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K-State Basketball not off to great start in conference play

By Gabriel Markley

LUBBOCK, TX - JANUARY 6: Head coach Bruce Weber of the Kansas State Wildcats argues an officials calls during the game against the Texas Tech Red Raiders on January 6, 2018 at United Supermarket Arena in Lubbock, Texas. Texas Tech won the game 74-58. (Photo by John Weast/Getty Images)
LUBBOCK, TX - JANUARY 6: Head coach Bruce Weber of the Kansas State Wildcats argues an officials calls during the game against the Texas Tech Red Raiders on January 6, 2018 at United Supermarket Arena in Lubbock, Texas. Texas Tech won the game 74-58. (Photo by John Weast/Getty Images) /
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(Photo by Scott Winters/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
(Photo by Scott Winters/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images) /

West Virginia @ K-State (K-State lost 77-69)

Do not expect to find long-flowing flowery prose about “Press Virginia”. In fact, if I don’t stay focused, expect to find words bordering on hate about a style of basketball that is to simply foul every second and let your head coach work the referees into not calling it.

This puts K-Staters in a somewhat weird position as not only was Huggins a former coach here, but the current favorite coach, Frank Martin, employed this style as well. Now that K-State doesn’t play that way, it’s pretty easy to see the lack of “freedom of movement” is killing the tv watchability of college basketball.

Each of the core four made decidedly large impacts on the game.

The quick summary is that K-State got up 9-8 and held a brief win probability lead, according to ESPN before WVU scored to take the lead for good. From there, K-State never really threatened again, despite closing the lead to three twice in the second half. It was a game of remarkable performances by the “core four”

  1. Dean Wade scored 17 points on only five shots by drawing nine free throws. He added ten rebounds and was the only player to reach double digits.
  2. Xavier Sneed scored 20 points on 11 shots. He hit six three-pointers on nine attempts and chipped in three assists and six rebounds
  3. Kamau Stokes shot 0-10, including 0-7 on three-pointers. He added six assists with only two turnovers, which is good for any lead guard against West Virginia
  4. Barry Brown scored 14 points on 5-13 shooting. He also had seven (!) turnovers.

Each of the core four made decidedly large impacts on the game. The problem was two of them put in negative performances. Bluntly, there is no chance for this team to beat one of the upper-echelon teams in the conference without at least three (and probably all four) positive performances.

Nobody else did anything worth writing about. West Virginia ended up shooting 30-56 for 53.6% and K-State was never a real challenger.

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