Kansas State’s loss at Big 12 Tournament brings concern (and hope) ahead of Big Dance
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The mood inside Kansas State’s locker room was hard to quantify following Thursday’s 80-67 loss to TCU at T-Mobile Center.
Players were disappointed that the Wildcats only lasted one game at the Big 12 Tournament, but none of them were overly upset about the defeat. It was mostly quiet. Tykei Greene scrolled through his phone in the corner. Assistant coach Rodney Perry took a long look at the stat sheet and shared a few thoughts individually with Markquis Nowell and Nae’Qwan Tomlin. They listened, changed clothes and then left the arena.
There was no laughter. There were no tears. This atmosphere was somewhere in the middle.
Maybe that was to be expected. K-State is stuck in a weird state of transition at the moment. The Wildcats are fresh off a stellar regular season that has featured 23 victories, countless highlights and a guaranteed high seed in next week’s NCAA Tournament. But their journey isn’t over.
The most important part of the season is up next. But they enter it on a losing streak.
That is obviously less than ideal for head coach Jerome Tang, who was hoping to bounce back from an 89-81 loss at West Virginia with a deep run in front of thousands of purple-clad fans in Kansas City.
Falling flat in that environment is concerning for everyone involved. But that doesn’t exactly mean the Wildcats are doomed heading into March Madness, either. There are many ways to look at the middle ground in which they currently reside.
“I’m extremely confident, because we as a staff know what we need to do to get our guys prepared,” Tang said. “So that’s not going to be an issue. The great thing is now we get three or four really good days of practice before we play another game. And the guys now have that feeling of the season could be over, and that changes things.”
How concerned should K-State fans feel about this team after Thursday’s loss?
That is also hard to say.
Optimists can point to the fact that the Wildcats haven’t lost more than two consecutive games at any point this season. So this group is probably due for a stronger showing when the games really start to matter next week at the NCAA Tournament. K-State is expected to earn a No. 3 or No. 4 seed in the event, which is an excellent starting point. Perhaps best of all: no more games against fellow Big 12 teams, at least for a little while.
“We get to play a team that doesn’t know us as well as this team that we played today,” Tang said.
Some will also argue that it is advantageous for most teams to suffer an early loss in the conference tournament, rather than drain valuable energy reserves while playing three games in three days.
“If you tell us that we lost this game so we could learn some valuable lessons so that we can go on to win the national championship,” forward Ismael Massoud said, “then of course everyone in this locker room will take it.”
Still, it’s not all rainbows in EMAW land.
The Wildcats jumped out to promising leads in each of their past two games (11-3 at West Virginia and 11-2 vs. TCU) and those hot starts meant nothing. They got eviscerated the rest of the way in both contests.
They also continue to struggle away from home. Tang has done an excellent job turning Bramlage Coliseum into a basketball fortress. The Wildcats went 15-1 inside the Octagon of Doom this season. But they have only won one game away from home since January 7, and that came at Oklahoma State on a day when the Cowboys only made 41% of their shots.
Playing in front of a friendly crowd in Kansas City did nothing to help K-State at the Big 12 Tournament. Statistical college basketball website Haslametrics rates K-State as one of the nation’s worst road teams. At No. 355, the Wildcats are ahead of only nine teams.
“We will get better from this,” K-State forward Keyontae Johnson said. “We will handle adversity pretty good. We have a mature group of guys so we will make that everyone keeps their head up. The year is not over yet. We’ve got one game left, and we’re going to play our hardest and we are going to fix the things that we need to fix.”
A few areas to fix were obvious during the TCU game.
K-State committed 20 turnovers against TCU and Nowell only made one of nine shots from three-point range. The Horned Frogs scored 45 of their points off turnovers and after offensive rebounds. When the Wildcats turn the ball over, miss outside shots and allow second-chance points they usually lose.
Teams have exposed many of K-State’s flaws over the past week. Now it’s gut-check time.
“Adversity is good,” Nowell said. “It can make you or break you. I feel like whenever this team has adversity, we do well with it. So I’m happy for adversity. I’m not happy that the outcome is the way it is today, but I’m happy that we get to see the things that we need to fix going into the tournament.”
This story was originally published March 10, 2023 at 10:01 AM with the headline "Kansas State’s loss at Big 12 Tournament brings concern (and hope) ahead of Big Dance."
