K-State hopes to join incredible start for Big 12 home teams as Wildcats host Baylor
Kansas State basketball coach Jerome Tang had an interesting response when he was asked about some of the unexpected results that occurred during the first two weeks of Big 12 play.
“It’s hard to call any road loss an upset,” he said.
While some may have raised their eyebrows at the sight of Houston losing its first two games of the entire season last week at Iowa State and then TCU, those scores didn’t come as a surprise to Tang. Nor was he shocked when UCF beat Kansas in its first ever Big 12 home game or when struggling West Virginia took down Texas.
He has a point.
Home teams are off to a 15-6 start in Big 12 play, which means they are winning nearly 72% of the time. They were at their best over the weekend, as home teams went 6-1 on Saturday. The only road win came from a ranked BYU team at UCF, by just five points.
K-State was on the wrong end of one of those games when it blew an 11-point lead against Texas Tech and lost 60-59 in front of a raucous crowd at United Supermarkets Arena.
Tang was understandably frustrated by the result. All K-State needed to win was one more stop on defense or a last-second shot on offense. But it wasn’t to be. Some calls didn’t go the way he wanted. Neither did some plays.
He didn’t waste any time complaining. Those are things that tend to happen for road teams in the Big 12.
“Our league is the best, and it’s not just the teams, it’s the environments,” Tang said. “You don’t get that (in other conferences). I watch a lot of college basketball. I’m a junkie. I will have the computer going watching the team that we are getting ready to play. I’ve got the TV on another game and I’ve got something on my phone. I follow all the environments in the Big 12 and there aren’t very many places (that are dead). This is on any given night, not just when there’s a rivalry game. You watch a Big 12 game and the environments are incredible. You have to prepare for that.”
Now it is time for K-State to take advantage of its own home crowd.
K-State is about to benefit from its own home-court advantage when it hosts Baylor at 7 p.m. on Tuesday at Bramlage Coliseum. Students will be back in town for the start of the spring semester. The crowd should be large and loud. Tang and the Wildcats are looking forward to it.
“I am fired up,” Tang said. “Our people are back. They’re in their dorms or apartments right now, fueling and hydrating and carbo-loading. They are going to be ready tomorrow. I know that, no doubt in my mind ... We have the best home court environment. We want to take it to a whole other level tomorrow. When they leave we want them to leave and say, ‘Man, I never want to play in that place again.’”
On paper, the Bears figure to be favored by a small number.
The Bears are off to a 14-2 start and are one of two remaining teams in the Big 12 without a conference loss. Texas Tech is the other. Still, it will be hard to label K-State as an underdog.
The last time the Wildcats played at home, they flattened UCF by 25. For the season, they are 8-1 inside the Octagon of Doom.
They are now hoping to continue the trend of Big 12 teams playing their best at home.
This story was originally published January 15, 2024 at 12:30 PM with the headline "K-State hopes to join incredible start for Big 12 home teams as Wildcats host Baylor."