K-State Q&A: Thoughts on Mike McGuirl, basketball wins, heat-check moments and more
It’s time for another K-State Q&A.
There are lots of great topics to cover this week, so let’s dive right into your questions. Thanks, as always, for providing them.
There’s a reason why the Fighting Bruce Webers have gone from losing 13 straight to winning consecutive Big 12 games. I only need one word to describe it: Defense.
K-State is suddenly playing some.
The Wildcats couldn’t stop anybody in most of their first 22 games. They gave up 80 points against Drake, 81 points against Fort Hays State, 82 points against Texas and Texas Tech ... not to mention 100 and then 107 points in humiliating losses against Baylor.
How bad were those numbers for a Weber team? Historically bad. None of his first eight K-State teams finished worse than 52nd nationally in adjusted efficiency defense, according to Ken Pomeroy. This team was rated around 250th a few weeks ago.
You’ve seen how hard it is for K-State to score, right? Well, for most of the season, K-State’s offense was ahead of its defense.
Yikes.
Out of nowhere, they started getting stops. Weber challenged the Wildcats to slap the floor and to play with more energy. They flipped a switch and have held Kansas (59), TCU (54) and Oklahoma (57) below 60 points in three straight games. Their efficiency defense rating has surged up to 159th.
Weber described K-State’s defensive improvement as “astronomical” and I think that is a great choice of words.
I spoke with Fran Fraschilla about that earlier this week, and he said they are playing as well on defense right now as they were with Barry Brown and company two years ago.
Now, the Wildcats still shot the ball so poorly that they only scored 41 points and got blown out against Kansas. Good defense didn’t matter. But Mike McGuirl made clutch shots against TCU and Oklahoma. That was enough for K-State to start getting some wins, and, most likely, enough for Weber to return for another season despite the team’s struggles over the past two years.
If K-State can keep playing defense at this level, it can realistically climb up the Big 12 standings in 2022.
No offense to Weber’s skills as an artist (I’m sure the smiley faces he drew before the TCU game were great) and his skills as a motivator (appearing on “SportsCenter is still cool), but this team’s improvement has been all about a massive improvement on defense.
Bruce Weber has made it abundantly clear that he wants Mike McGuirl to return as a “super senior.” I don’t think he would do that unless he thought there was a good chance he would, in fact, return.
Remember back to last year, he never mentioned a word about Cartier Diarra when talking about the future because he knew he was gone.
I personally think McGuirl will be back. It’s the smart move. He’s not good enough to play professionally in this country, but he could improve his value overseas by coming back and playing 35 minutes a game for the Wildcats.
Did you know Barry Brown is the only K-State player in the last decade to player a higher percentage of minutes for his team than McGuirl is right now?
That seems too good for him to pass up.
Some of you have tried to tell me on Twitter that K-State shouldn’t want McGuirl back. I think that’s crazy. There are only two players on the team averaging more than 10 points per game, and he’s one of them. He certainly has his flaws, but we have seen his upside over the past week.
K-State would absolutely benefit from him coming back as a 14th scholarship player next season.
But McGuirl hasn’t shared his plans yet. So you never know. I give him an 80% chance of returning.
I wish I could tell you that the NCAA has granted K-State a permanent waiver that allows the Wildcats to wear their vintage, two-tone lavender uniforms whenever they darn well please.
I really do.
They are a great look. They ooze K-State basketball history. And they are so unique that most people watching from afar have no idea what to think of them, which I think makes them even better.
Most importantly, I love them.
Like Notre Dame wearing green and Evansville wearing sleeves, they are K-State’s signature look. And there’s no good reason why the Wildcats shouldn’t be allowed to wear them more often.
Alas, they still have to jump through weird hoops with the NCAA just to wear them once each season. K-State requested a one-time waiver to wear them against Oklahoma and the waiver was approved. So they rocked them against the Sooners and handed Lon Kruger his yearly L at Bramlage Coliseum.
That was fun.
You know what would be more fun? More throwback uniforms!
Sadly, two-tone jerseys are apparently frowned upon by someone important. Why? No clue. In any case, we won’t see them again until next season at the earliest.
I’m going to call it a tie.
Cop out? Absolutely. But I honestly don’t know which way to lean on this one.
The crazy thing about those Oklahoma upsets is that neither victory will end up being all that important.
Unless the men’s basketball team somehow wins the Big 12 Tournament, it will miss the postseason and finish with a losing record.
The football team finished 4-6 and missed out on a bowl game.
Beating Oklahoma gave both teams a highlight moment, but little more.
