Weber’s most important recruiting class will be forever remembered by next three games
The predictable result predictably happened but somehow it feels more meaningful. Like this might last. Those feelings are often lies. The best part of sports is being caught in the moment, but being caught in the moment is a rotten way to navigate through something as confusing as this Big 12 basketball race.
“You shouldn’t put too much emphasis on tonight,” Kansas coach Bill Self said. “But we did kind of grow up tonight.”
KU beat K-State 64-49 with a motivation foreign in a program that’s won at least a share of the last 14 league titles: desperation.
K-State may very well be the better team, but this was a classic trap — Allen Fieldhouse, at its loudest and most involved, 48 hours after KU was emasculated at Texas Tech. Survival is a heck of an ally.
“Allen Fieldhouse is a hard place to play,” said Mitch Lightfoot, the KU forward who grew up rooting for the Jayhawks. “We all believe that.”
None of this is a problem, necessarily. Again, it was entirely predictable.
The problem — and this is a problem not just for K-State, but for anyone else hoping KU’s absurd and unprecedented streak ends — is if this becomes more than one night. Which is what it feels like at the moment, but again, the moment is often a lie. K-State needs to find the truth.
“What are we about?” coach Bruce Weber said. “Are we about leadership, toughness, discipline? If we’re about those things we’ll be fine.”
K-State is about those things. This is the oldest team in the league. Barry Brown is good enough that his jersey should hang from the rafters someday. Weber has always been resilient.
He’s made a career of it — over and over again he’s been dismissed, and over and over again he’s clawed his way to success. He’s a survivor. That might be his most defining strength as a coach, and he has a team with experience and enough discipline that it ranks in the top 10 nationally in defense.
All of that is true. So is this: there were moments in this game that felt a little bit like the scene in a bad old movie where someone says the jig is up.
K-State was manhandled. Brown and Dean Wade — two seniors, two stars, the two men who more than anyone else will determine how this team is remembered — combined for six turnovers and 12 points on 3-of-15 shooting.
Kansas controlled, basically, everything. They switched most screens, which turned K-State stagnant, and doubled most post-ups, which helped account for a 22-8 advantage in the paint.
Kansas was tougher, in other words, and if this was just about desperation and the schedule putting K-State in a tough spot then we can all move on.
“No matter what happened today,” Self said, “we were going to compete our butts off. I knew that before the game started.”
That’s all fine. But if this was about more than the desperation of the moment, then the Wildcats have two options.
The first: let this become the slide that many expect. Their next game is against Baylor at home on Saturday. They finish at TCU and with Oklahoma at home. No outcome in any of those games would be a major surprise.
The second: find some desperation of their own.
“We talked about it in the locker room,” K-State guard Kamau Stokes said. “At the end of the day, we’re still in first place. In order to stay there we gotta worry about Saturday. Only difference is we’re sharing it now. I feel like our confidence is to the point where we don’t want to share with anybody.”
Technically, K-State is a half-game up on Texas Tech, but the Red Raiders have Oklahoma State at home on Wednesday — the Big 12’s version of a layup.
So K-State can’t control whether it shares the title, but it can control whether it wins a trophy. That’s where the desperation has to come in.
Because there’s something bigger at stake for K-State. College basketball has a way of creating forever memories late in seasons, and late in careers. That’s now. This group can still be the one that knocks Kansas off the pedestal. This group can still be the first in 15 years to win a Big 12 championship without having to share it with Kansas.
There’s a path, still.
The ending will be determined by whether they show themselves to be the group that just took a trucking from the rival, or the one that’s played well enough to still have the league title firmly in its own control.
Weber called the upcoming Baylor game the toughest of this stretch, because of the emotions involved after playing Kansas. Left unsaid was that it’s also among the most important, not just for this season but for how this group will be remembered.
This story was originally published February 26, 2019 at 12:35 AM.