Suddenly carrying postseason hopes once again, Kansas State returns home to Manhattan, Kan., for its next game Wednesday night. Awaiting the Wildcats will be a group of angry Baylor Bears.
No. 10 Baylor is coming off an 83-59 loss at Kansas Saturday. The Bears scored the first two points of the game, and that was where the highlights ended. Before the second media timeout of the first half, the Bears were down 21-7. They trailed by as many as 34 points in the second half.
“Well, that’s not how we envisioned today,” Baylor coach Scott Drew said following the loss. “They killed us in transition and second-chance points. We didn’t give our half-court defense a chance.
“It snowballed on us. We haven’t been beaten like that in three or four years. It’s disappointing. It starts with me. You’re not supposed to let things snowball like that as a leader.”
Baylor (19-4, 7-3 Big 12) was without leading scorer LJ Cryer, but one player didn’t cause the big loss.
“Obviously, when you’re shooting 30 percent on offense, you’ve got to do a better job when you miss, maybe not thinking about the shot or hanging your head,” Drew said. “We’ll figure it out. We’ve got guys who don’t like losing, don’t like being embarrassed. Everybody feels pretty poor right now, so we’ll try to work to change.”
K-State (12-10, 4-6) has won two straight games, at home against Oklahoma State and on the road at TCU Saturday. The Wildcats led the Horned Frogs nearly the whole game. TCU trimmed the lead to 39-37 with just under 17 minutes remaining, but the Cats went on a 15-2 run to blow the game open.
“We’ve talked about just playing with passion,” K-State head coach Bruce Weber said. “We took it to them. I thought the start of the game we were pretty good. Start of the second half, just like the game at home, they took it to us, but we never surrendered the lead.
“We did a better job this time of looking down the court and getting it over their press and then just finishing the game.”
Just like Baylor has not been blown out in a long time, K-State has not lost many of their games by a large margin. The outlier is their 74-49 loss at Baylor Jan. 25. The Wildcats have only one other double-digit loss, and that was a 70-57 loss to Texas when the Wildcats had just seven scholarship players and one full-time coach because of COVID protocol.
This time, the Wildcats will have a full contingent and rely heavily on their guards. Their top five scorers are guards, led by Nijel Pack and his 17.0 points per game, ranking third in the Big 12. Markquis Nowell (11.9) and Mark Smith (11.7) also average in double figures in points. Smith continues to lead the conference in rebounding at 8.5 boards per contest.
LJ Cryer (13.9 points per game) missed the last three games with a foot injury and is questionable for Wednesday’s game. James Akinjo (12.9), Adam Flagler (12.8) and Kendall Brown (10.1) also average double figures in points.
–Field Level Media
