Takeaways from Kansas State’s latest frustrating road loss against Oklahoma State
The scariest thing about Kansas State’s 79-66 loss against Oklahoma State on Tuesday at Gallagher-Iba Arena is that it probably wasn’t rock bottom for the Wildcats.
Road games in the Big 12 don’t come any easier than this. The Cowboys are mediocre at best this season and a sparse crowd showed up to cheer them on in Stillwater. This was a matchup that K-State needed to win. Instead, it trailed big at halftime and went on to lose by double digits.
The Wildcats have now lost 12 straight road games in regular-season action dating back to last year.
This result was not a good omen for a K-State team that is about to play a string of difficult games. Up next: No. 12 Houston, Texas Tech, at No. 11 Kansas, at Baylor and West Virginia.
If the Wildcats (7-7, 1-2 Big 12) couldn’t build a winning record against the soft part of their schedule and lost convincingly at Oklahoma State (9-5, 1-2 Big 12), it’s hard to expect better results over the next few weeks.
Nevertheless, Tang remains confident in this group.
“It’s three (conference) games,” Tang said. “I don’t know why hopes would be down or anything. And both of the losses were on the road. The goal is to win games at home and try to steal some on the road. That’s how you do it. We missed out on one at TCU and they didn’t give us a chance today. Now we go back home, we get to play in front of our fans and it’s another game. We wash it and we move on.”
Coleman Hawkins led the Wildcats with 17 points, but that wasn’t enough to counter what the Cowboys got with Abou Ousmane leading all scorers with 27 points.
K-State is next in action on Saturday against Houston.
Until then, here are some takeaways from Tuesday’s action:
K-State didn’t show up in the first half
The first 20 minutes of his game were nightmare fuel for K-State basketball fans.
K-State fell behind immediately and couldn’t figure out how to get stops against one of the worst scoring teams in the conference. Oklahoma State failed to eclipse 50 points in either of its first two Big 12 games, but it surged ahead 43-24 at halftime against the Wildcats.
Oklahoma State was at its best at the end of the half, as it closed out the period with 15 straight points.
But the Cowboys were better the whole way. The Wildcats had no answer for Oklahoma State big man Abou Ousmane and got bullied inside the paint.
Nothing seemed to go right for K-State, as it had more turnovers (11) than field goals (10) in the first half.
Oklahoma State guard Khalil Brantley fittingly sent the Cowboys into the locker room with a bang when he stole an inbounds pass from Hawkins and drained a pull-up jumper at the buzzer. Things went from bad to worse.
Hawkins could sense a bad start before the game began.
“Everyone needs to do more, as far as taking care of responsibilities,” Hawkins said. “Whether that’s on the court or off the court. It’s as little as the way we warm up, how serious we take a warm up and if you’re walking or running, just little details like that. We need to take the game of basketball serious. I feel like today we didn’t warm up well enough. I feel like we came out flat and with no energy.”
Welcome back, Ugonna Onyenso
How desperate must things get for Jerome Tang to pull Ugonna Onyenso off the bench in a meaningful situation?
We got our answer in this game.
With K-State trailing by 19 at halftime, Tang grew tired of watching Oklahoma State bully his team in the paint. So he called on Onyenso to play after he hadn’t seen a single minute of action in six of K-State’s past eight games.
The 7-foot transfer from Kentucky was inserted into a big lineup that also featured Hawkins and David N’Guessan. The Wildcats switched to a zone defense and hoped to get back in the game with a new strategy.
Tang’s plan had mixed results.
At one point, K-State got enough stops to go on an 11-2 run and pull within 11 points of Oklahoma State. But the comeback attempt was short lived. Whatever advantage the Wildcats gained on offense they lost on offense.
Onyenso finished with seven points and one rebound in 18 minutes. K-State never cut the lead to single digits in the second half.
But Tang said he was proud of the way that Onyenso played. He will look to keep him involved in future games.
K-State needs better play from its backcourt
The Wildcats are at their best when they get strong games from their guards.
Dug McDaniel is capable of scoring and distributing. Brendan Hausen can drain 3-pointers like a pro when he gets hot. And Max Jones is versatile enough to help K-State all over the court.
There is a reason why Tang has chosen to start them in all three of K-State’s conference games. They give this team a higher ceiling when they feed off each other and spread the floor on offense.
So it should come as no surprise that the Wildcats were never in this game as they got minuscule contributions from their starting backcourt.
McDaniel finished with six points and three assists. Hausen had two points and one rebound. Jones added 10 points, but only made 2 of 8 shots.
It was a particularly rough game for Hausen, who never got going in 21 minutes of action. He only attempted two shots.
“We did not want to let him shoot the basketball,” Oklahoma State coach Steve Lutz said. “Obviously, he can change the game with his 3-point shooting. He can change the game. They came in averaging a bunch of makes from 3-point range and today they only had three. That was the difference in the game.”
Tang said finding new and creative ways to get open looks for Hausen will be a top priority moving forward.
The Wildcats don’t have much depth to turn to when things aren’t going well for their starters. That is one of the reasons why they struggled against the Cowboys. They will continue to falter until that changes.
This story was originally published January 7, 2025 at 9:19 PM with the headline "Takeaways from Kansas State’s latest frustrating road loss against Oklahoma State."