Kansas State Basketball: Barry Brown limited in upset loss

Kansas State basketball fans didn’t feel great about their draw in March Madness and now we know why. The Wildcats were upset by the UC Irvine Anteaters in round one and Barry Brown didn’t do much in the loss.

As soon as the brackets were revealed for the 2019 NCAA Tournament, Kansas State basketball fans didn’t have a good feeling about their seeding. Their first round game would come against a very underrated UC Irvine squad, a team that lost just five games all season long.

A lot of analysts were picking the Anteaters to upset K-State and that was a good call, as the final was 70-64 in favor of UC Irvine.

When looking at the box score from the game, the biggest thing that jumps out is senior Barry Brown only putting up five points in what would end up being his final game with the program. Brown was fouled twice early on in the game and played in just 26 minutes, a far cry from the time he normally spends on the court.

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Brown went two of nine from the floor and had just one three-point shot. He had five rebounds and one assist, but it was obvious that K-State went as Brown went and he didn’t have it in this game. The Anteaters did a good job of taking him out of the game and that’s what helped them advance to the second round.

K-State didn’t have a great day shooting either. The Wildcats went eight of 27 from the three-point line, good for a 29.6 shooting percentage. This has never been a strong offensive team, but the lack of Brown on the court as well as Dean Wade having to sit out resulted in a shaky defensive effort at best.

UC Irvine shot 44% from the floor and went nine of 23 on their three-point shots. Max Hazzard and  Evan Leonard both led the Anteaters with 19 points a piece while Robert Cartwright added ten points. Elston Jones added 11 points off the bench.

With the loss, Kansas State’s season comes to a close. With that, so does a chance at making it to back-to-back Elite Eights. The match-up never seemed like a favorable one for Kansas State from the get-go and when it came down to it, playing in a UC Irvine friendly arena, Barry Brown not being the player he usually is, and not having Dean Wade resulted in the Wildcats exiting the tournament early.

We’ll now see the departures of both Brown and Wade as well as Kamau Stokes. The good news is this team has depth returning, like sophomore Mike McGuirl, Cartier Diarra, Makol Mawien, and hopefully Xavier Sneed.

It was a fun season for Kansas State basketball, but upset losses like this happen to good teams all the time. Let’s reflect on the fact that the team won the conference for the first time in six years and it was a fun year all around for this program.