Following its most recent home loss, Kansas State basketball gets set for its next road test on Saturday against No. 3 Houston. Games of that nature are never easy, especially against teams like the Cougars.
Kansas State looking for answers after loss to Cincinnati loss
Things haven’t exactly been cut and dry for the Wildcats so far this season. K-State currently sits at the bottom of the conference at 1-10, tied for 15th with Utah.Â
Last time out against Cincinnati, the Wildcats lost 91-62, their largest margin of defeat at home against an unranked opponent all season. Following the loss, head coach Jerome Tang wasn’t shy about his feelings towards his players’ efforts.Â
Memphis transfer PJ Haggerty stood alone offensively Wednesday with 24 points, doubling as the only Wildcat scorer in double figures after recording a point total three times greater than David Castillo, the team’s next-leading scorer.Â
Haggerty leading the team in offense is nothing new. He’s now been the Wildcats’ leading scorer in each of the last 13 games. That’s not a coincidence, either – it speaks to how much of the offensive load he’s had to carry down the stretch.
According to ESPN stats, K-State is averaging 12.6 turnovers per game. Against strong defensive teams like Houston, numbers like that are simply inexcusable.
Numbers like that don’t show up often, and against a team like Houston, he can’t be the only one carrying that line.Â
Scouting Houston: a No. 3 team eyeing its eighth consecutive tournament trip
Houston currently sits at 22-2, tied for first place in the conference with current AP No. 1 Arizona. Their only two losses on the year have come against ranked opponents, first to Tennessee and most recently to Texas Tech. Both games were decided by five points or fewer.
The Cougars have also won their last four straight games by double figures, most recently logging a 66-52 win over Utah.Â
Unlike K-State, the Cougars don’t have a single scorer averaging 20 points or higer this season. That doesn’t mean there’s a lack of offense, it's just a much more balanced attack.
Kingston Flemmings leads all scorers for Houston, averaging 16.6 points per game. Emmanuel Sharp sits second on the team with 16.3 points and Oklahoma transfer Milos Uzan rounds out the top three at 11.2 points per game.
Sharp dropped 27 points against the Utes, tying his season-high from the team’s 82-67 win over Florida State.
As a team, the Cougars average right around 78 points per contest. They also shoot 34% from three-point range, the second-lowest mark in the entire conference.Â
But don’t be fooled, there’s a reason they stand at No. 3 in the country. They rank third in steals, and first in both assist/turnover ratio and turnover margin.Â
The Outlook
If Kansas State wants any chance on Saturday, the scoring can’t just run through PJ Haggerty. The shots need to fall, the defense needs to step up and the paper bag mentality needs to be thrown out the window.