Three takeaways from Kansas State’s blowout win over UCF in Big 12 basketball opener
The start of Big 12 basketball brought out the best of Kansas State and the worst of UCF.
K-State looked like a NCAA Tournament team while it won big, 77-52, on Saturday at Bramlage Coliseum against an opponent that appeared completely overwhelmed in its first Big 12 road game in school history.
The Wildcats (11-3, 1-0 Big 12) have talked all season about playing their best in conference play and eventually March. Well, they certainly kicked things into a higher gear against the Knights (9-4, 0-1 Big 12) in front of an approving home crowd.
K-State’s Tylor Perry led all scorers with 25 points while the Knights only made a dismal 34% of their shots and averaged 0.84 points per possession.
This was a mismatch from the start, and K-State was able to flex its muscles until the end.
The Wildcats will try to build off this performance in their next game, on Tuesday at West Virginia.
Until then, here are some takeaways on Saturday’s action:
Tylor Perry should play this aggressively more often
This is the version of Tylor Perry that K-State fans were hoping to see all season.
The senior guard who transferred from North Texas was aggressive and completely unafraid to shoot when he was open. That hasn’t always been the case for him, as he has looked to defer to teammates and get others involved as a point guard. But he was a score-first guard on Saturday, and good things happened because of it.
Perry led all scorers with a season-high 25 points as he drained six 3-pointers.
That was a big relief for him afterward.
“I’ve went through it in (the) past, nonconference,” Perry said. “But I kept my faith 1,000% in God and my teammates. It was a struggle, but I know who I am as a player and I have such a good supporting cast around me. They continue to find me and continue to feed me, and I’m blessed to be in this position, to have a coach and a group of guys who believe in me more than I believe in myself sometimes. I’m just happy to be in this moment.”
Perry was at his best in the second half when he activated catch-and-shoot mode. Perry got hot from beyond the arc when he made a 3-pointer in transition to give his team a 41-21 lead. K-State had worked hard to beat a UCF press on the play and Perry caught the ball early in the shot clock.
No one would have complained had he waited and tried to score on a designed half-court play. But he had enough confidence to fire away.
Good call.
Perry is best known as a shooter. The Wildcats want him to fire away when he’s wide open.
Making that shot gave Perry a major boost of confidence, as he went on to make his next four shots from beyond the arc. He was scorching hot, and his scoring helped the Wildcats pull away for a blowout win.
“Coach calls him the best shooter in America every day at practice,” K-State guard Dorian Finister said. “All 13 of us really believe that. We will never lose confidence in him.”
The Wildcats noticed some posts on social media lately that suggested that Perry was an overrated shooter. Go ahead and cue Michael Jordan here, because Perry clearly took that personally.
It goes without saying that K-State needs more games like this from Perry. He needs to keep shooting.
“I want him to stay aggressive,” K-State head coach Jerome Tang said. “It’s one of his superpowers, his ability to shoot the ball. I know he wants to prove that he can be a point guard, but he has to continue to trust in his work.”
K-State got off to a scintillating start
Anyone who tuned in late to this game missed out on a lot of excitement.
The Wildcats started so strong that they forced UCF coach Johnny Dawkins to call a timeout before three minutes had disappeared from the game clock. And that strategic move didn’t do anything to cool the Wildcats off.
K-State scored the first 12 points of Saturday’s game and raced to a 23-7 lead before the Knights started to fight back.
It was an exciting few minutes for K-State fans. The Wildcats arguably hadn’t looked better at any other point in the season.
Perry got the hot streak going by knocking down a 3-pointer on the opening possession of the game. Then Arthur Kaluma and Cam Carter followed with layups and the Wildcats were off to the races. Dawkins called timeout at this point, but there was no stopping Tang’s team.
Kaluma drained a 3-pointer on the next possession, and K-State followed that with an alley-oop dunk from Carter.
The home crowd erupted at that point, and UCF players were probably wondering what they had gotten themselves into early in their first Big 12 game in history.
K-State was unable to keep up that scorching pace for the entirety of the night, but it didn’t have to. The Wildcats, at the start of this one, reminded everyone watching how good they are capable of playing.
What has happened to the K-State bench?
The Wildcats got so few contributions from their reserves in this game that they had to wait until the 13:36 mark of the second half to get their first bench points from backup guard Finister.
That came as a concerning development for K-State, because it wasn’t that long ago that players such as Dai Dai Ames, Macaleab Rich, Taj Manning and Jerrell Colbert were taking turns giving the team valuable contributions off the bench.
But Tang seemed to show no trust in his bench on Saturday.
K-State starters played all but 14 minutes in the first half, with David N’Guessan and Perry both staying in for the full 20 minutes.
Why?
“We’re just trying to figure out how to win,” Tang said. “If it takes nine to win, we’re going to play nine. If it’s six to win, we’re going to play six. If our guys are focused and locked in and I don’t have to go deep to find energy or something that we’re not getting, then that’s what we’ll do. Ideally, you would want to play eight, but whatever it takes to win on that given night. We treat every game like a one-game season and everybody has got to be bought into it and be ready when their number is called.”
Tang waited until there were 2 minutes, 1 second remaining to pull his starters from the game and go with a full lineup of reserves for garbage time.
On the plus side, Finister had some nice moments and finished with six points. Perhaps that is something he can build on. But overall this was a disappointing effort from the K-State bench.
This story was originally published January 6, 2024 at 7:18 PM with the headline "Three takeaways from Kansas State’s blowout win over UCF in Big 12 basketball opener."