Just a brutal game. Also a game Kansas State never made a habit of winning in recent history, at least as long as I’ve been covering the Wildcats. There’s always been a swagger – or, as the kids say, “swag” – associated with Denis Clemente and Jacob Pullen, and there were times this season when that wasn’t a good thing. But what we’ve seen is almost what Ron Prince insisted he wanted from Josh Freeman – to keep the game close and allow the superstar to win it at the end.
It didn’t happen nearly enough with Prince and Freeman, and we saw how that ended. Prince is coaching special teams back at Virginia, and I think we’re all in agreement that this is not a promotion or a lateral move, unlike when some former K-State assistants left for “promotions.” As for Freeman, his pro day at K-State – need to get a date on this, Kenny Lannou – will probably be more vital than he anticipated. I don’t think he bombed at the Combine over the weekend, but reports suggest he wasn’t as impressive as he’d hoped.
Anyway, this is a basketball post, and Clemente, Pullen and Fred Brown have been closing games out for K-State. And I don’t see the trend ending anytime soon, either, and I’m looking ahead to next season when the Wildcats should have no less than the conference’s second- or third-best backcourt.
Isn’t the sign of a good basketball team its ability to win a road game when it doesn’t have its best stuff? I don’t subscribe to the tired, Tiger Woods-aided “A” game rhetoric because that’s always a discredit to the opponent. Always. If you don’t have your best stuff and you’re going to make a big deal of it, then don’t show up. You have to compete.