It’s Feast Week in college basketball. To get you ready for the Big 12’s representation in the various holiday tournaments this week, our Feast Week Mission Briefings begin today.
Catching Up: After a major house-cleaning where seven underclassmen left Manhattan, expectations for Kansas State basketball this season understandably dropped. Considering the circumstances, though, the Wildcats are off to a strong 3-0 start, avoiding some of the bad early losses that had made them a laughingstock over the last two seasons. An NCAA Tournament bid is still the absolute best-case scenario for this team, but the Wildcats look slightly better than their preseason projections, already climbing 13 spots in Ken Pomeroy’s rankings. As you might expect from a team lacking in elite talent, Kansas State’s early success can be attributed to fundamentals. They’ve rebounded well, especially on the offensive glass where they’re corralling 40.4 percent of their misses; and to compensate for a lack of knockdown shooters, they’ve paraded to the foul line a staggering 106 times and converted 72.6 percent of those attempts. Justin Edwards and Wesley Iwundu have given the Wildcats the kind of production they need from their few veterans (averaging 17.0 and 15.3 PPG, respectively) while newcomers Dean Wade, Barry Brown and Kamau Stokes have made up for their inexperience with controlled play on offense — turning the ball over just a combined 11 times in 215 minutes of action.
Wesley Iwundu has been a steadying presence for a Kansas State team enduring significant roster turnover. (Scott Sewell/USA Today)
Opening Round Preview: The Wildcats open up the CBE Classic against a team, Missouri, going through a rebuilding effort of its own. The Tigers have a bit of a strange makeup on offense. They have several players who can hit outside jumpers but that strength hasn’t done much to open up the lane, as only 30.2 percent of their shots this season have come at the rim. Like Bruce Weber’s team, Missouri has also gotten production from its newcomers, particularly Kevin Puryear and K.J. Walton. The Tigers haven’t rebounded well, meaning Kansas State should own the glass, but containing Missouri on the perimeter could be another story. Kansas State has dared its opponents to beat them from deep, but none have yet been able to take advantage. Missouri has shown that it can get hot, though, so limiting Cullen VanLeer, Terrence Phillips and Wes Clark will be important for the Wildcats’ chances.
Intriguing Potential Matchup: A shot to take on one of the top teams in college basketball is an opportunity any team should relish, no matter how big a mismatch it seems on paper. While the Tar Heels would be favored more heavily against the Wildcats than they were against Northern Iowa on Saturday, the shaky state of UNC’s backcourt in the absence of Marcus Paige, combined with Kansas State’s success in preventing turnovers, might give the Wildcats a sliver of hope. Weber’s team would still need more than a few things to go their way to pull off the stunner, but anytime you can pit your team against one of the game’s best can be an illuminating experience. The alternative to a meeting with North Carolina is a date with a Northwestern team that should (again) flirt with an NCAA Tournament bid. Either would help us gauge Kansas State’s true quality this season, so we should learn a lot about the Wildcats this week.
Outlook: While this team doesn’t project to be a factor in the Big 12 race, it’s going to be interesting to see what the Wildcats can do tonight against a team that mirrors them as well as some better competition on Tuesday night. By the end of this event, we should have a good idea of the extent to which Kansas State’s purported strengths in drawing fouls and clinging to the offensive glass are actually strengths, and to what extent they’re products of other circumstances like favorable whistles and weak competition.