Bruce Weber eager to see what Kansas State can do with taller lineup of big men
For the past three seasons, there was one thing you could always count on from the Kansas State basketball team.
Makol Mawien started every single game at center.
No matter what, he was the guy who went to midcourt for opening tip and then patrolled the paint as K-State’s hard-working big man. He had his ups and downs, scoring as many 29 points in a Big 12 Tournament game against Kansas and fouling out of other contests before he could log five minutes of action, but through it all he became a staple of Bruce Weber’s lineup by starting 103 consecutive games.
Things will look different without him in the front court next season.
For the first time in years, there’s some mystery involved with how Weber will use his big men. Quite a bit of it, actually. K-State will try to replace Mawien inside not with one player but with several. And they are all newcomers following the offseason transfers of Levi Stockard, Nigel Shadd and James Love — Mawien’s three backups.
The new guys are UTEP transfer Kaosi Ezeagu, incoming freshman Davion Bradford and junior-college transfer Carlton Linguard.
“We will be a little taller,” Weber said in a phone interview. “Kaosi is taller than (Mawien) was, Davion is even taller than him and Carlton has got great length, too. With them you’ve got three big guys with a lot of size that are all a little different. That gives us, hopefully, a little more inside presence, a little more length and a little more physicality.”
For now, signs point to Ezeagu taking the lead down low. A 6-foot-10 and 245-pound sophomore, he enrolled last semester and spent half the season supporting the Wildcats from the bench after transferring in from UTEP.
He is the only one of the group with Division I basketball experience, and he has competed against the Wildcats’ four returning scholarship players in practice. His offensive game could use some work, as he averaged 3.2 points as a freshman at UTEP, but he is a skilled defender.
Weber credited his physicality and presence as a rim-protector in practice for lighting a fire under Mawien as his senior year came to an end. After receiving a NCAA waiver that will allow him to play immediately next season, Weber said it will be “huge” to have Ezeagu for every game.
“He is very physical and he plays hard,” Weber said. “We aren’t going to have a lot of experience next season, but he did play as a freshman and brought a lot to our practice when he arrived in January. He really challenged our bigs and made them better from that point on.”
Bradford, a 7-foot and 250-pound freshman from St. Louis, will bring similar talents to the floor. Unlike many big men, he has no desire to step outside and shoot three-pointers. He signed with K-State to play the role of a traditional center, focusing on close-range buckets, rebounds and blocked shots.
Weber is eager to see what he can do once he enters K-State’s weight-training program and enhances his body.
Linguard, a 6-foot-11 transfer from Temple (Texas) Junior College, figures to be more of an outside scoring threat when K-State has the ball on offense. But he has long arms and knows how to block shots at the rim.
It sounds like Weber is prepared to use all three of them in some roles.
At the very least, K-State should improve defensively in the paint next season. That should give the Wildcats a new identity at the center position.
Time will tell if it is a welcome change, but K-State will benefit from lineup flexibility next season with the return of Montavious Murphy and Antonio Gordon, as well as the addition of Seryee Lewis, at forward. For the first time in years, Weber will be able to mix and match a rotation of six big men.
This story was originally published June 9, 2020 at 12:46 PM with the headline "Bruce Weber eager to see what Kansas State can do with taller lineup of big men."