How a popular video game brought the K-State basketball team together

After fulfilling his media duties on Wednesday, a day before Kansas State plays Kentucky in the Sweet 16 in Atlanta, K-State guard Kamau Stokes hurried straight to his locker room to retrieve his phone.

In case you didn't know, the most popular video game in the country at the moment, "Fortnite," just became available to play for free on mobile devices. For now, March Madness can wait.

"I'm about to play right now," Stokes said as he pulled off the application on his phone.

Fortnite is a third-person shooter video game that is essentially a cartoon battle royale, where the last user standing is the winner. It's available to play on PS4, Xbox One, and PC.

Its popularity has swept the country and K-State's team is no exception.

"Everyone plays it," forward Dean Wade said. "I don't really know anyone here that doesn't play it. It's our favorite past time."

K-State's players say that the game has brought the team closer as a whole. Players who normally wouldn't hang out together outside of team activities now have a vested interest together: to win at Fortnite.

"It's just something to do outside of basketball that we can enjoy with each other off the court," Barry Brown said. "We can have our minds free playing a virtual game and it's fun to still connect without basketball."

"It's a great way to talk to each other and it actually translates a little to the court being able to communicate with each other," walk-on Kade Kinnamon said. "We actually squad up when we all play together. It's a great way to talk to each other. We're always talking on our mics, 'Hey, watch out behind you,' or 'Look in the house next to you.'

"It's great team-bonding."

So what makes the game so addictive?

"No. 1, it's free," Stokes said, laughing.

"Once you play one game, you can't stop," freshman Mike McGuirl added. "Especially when you lose, you just want to go back. You don't want to stop until you win. Me not being very good, that's what keeps me coming back."

Of course, there is a pride factor among the teammates over who is the best player.

The consensus among the team is that former teammates from St. John, Kan. — Wade and Kinnamon — are neck-and-neck for the honor.

"People that come from St. John are just overall better Fortnite players. I think it runs in our blood," Wade said. "Overall, I think I'm better than Kade. I wake up in the morning and I can get a 'dub' every morning."

"The stats don't lie and I obviously have the most kills and most wins," Kinnamon rebuked. "If there was a 1-v-1 mode, I would definitely take everybody on head-to-head. I would easily put anything in this world on the line because I'm taking everybody."

Wade concedes Kinnamon may be better in multi-player, but he is the top solo player on the team.

"I'm a solo kind of guy," Wade said. "I'm a one-man wolf pack."

"Dean Wolf!" a teammate walking by joked.

It's a debate that will rage on well past K-State's run in the NCAA Tournament, but it's forged a bond between teammates that only a video game could.

"It gets a little intense sometimes since people will get shot a little early on Fortnite and you can get a little mad at them, but overall we like to have fun with it," Wade said. "It's something fun to pass the free time together."

This story was originally published March 21, 2018 at 3:52 PM with the headline "How a popular video game brought the K-State basketball team together."