Thanks to DirecTV, Pops (and my mother) watched Saturday’s game. He had some interesting thoughts, some I’ll share here as a means of getting into what I took away from the conference-opening loss to the Sooners.
He likes Denis Clemente’s energy, which I agreed with. It’s funny – we’d heard for so long about how fast he was that when we saw him early in the year, we were underwhelmed. But he puts so much pressure on the defense in transition, and his on-ball defense is really impressive.
He thought Darren Kent brought a little fire to the paint, and I also agreed. I know there is a large portion of the fan base that believes K-State’s interior is feeble, and I’m not going to defend the bigs. But Kent picked up a couple of early fouls after he was aggressive, and I thought he tried to establish himself offensively a little as the game wore on. He’s never going to be confused with Michael Beasley or Blake Griffin, obviously, but he’s serviceable, and when he hits his first couple of shots, he plays with a lot of confidence.
He thinks Jacob Pullen needs to be more of a leader. Hmmm… I guess I disagreed. I think Pullen has the toughest role on the team. He’s the playmaker and he’s the scorer, switching from point guard to scorer without notice. There is a lot on his plate, and I believe he’s up for the challenge. But he needs to be effective when he’s not scoring or distributing the ball. He needs to give his team a lift when he’s not playing well. Already, we’ve seen in a couple of K-State’s losses – Oregon and now OU – how his play has affected the Wildcats.
He thought holding the Sooners to 61 points was impressive. And he doesn’t think OU is very strong. I agreed with both points.
Now, here are my thoughts:
As I’ve said before, there aren’t many big men in the conference who are going to take advantage of the Wildcats. Size matters, but this is a guard-driven league. Don’t forget, K-State out-rebounded the Sooners.
Griffin is a beast, and he went for 29 and 15, but it wasn’t a demoralizing 29 and 15. It was expected, and the Wildcats did an admirable job on his teammates.
The turnovers, as pointed out to the point of exhaustion, were disturbing. But the effort? Not bad. As Pops said, to be within eight of the alleged No. 6 team in the country at home – this from a team that supposedly fattened up on a diet of non-conference cupcakes and thought to be no good after the departures of Beasley and Bill Walker – isn’t a bad way to start, although we both felt the Wildcats should have won the game.
It was one that got away, no question. And it’s a slippery slope right now (how many more cliches can I toss in this post?), in terms of the next three games could be challenging. But if K-State emerges from its first four games with a 2-2 record, all should be well.
Your thoughts, especially with Kansas on deck?
9 Comments
I just hoped we wow-ed Bryce Brown. How good do you think K-State’s chances of landing him is J-Mart? I hope its about a 99% chance haha
I think K-State has an above-average shot at landing Bryce. And no, I don’t have any inside information. Not yet, anyway.
Haha, thanks man! But about KSU basketball…I think the fans need to really support this team because i know every Kansas State fan is looking forward to the 2009-10 season, and we dont want to let this team just play for next year. We gave the game away and i dont see that happeneing tommorow, my pick…Kansas State 58, Kansas 57
appreciate the thoughts from your father.
i have a hard time seeing where the offense is coming from if ksu doesn’t run. other than transition points and 3s, how is ksu going to score? not just against ou, but against anyone.
their defense is solid, i agree there. even if colon made it too easy for b griffin too often. anderson, on the other hand, defended far better than could have been expected.
I want to be optimistic, I have seen some positive outlooks from this loss. However, I am not ready to commit. I agree with Sys, I just don’t see where the scoring is going to come from.
As far as the inside goes, where would KSU rank in the Big 12? Probably in the bottom 3rd. My guess is that most Big 12 teams have much more serviceable big men than KSU does.
I worry that our guard play will be a push at times with other teams and when that happens we’ll suffer on the inside.
Hard to see where the points are going to come from, I agree. But, after the way KU got woodshedded (what’s up with Mario Little? lol), I think we could definitely steal one in Lawrence.
I think we will be fine. OU is better than looked, and a lot of that was due to our defense. Points will come, if we could have shot at all in the 2nd half we would have won that game. Nobdy is going to stop Griffen this year so don’t worry about our bigs. Kent will have some good games in big 12 play. I just want to see Pullen make better shot selections. Shooting 25 foot 3’s when there is a man open in the corner isn’t good from your “leader.” He frustrates me more than any player I have seen. I think Frank feels the same, judging from the way he pulled him from the OU game.
I for one think the Cats played OU much better than UT did last night. So I have hope for tonight against the Squawks! Go Cats!
It would be sweet in the extreme if the ‘Cats could play the defense they played against the Sooners, and have double digit offensive performances from Kent, Pullen, Clemente, and Brown. Why is that sweet? Because if the ‘Cats can do that with less than 12 turnovers, KSU leaves Lawrence with a win. Big ifs, but fans get to dream.
Go ‘Cats!