K-State Q&A: Barry Brown, Dean Wade, a surging basketball team and Alex Delton to TCU
Got some interesting feedback on Alex Delton’s transfer to TCU this week.
It seems like the majority of Kansas State football fans are fine with his decision to play for a conference rival next season and have no problem letting him suit up at quarterback for the Horned Frogs as a graduate transfer. Many are rooting for him.
But some disagree.
Their reasoning: his intimate knowledge of the playbook will give TCU an unfair advantage when it visits Manhattan next October ... It will be too weird to watch Delton play against the Wildcats ... His intentions are personal. The most forceful response I saw came on Twitter when someone suggested to me that K-State should block every player on its roster from transferring to a Big 12 school, no exceptions.
While I understand both arguments, I’m glad Delton has the freedom to play wherever he wants next season. He deserves it.
K-State switched coaches from Bill Snyder to Chris Klieman, so Delton’s knowledge of the old playbook is of no concern. He was also a warrior for the Wildcats, playing hurt and helping the offense while only starting six games at quarterback. Without him, K-State might not have rallied to beat UCLA in the Cactus Bowl two years ago or extended its winning streak over Kansas last season. He gave his all here and earned a degree. If he wants a new start at TCU instead of UTEP, as originally planned, he should get it.
College football is a business where coaches can take jobs and leave for better opportunities on a whim. Until that changes, the players shouldn’t face restrictions when they choose to transfer, particularly after they graduate.
Austin Kendall is transferring from Oklahoma to West Virginia. Alex Delton is leaving K-State for TCU. Neither school is standing in their way. Good for them.
And with that, it’s time for another K-State Q&A. Let’s get to your questions. Thanks, as always, for providing them.
The team that whooped Oklahoma on Wednesday is the team K-State fans expected to see all season.
Barry Brown was terrific, Dean Wade scored 20 points, the supporting cast did everything right and the entire roster played defense. K-State has erased an ugly start to Big 12 play by winning at Iowa State and Oklahoma (not easily done) and is now back in the conference championship mix.
If the Wildcats continue to play this well, they will be back in the top 15 in no time.
But can they play this well all the time? That’s the million-dollar question. K-State was at its best against Oklahoma. We’ve also seen the Wildcats at their worst. Remember when they lost 47-46 at Tulsa? Dean Wade and Kamau Stokes were healthy for that game.
This week should tell us a lot about the status of K-State basketball. If the Wildcats can take care of business at home against TCU and Texas Tech then they will have a serious shot at dethroning Kansas. A split would still be pretty good. Two losses would put them back below .500 in conference play.
I think K-State is on its way back to a top 25 ranking. The team is 9-2 at full strength and Barry Brown is playing the best basketball of his life. The Wildcats are even starting to look good on offense.
Duplicating the OU victory won’t be easy, but K-State’s early struggles do seem like a thing of the past.
K-State is undefeated this season when it scores 72 or more points. So I guess that’s the magic number. But not even that would have helped the Cats during an 83-71 loss at Marquette.
Right now, it’s probably around 65. The way K-State is playing defense, that much offense gives it a shot to win just about every game.
If Barry Brown leads K-State to a top three finish in the Big 12 standings, and he keeps scoring 20-plus points along the way, he will have a shot to win Big 12 Player of the Year.
He’s forced his way into the conversation by topping 20 points in three straight games and hitting a pair of game-winning layups. Brown is now averaging 15.8 points on the hottest team in the conference. He’s definitely in the running.
But he trails Marial Shayok (19.6 points, 5.3 rebounds), Dedric Lawson (19.2, 10.6) and Jarrett Culver (18.9, 7.2) in the two major statistical categories.
For what it’s worth, Ken Pomeroy doesn’t currently have Brown on his all-conference team.
Lawson and Culver feel like the current favorites here, but Brown is a realistic candidate.
He embraced the heck out of deep two-point jumpers during K-State’s 74-61 victory at Oklahoma. The senior guard scored 25 points without attempting a single free throw. That doesn’t happen very often.
He would obviously rather score at the rim or behind the three-point line. They call a deep two-point jumper the least efficient shot in basketball for a reason. But he attempted them on Wednesday because that’s what Oklahoma gave him.
That was to be expected after the Sooners watched Brown attack the rim with reckless abandon and score a combined 52 points in victories over West Virginia and Iowa State on his way to Big 12 Player of the Week honors. He attempted 16 free throws in those games and hit a pair of game-winning shots on driving layups.
Oklahoma wasn’t going to let Brown beat him that way, and he responded beautifully with 25 points and five assists. It was arguably his best game of the season.
Maybe. Depends on your definition of the term best, I guess. Most talented? Most accomplished? Best stats? Best wins?
