NEW YORK – Kansas State came into The World’s Most Famous Arena without a major test in the early going this season. They won all of their first four games by double digits, then got a test on Wednesday night as they survived a Delaware team that had two key players miss parts of the second half. They got their big early test on Friday with Michigan, and the end result wasn’t too good: a 71-57 loss that arguably wasn’t quite that close.
The test was really twofold for this team with a new head coach. For one, they had not had a close game this season, so they got a test of how to handle that situation. They also haven’t had a real quality win thus far, mainly because they had not played a team that is a good bet to be in the NCAA Tournament.
In the first four games, Kansas State out-scored opponents by over 31 per game. In other words, they weren’t seriously challenged. Even adding in Wednesday night’s squeaker over Delaware, the Wildcats still had a scoring margin of 28 points per game.
Michigan led from start to finish on Friday, although the Wildcats were able to stay in it with a late first half surge. But once the second half started with the Wolverines scoring the first eight points, they were in trouble and never really made it a ballgame after that.
“We took bad shots at the beginning of the second half, and that’s when they made the run,” said point guard Angel Rodriguez.
Added head coach Bruce Weber: “We took four rushed shots and they got transition. And they went right away, an 8-0 run, I think. You spot them six to start the game. You spot them eight in the second half, and now I think then we doubted a little bit. Now you miss some shots or you rush some plays.”
The schedule will get tougher for the Wildcats, but it’s not loaded with land mines. They play Gonzaga at Key Arena in Seattle next month, then a week later play Florida at the Sprint Center in Kansas City. There is a trip to George Washington before then, but the Colonials are rebuilding with a very young team. Weber said he had to scramble a little with the schedule when he first got the job, with the Gonzaga game being a late add, so that’s a partial explanation for it.
So the Wildcats aren’t going to have many more opportunities to pick up a significant non-conference win. While they can get quality wins in Big 12 play – Kansas, Baylor and Oklahoma State being primary opportunities – the NCAA Tournament selection committee has penalized teams in the past for relying on their conference play to get quality wins. That adds to the urgency they had in New York, and what they will need in the two big challenges in December.
One area for improvement if the Wildcats want to get those wins is at the offensive end. The Wildcats’ biggest problem on Friday was on offense, as they took care of the ball (just six turnovers with 13 assists) but struggled to make shots. They have shot below 40 percent in three straight games, and in the second game of the season they barely topped 40 percent against Lamar.
Fortunately for the Wildcats, they play just two games over the next three weeks before heading to Seattle. Weber is looking forward to getting a lot of practice time in between now and then to work on offense, as the defense hasn’t been a big issue although the Wildcats did allow Michigan to shoot over 50 percent from the field on Friday.
“We have literally three games in the next three weeks, so we have a lot of practice time,” said Weber. “I told our guys, if we’re going to become a really good team, we’ve got to come to practice and get better.”
The Wildcats came out fine in terms of dealing with a close game for their first test. Now they have to fine-tune the offense to take care of the second big test they had in New York for the remainder of the season.
