K-State Q&A: Lavender uniforms, Big 12 honors and the return of confident Bruce Weber
It seemed like the days of #ConfidentBruce were over when the Kansas State basketball team dipped to 10-4 and lost its first two Big 12 games in early January, but Bruce Weber seems more confident than ever at the moment.
When the Wildcats beat Texas Tech at home for their fifth straight conference win, he name-dropped Fran Fraschilla throughout his postgame news conference. When they defeated Kansas for their seventh-straight conference win, he bragged about not only beating the Jayhawks on the play-hard chat, but doubling them up. And, finally, when they whooped Texas for their ninth straight conference win he gave the Longhorns the most back-handed compliment of all time.
“They’ve got the best 14-11 team in the country,” Weber said.
Yeah, I would say #ConfidentBruce is back. And I’m all for it. K-State is living up to preseason expectations and is currently the unquestioned favorite to win the Big 12. The Wildcats can clinch at least a share of the conference title with five more victories and an outright championship with six more.
Even then, it would take Baylor, Iowa State, Kansas or Texas Tech winning out to catch them. Four more wins might be enough.
If K-State beats Iowa State on Saturday, the rest of the league will basically have to resort to hoping K-State chokes down the stretch. It’s a good position to be in. So good that #ConfidentBruce casually dropped a Ric Flair “woooo” into a sentence while speaking about it Thursday.
He’s back.
And with that, it’s time to get to your questions. Thanks, as always, for providing them.
Not sure picking K-State to lose five of its first 24 games makes me a hater, especially when the Wildcats are 19-5.
I would rather you refer to me as the seer of seers, the sage of sages or the prognosticator of prognosticators ... If Punxsutawney Phil is willing to share any of those nicknames. In a way, my predictions have been dead on this season.
But in another (more correct) way my predictions have been about as accurate as the worst weather man in town.
The Wildcats are 15-4 when I pick them to win and 4-1 (you’re welcome!) when I pick them to lose. My game-by-game record is an unsightly 16-8. If you’re a K-State fan right now, you want me to pick against the Wildcats.
I whiffed on both of K-State’s past two games, and I will own that. Picked Baylor to win, only to show up to the arena and see the Bears were down two starting guards. Thought about switching my pick, but decided to roll the dice on Scott Drew’s team. Wrong! Then I picked K-State to beat Texas and foolishly switched to the Longhorns when I found out Cartier Diarra wasn’t playing. Wrong again!
At Texas Tech remains the only K-State loss I have accurately projected this season.
I’ve learned my lesson. I’m picking the Wildcats to beat Iowa State by a million.
Spoiler alert: K-State will wear the Lucky Lavenders at home against Oklahoma State on Feb. 23.
The Wildcats are only allowed to wear their two-tone uniforms once per season, and they had to fill out a NCAA waiver just to get that. Apparently they broke a few rules wearing them three times last season.
Why Oklahoma State?
I know fans wanted to see them against a better opponent. The Wildcats could beat the Cowboys in their practice uniforms. Apparently, they picked this game before the season began. They had to find an opponent willing to play along and wear white on the road. Oklahoma State, happy to wear some white throwbacks of its own, agreed.
Here’s hoping the Wildcats order all-lavender uniforms from Nike that they can start wearing any time they please in future years. That would be a much better regular look than gray.
There are lots of good goofy ones floating around of Weber, but I’ve always been partial to this classic photo:
It looks like he’s about to punch D.J. Johnson. Don’t think he would have won that fight.
An outright Big 12 championship seems more important to me. K-State hasn’t won one since 1977, and it comes with the kicker of dethroning KU.
Fans will obviously want both, but if they could only choose one I’m guessing they would want the conference trophy and the bragging rights that come with it.
It’s a close call between the 21-point comeback against West Virginia and the 2-0 road swing through central Texas.
You can snicker all you want about the lowly Mountaineers building a 21-point lead on the Wildcats, but K-State responded when it absolutely had to. Losing at home to West Virginia could have sent the season into a tailspin. Instead, the Wildcats got Dean Wade back and reeled off a nine-game conference winning streak.
That was the turning point of the season.
But I was equally impressed with what K-State accomplished by going on the road to beat Baylor and Texas. Knocking off KU and jumping into the top 25 put a target on the team’s back, and the Bears and Longhorns played with higher levels of intensity than I’ve seen from other Big 12 teams.
Early on in K-State’s winning streak, when the Cats were holding team after team to season-low scoring totals, it felt like opponents were giving up at halftime. No more. Baylor and Texas made K-State play 40 minutes and come from behind on the road with first place on the line.
With apologies to Cartier Diarra’s windmill dunk against KU, those were the two best stand-out moments for me.
Both games will be hard, but Iowa State at home seems a little more challenging.
When the Cyclones are at their best, it’s hard for anyone to beat them. The way they shoot the ball, they are always a threat. And they know they need to win this game to stay in the Big 12 race. They also probably feel like they gifted K-State the first game with missed free throws. They will be supremely motivated.
TCU is good enough to beat K-State home, but the Frogs will simply be playing spoiler in that game.
Don’t let #ConfidentBruce catch you asking that question.
Barry Brown and Dean Wade would be in the conversation. Depending on how they finish their careers, and what Big 12 honors they receive, they both seem like candidates for jersey retirements.
Not Stokes, though. He’s a fine player, better than some want to admit, but he’s not in the same stratosphere as Brown and Wade.
The numbers suggest it should be KU forward Dedric Lawson, as he leads the Big 12 in both scoring (19.4) and rebounding (10.6), but he’s not my pick.
Give me Barry Brown. He’s averaging 17.4 points in Big 12 games and is one of the best defenders in the conference. His team is also in first place. If the season ended today, he would deserve the honor.
Being teammates with Dean Wade is the only thing hurting his candidacy. The Wildcats are undefeated against Big 12 teams with Wade in the lineup. So he could split the vote and help Jarrett Culver, Marial Shayok or Lawson win the award.
It will be fascinating to see how that plays out.
And the award for the most random question of 2019 goes to ...
The answer is Collin Klein. He wasn’t much of a thrower, so he bulldozed his way to 2,485 yards and a school record 56 rushing touchdowns.
But Jesse Ertz had a mean stiff-arm and a significantly higher average run (5.46 yards) than Klein (4.13). So it’s a close call. It would have been fun to see what Ertz could have done with a clean bill of health.