Brown is a solid mixture of all those categories. He’s on pace to leave behind a top-five legacy at K-State. He’s up to No. 8 on the school’s all-time scoring list and could finish in the top five. He ranks third in minutes played. He’s tops in steals.
His teams have made the NCAA Tournament and advanced to the Elite Eight.
Depending on how his senior year ends, he could definitely be worthy of a jersey retirement.
They are sharing a partners desk in a gigantic corner office right now. Brown is currently the face of the firm, but there’s no way he can run the company on his own.
Kamau Stokes is pushing for partnership. Xavier Sneed is being groomed. Cartier Diarra and Mike McGuirl have shown junior partner potential.
The only alternative would be to copy the Big Ten and begin conference games early, dip back into nonconference games while students are on break and then dive back into league play. But even those teams play a good chunk of games while students are away. And that schedule becomes super clunky and weird.
It’s less than ideal for students that like going to games and players who like playing in front of big crowds. But I’m not sure there is a good solution. Some have pushed for basketball to start later and operate as a one-semester sport, but there has been little support for that over the years. I don’t see that changing.
No one has soured on the throwback lavender uniforms. If it was up to the players, K-State would wear them every other game. But there’s an obscure rule that prevents college basketball teams from wearing two-tone uniforms without a waiver from the NCAA. And they are strictly forbidden in postseason games, for some reason.
The waiver is easily approved, and K-State jumped through some hoops to wear the Lucky Lavenders a few times last season. But there has been talk of switching to an all-lavender look to avoid the hassle.
Bruce Weber said Wednesday that they will break the two-tones out for one game this season, but he’s not sure which one. He said he doesn’t care about such things. I’m not sure if they are taking that approve to avoid paperwork or to keep the uniforms special, like green at Notre Dame. We will just have to wait and see when K-State brings back the lavender uniforms.
Watched the first three episodes and liked them. Laughed hard at Season 1, so I’m definitely looking forward to the rest of Season 2. Friends From College is a really good show, and one of the most underrated things on Netflix. It’s also a show I can watch with my wife, which is great. Only problem is I can’t binge watch it on the treadmill or a flight like I did with BoJack Horseman.
Some other recent Netflix finds that get the Kellis Stamp of Approval: Bird Box, Narcos Mexico, Battle Creek, Ozark, Gold, Mississippi Grind.
King of the Hill is also now on Hulu. Been watching a lot of that lately.
The Wildcats will coach special teams by committee.
Most coaching staffs employ an assistant with the word “special teams” in his title, but it’s hit or miss when it comes to a full-fledged special teams coordinator. It’s up to each head coach to decide how important that part of the game is to his staff.
For now, I’m not worried about K-State special teams. Chris Klieman didn’t have a special teams coach at North Dakota State and that rarely seemed to hinder the Bison. As long as there are coaches, graduate assistants or quality control people on staff who know something about special teams they can pool their knowledge and coach the group just fine.
Besides, Sean Snyder is sticking around as the director of football operations. So if Klieman and his new staff have questions, they have an obvious adviser handy.
Special teams has usually been a strength for K-State, but it was close to a disaster last season. I personally think special teams success is based more on the talent you devote to it than coaching. Bill Snyder used to put starters on special teams, while other coaches just threw walk-ons in there. That, as much as anything, is why the Wildcats were really good on special teams.
We’ll have to wait and see what happens, but Klieman has a system for coaching special teams and he’s using it. Seems like it would raise more alarms if he shifted away from that system and hired a coach totally devoted to special teams.
Ted Monachino leaving for the Chicago Bears doesn’t seem like a huge deal.
Sure, it will be less than ideal for Chris Klieman to lose his preferred defensive coordinator before he coaches a single game for the Wildcats. But Monachino is a NFL guy. It’s not like he’s leaving to coach at a high school.
Besides, K-State is well-positioned to absorb the loss. This isn’t like USC losing Kliff Kingsbury as the savior of its offense. K-State can easily find a comparable replacement.
Klieman is a defensive guy. He was North Dakota State’s defensive coordinator before he was its head coach. Blake Seiler was K-State’s defensive coordinator last season. Van Malone was the defensive coordinator at SMU. This staff knows defense. Plug in a new defensive coordinator, perhaps Wyoming’s Scottie Hazelton, and the Wildcats will be fine.
Any big-name defensive coordinator like Jim Leavitt or Brent Venables would have to take a massive pay cut to work the same job under Chris Klieman.
K-State was set to pay Ted Monachino $525,000 as the team’s defensive coordinator. Leavitt is currently making almost four times that much at Oregon. Same with Venables.
So ... No, I’m not thinking Leavitt will be considered. Nor do I think he would be interested.