Chris Klieman owns Lincoln Riley. Bruce Weber owns Lon Kruger. They’re just facts.
This is the kind of question that really makes you think.
My brain says no, because the shame of getting shutout AND never drinking a cold beer again seems way too harsh.
But my gut says yes, because I feel confident I could score a cheap bucket against any defender my size. My go-to move back in the day was to check the ball with my defender and shoot from the top of the key before he could get in a defensive stance.
I’ve got no chance trying to drive the ball against any college defender, but it’s possible I could make a jumper.
I also wonder if Brown would bring his A game against me. I wrote a bunch of nice things about him when he was at K-State. No way he would want to humiliate me like that. Maybe I could even cut him on the deal and split the $500,000 if he lets me score.
That’s it. I would go for it.
Even if I lose, you left a bit of a loophole in the deal by saying I couldn’t “enjoy” an alcoholic beverage again. What if I keep drinking beer and say that I hate it? I know some good lawyers.
Well, you don’t have to worry about me choosing a basketball heat-check moment, unless NBA Jam counts.
I’ve got three answers for you.
1. A youth golf memory does stick out in my mind. I remember playing well at a tournament when I was maybe 13 and really had things working on the back nine of the final round, but it looked like I was going to finish second because I trailed by three strokes going into the last hole. I couldn’t win without the other guy messing up, so I told him it would sure be swell if he hit his drive out of bounds.
He was a friend, or at least an acquaintance, so I didn’t think it counted as trash talk. But he got really upset about it and then promptly hit his drive into the street. Like an Oklahoma team coached by Lon Kruger playing at Bramlage Coliseum, he made a double bogey. Like Mike McGuirl shooting on senior night, I made a birdie. We went to a playoff, and I won.
2. Proposing to my wife.
3. Once as a rookie reporter working in Idaho I was assigned to drive to Boise in hopes of getting an interview with then Kansas City Chiefs defensive end Jared Allen. He used to play at Idaho State and he was speaking at a fundraiser. It was supposed to be a simple write up about his connection with his alma mater.
But after I got there we got along so well I asked if I could tag along with him and his college coach the next day at a golfing event. He said sure. I shadowed him for five hours and got all kinds of great material. When it was over, I asked if I could tag along with him for dinner. No problem, he said. So I just kept pushing the envelope. He said he was going out for drinks. Could I come? Yes, he said.
I ended up embedded with his entourage until well after midnight in downtown Boise. Still to this day, I have never seen anyone get more free drinks. It was an open bar everywhere he went.
Needless to say, the story I wrote a week later was magical. It won me my first national writing award. Wish I could link to it here, but that newspaper’s website was so limited it might as well have been part of GeoCities at the time.
Give me M&M’s!
Two feels like the right number.
Anymore than that and it’s impossible to savor a single bite. The flavors should be opposites, too. Chocolate and vanilla is a classic. Mixing and matching with strawberry is always fun. But brownie and fudge or birthday cake and cookie dough is just a hodgepodge. You’re better off staying with one.
I used to load up bowls with four or five different flavors when frozen yogurt places were all the rage, and that was a mistake. We should all keep it simple when it comes to frozen treats.
The award goes to Kaosi Ezeagu.
Joe Petrakis is the silver medalist.
Mike McGuirl wins the bronze.
Those first two names may surprise you, because neither of them are major contributors. But they are both so much fun to talk with, and they bring energy to their interviews. That is particularly important when you’re talking over Zoom. It’s hard to have a good interview over the Internet, but Ezeagu manages to impress every time with his honesty and passion for the team.
From where I’m sitting, K-State baseball has enough potential to return to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2013.
This might be the best group of pitchers the Wildcats have ever had. Can they stay healthy? And can K-State’s hitters win some games? That’s what the season will come down to.
If you seriously mean all of K-State history, he will need to do a lot. Elden Auker won 130 games in the majors after pitching at K-State in the 1930s. That will be tough to beat.
If you only mean recent history, then his main competition is A.J. Morris. He was named Big 12 Pitcher of the Year in 2009 after winning 14 games with a ERA of 2.09.
Jordan Wicks can challenge those numbers. He threw seven scoreless innings in his 2021 debut while striking out 10. He rightfully was named Pitcher of the Week by the Big 12 and the NCBWA.
If he keeps pitching like that and the Wildcats make a NCAA Regional, he could pass Morris.
This story was originally published February 26, 2021 at 7:45 AM with the headline "K-State Q&A: Thoughts on Mike McGuirl, basketball wins, heat-check moments and more."