed. That’s great news for K-State, as it has already begun to turn some of its focus to 2021 recruiting.
At this moment, it ranks among the very best of them. The Wildcats currently have a top 50 recruiting class, and that has only happened one other time over the past 10 years.
K-State will probably drop a bit in the final 2020 recruiting rankings after more schools fill out their classes, but I still like the look of this class. It’s a definite improvement over the last few classes of the Snyder era.
This story was originally published December 20, 2019 at 11:52 AM with the headline "K-State Q&A: Is it time for Bruce Weber to change his starting lineup?."