K-State takeaways: Wildcats go cold against zone defense (again) in Texas A&M loss
The Texas A&M Aggies upset the Kansas State Wildcats 65-53 in a Big 12/SEC Challenge basketball game on Saturday at Reed Arena.
It was a disappointing, and shocking, result for K-State. Bruce Weber’s team entered the day on a five-game winning streak. It has been the hottest team in the Big 12. Meanwhile, Texas A&M has been one of the coldest teams in the SEC.
This seemed like an ideal setup for the Wildcats, but it turned out to be a trap.
Here are some thoughts on the game:
K-State continues to struggle against zone defense
As he surveyed the box score from this puzzling loss, K-State basketball coach Bruce Weber shook his head and then said something many Wildcats fans have been saying all season.
“We obviously need to get better at attacking zones,” Weber said. “There is no doubt about that.”
Whenever K-State face plants on offense like it did against Texas A&M, a zone defense is usually involved. Tulsa went zone and beat the Wildcats 47-46 in early December. Texas went zone and smashed the Wildcats 67-47 earlier this month.
It’s a wonder why any team bothers playing a man-to-man defense against K-State. Texas A&M normally employs a man defense, but coach Billy Kennedy said the Aggies went with a packed look on Saturday, because he thought it was their only chance given how effective the Wildcats have played against man in recent games.
His strategy worked to perfection. K-State made 20 of 61 shots against the Aggies. K-State was at its worst from three-point range, making just 7 of 31 shots behind the arc. Dean Wade scored a team-high 17 points, and Cartier Diarra added 14. But they didn’t get much help from their teammates.
Barry Brown scored 11 points on nine shots and Kamau Stokes needed 11 shots to get eight points.
Weber said he expected Texas A&M to go zone and warned his players to be ready for it. But they still seemed unprepared. Why?
“I couldn’t honesty tell you,” Wade said. “We got the ball in the middle and they made a little small change in there from where they brought the back side up with their flashers. We just struggled against it, and I don’t know why we just struggled with it.”
That must change if K-State wants to get back to its winning ways.
“I would say it’s just sticking with it,” Diarra said. “We need to not let zones scare us and still be able to get layups. I think that is the thing. We settled for too many threes. We shot 31, which is a lot. We didn’t make as many as we should have. When the three isn’t falling, we need to go into the paint.”
The Wildcats didn’t get many looks from close range. They scored 20 points in the paint and starting forward Makol Mawien went scoreless. So did reserve big men Levi Stockard, James Love and Austin Trice. That means K-State essentially played a man down on offense, at all times.
As much as anything else, that’s why they lost by double-digits to a middling opponent.
One step forward, one step back
Mike McGuirl and Cartier Diarra have traded quality games this month.
One night, McGuirl gets hot and drops 18 points on West Virginia. The next, Diarra finds a rhythm and scores a season-high 14 points on Texas A&M.
Problem is, they never seem to play well on the same day. That trend continued here. Diarra had his finest game of the year, and McGuirl was limited to one point.
Diarra gave K-State a nice lift against Texas A&M, despite losing four turnovers, was one of the few players in a purple jersey showing impressive effort. He made 6 of 12 shots, including two three-pointers and had four rebounds. It was a nice step forward for him after some down games. He needs to learn to do that more consistently. Same with McGuirl.
It’s nice that they have worked out a brother-in-law system. But it would be a whole lot more meaningful if they could play well at the same time.
No Wade, no Brown, big problems
Whenever Weber takes one of his two best players out of the game, the Wildcats suffer an instant drop on offense. Whenever he takes them both out of the game, the Wildcats fall off a cliff.
That was once again noticeable for K-State in this game. Weber had to bench Brown for seven minutes as he picked up three fouls, and the Wildcats hardly scored while he was on the sideline. The same thing happened when Wade left the game for five minutes.
“A couple guys just didn’t play well, so now you are using mixed lineups and you don’t have the continuity you need,” Weber said. “Our bench has been really good. Mike McGuirl and some of those guys have played well and helped us, but they didn’t give us what we needed. We also had some starters that didn’t play well.”
Weber said Stockard was also at less than full strength with an ankle injury.
No one is expecting K-State to light up the scoreboard without Brown or Wade on the floor, but they need to find a way to survive when they aren’t in the game.
Road woes
This loss dropped Weber’s road record to 0-3 in the Big 12/SEC Challenge.
The Wildcats have lost twice in this conference clash at Tennessee and now at Texas A&M, despite being the favorite in all three matchups. Those results could be a coincidence, but they could also be telling.
Weber has gone out of his way to promote all three games as extremely important, going so far as to describe them as the biggest games on K-State’s schedules. It seems like the Wildcats haven’t received that message. They played like they overlooked Texas A&M.