Kansas State finally had a break in the schedule on Wednesday. For the first time in almost 2-weeks they were facing an unranked team but lost at home to Iowa State 87-79.
What will the home loss do to their NCAA tournament resume?
Bruce Weber’s Wildcats once again played shorthanded. Senior D.J. Johnson took only a couple shots and was not able to grab a rebound.
Freshman Xavier Sneed made the second start of his career and picked up a foul on the ‘Cats 2nd possession. It went downhill from there. Kansas State missed their first 4 shots and struggled offensively again.
They also played very little defense in the first half.
As a result, they dug a big hole and despite a second half comeback never played with much enthusiasm. They did win the rebound battle in the first half but trailed on the scoreboard 42-26.
There were few highlights.
For the first time in several games, Barry Brown led Kansas State in scoring with 21 on 9 of 14 shooting. At one point, Brown got a steal and forced an intentional foul. It didn’t matter.
Dean Wade hit a late 3 to give him 13 second half points but he did little else.
Carlbe Ervin didn’t play much but brought energy when he was on the court and finished with 2 points and 2 rebounds.
Freshman Brian Patrick had 3 on Saturday and hit another big 3 with just over 6 minutes to play and finished with 5 points.
Kansas State had only 8 turnovers and forced 12 from the Cyclones.
For the game the ‘Cats shot 45 percent which is much better than the 34 percent they shot in the first half. They only shot 21 percent from beyond the arc 4-19 in the contest.
Iowa State shot 47 percent from 3 (7-15). Kansas State is struggling with 3 point defense, among the worst in the conference.
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The Wildcats made a 12-nothing run with 14 minutes to play and eventually pulled to within 6 but it wasn’t enough.
The loss drops the Wildcats to 16-10 on the year and 5-8 in the big 12 play. . It does little to impress the NCAA selection committee when you lose games like this at home.