NORMAN, Okla. — Kansas State’s 79-65 loss against Oklahoma on Tuesday inside Lloyd Noble Center raises an important question about the Wildcats.
Is this rock bottom?
The No. 12 Wildcats (19-7, 7-6 Big 12) hope the answer is yes. They have lost five of their past seven games after getting offer to a scintillating start in conference play, and they need to bounce back quickly if they hope to enter the NCAA Tournament with a favorable seed or any kind of momentum.
Dropping a game against the Sooners (13-13, 3-10 Big 12) does not inspire much confidence in the Wildcats’ future. This was the Sooners’ first conference win in exactly a month, snapping a seven-game conference losing streak. The small crowd on hand chanted the word “overrated” in K-State’s direction as the game came to an end.
There is plenty of time left in the season for K-State to do something special, but it can’t continue playing the way it has of late. Otherwise its losing skid will continue and an 18-3 start to the season will be nothing but a distant memory.
Oklahoma defeated K-State behind 22 points from Grant Sherfield and balanced scoring from the rest of its starting lineup.
K-State got 17 points from Nae’Qwan Tomlin and 14 points apiece from Markquis Nowell and Keyontae Johnson, but it needed much more than that the way Oklahoma was scoring.
The Wildcats are next in action on Saturday against Iowa State at Bramlage Coliseum. Until then, here are some key takeaways from Tuesday’s action:
Surprisingly bad three-point defense from K-State
If there is one thing you can usually count on from the K-State basketball team this season it is elite defense at the three-point line.
Few teams in the entire country have defended the arc better than the Wildcats. They entered this game ranked 10th nationally, allowing opponents to make just 28.6% of their shots from three-point range. You could say three-point defense has been their calling card.
Things changed against Oklahoma.
The Wildcats were unusually poor at the three-point line and allowed the Sooners to swish 11 of 23 shots from behind the arc. Oklahoma was hot from the outside, but it also benefited from many open looks. The Sooners continually drove into the lane and kicked the ball out to open shooters for an avalanche of points.
With Oklahoma scoring at will from the outside, K-State needed to answer with some triples of its own. But that never happened. The Wildcats made 4 of 20 from beyond the arc.
It’s nearly impossible to win a college basketball game when the opposing team is lighting it up from the outside and your team is ice cold.
K-State will need to execute better in those areas if it hopes to get back to its winning ways.
New strategy from Markquis Nowell and Keyontae Johnson
This game was not “The Markquis Nowell and Keyontae Johnson Show.”
Even though those two have been K-State’s best players all season long, by far, they seemed to play with a less aggressive style than usual against the Sooners.
Nowell, the team’s senior point guard, spent less time with the ball in his hands than previous games and looked to pass quickly into possessions rather than dribbling and creating something for himself. Johnson, the team’s leading scorer, focused more on passing and taking jump shots than attacking the rim like K-State fans have watched him do most of the season.
Those adjustments produced mixed results.
Nowell had some nice moments in the first half as a distributor and only committed four turnovers in the game, which was an improvement for him compared to recent outings. His passive nature allowed teammates like Abayomi Iyiola and Nae’Qwan Tomlin to make big plays. But Nowell also only made 4 of 13 shots.
Johnson didn’t flirt with foul trouble as he has in recent weeks, which was a nice change for him, but he also didn’t score at the rate he had been early on in the season. He went 6 of 11 and didn’t score most of his points until the game was out of reach.
Smart timeout from Jerome Tang
K-State has struggled to win away from home this season, and it showed in the opening moments of this game.
The Wildcats fell behind 9-2 before the first media timeout, which was enough for K-State coach Jerome Tang to call a timeout and attempt to hit the reset button on his team’s performance. That turned out to be an excellent coaching decision.
From then on, K-State looked like a completely different team. The Wildcats returned to the floor and rattled off 11 straight points to take a 13-9 lead. That promted Oklahoma coach Porter Moser to use a timeout of his own.
Iyiola got the run started with a layup and later punctuated it with a dunk. In between, Nae’Qwan Tomlin made a nice move to the basket for two points and Markquis Nowell drained a three.
Coaches typically hate burning timeouts early in games before a free one arrives after four minutes have ticked off the clock. But it was a good move by Tang in this case.
Unfortunately for the Wildcats, they also got off to a slow start in the second half, and they needed more than a timeout from Tang to get back in the game afterward.
