No delayed gratification this time as K-State swarms Sooners for Big 12 title
Not that Kansas State backed into its Big 12 co-championship in 2013 or anything, exactly. But when the Wildcats left Stillwater after a loss to Oklahoma State in their final regular-season game, they also left behind the conference championship trophy that had been reduced to a taunting symbol of futility that never even was removed from its crate.
Amid Kansas’ run of 14 straight conferences titles, after all, no one expected the fourth-ranked Jayhawks (who had entered that day tied with K-State atop the league standings) to lose to Baylor later that day.
Suddenly, K-State had to scramble to get the trophy to Manhattan, calling Oklahoma State officials and ultimately arranging to have a K-State donor who’d stayed behind drive it up.
Two days later, thousands attended a makeshift ceremony at Bramlage Coliseum, where festivities included coach Bruce Weber and players climbing ladders to cut down nets.
Until Saturday, that deferred, supplemental celebration represented the one and only time this program had snipped the nets in the building that opened in 1988.
This time around, though, there was nothing indirect, in doubt, tentative, or otherwise diluted about the moment:
The Wildcats seized a 10-point halftime advantage and led by as many as 29 points on the way to an emphatic 68-53 victory to haul in their second Big 12 co-championship in six years.
The feat in their last home game was an appropriate punctuation of the terrific and arguably transformative careers of seniors Barry Brown, Kamau Stokes and Dean Wade, who combined for 45 points Saturday.
“It couldn’t be a better story, to have that group be honored like they were and then to win the game like this,” Weber said Saturday.
And he was right. Their emotional exit with 1 minute, 5 seconds left included Brown and Wade kissing the floor on their way off and all getting huge hugs from Weber, who could cherish this moment even as he soon will fix his gaze on the Big 12 Tournament and striving for a substantial encore to last season’s Elite Eight run.
First, though, there was this magic moment that the Wildcats (24-7 overall, 14-4 Big 12) will share with Texas Tech, which beat Iowa State 80-73 earlier in the day to finish 26-5 and 14-4.
When Weber was handed the trophy, and again when he took the microphone to address fans, the crowd thundered out “Bruuuce” so loud you wondered for a second if you were at a Springsteen concert.
He gushed over his team, particularly the seniors, once more calling attention to their character and resilience.
Even on a night Weber stood back from much of the celebrating to make sure the spotlight was on his players, though, the moment also was about him and his own resilience.
As recently as two years ago, even after K-State beat Wake Forest in the 2017 NCAA Tournament, at least a vocal minority of fans still sought his ouster.
A few weeks later, Gene Taylor took over as athletic director and was greeted with calls to dump Weber, who is now the third-winningest coach in K-State history and taking his team into its fifth NCAA Tournament in seven seasons.
Chatting casually in a corridor after the game Saturday, Taylor smiled as he scrolled his phone to find a tweet a friend recently reminded him of. It featured Taylor’s introductory photo, underlined with a call to fire Weber. When I asked him if it was OK to mention that he’d enjoyed showing me that, Taylor said sure.
“I want people to read about it,” he said. “I want to remind them to be careful what they wish for.”
Now, of course, they can all wish for more. This NCAA Tournament will be the true signature of this group.
So in the locker room after the game, Weber relished the scene but pointed ahead.
“These are special moments, guys. To be out there with those fans. To have the confetti. To have the trophy. To have both those nets. That is so special,” he said. “But you can do more. You can do more. You’re good enough.”
He encouraged a night of celebration, even while being careful to draw lines. If you were going out, make smart decisions. Take Uber. Act right. Treat people right.
“We don’t need to be in the paper, other than” for the Big 12 title, he said.
When an assistant yelled out, “sports page, not the front page,” Weber added, “It will be on the front page tomorrow: Big 12 champs! K-State!”
In style this time.
More glorious this time or not, though, Weber harkened to 2013. A lesson lingers, after all.
Exasperated over the presumed squandered opportunity for the school’s first league title since 1977, Weber couldn’t bear to even watch that KU game six years ago.
“I thought they’d win; I didn’t watch it or pay attention,” he said Saturday night. “I was just so disappointed.”
So he was walking his dog with his wife when he heard horns and “all this noise” from the Tointon Family Stadium and wondered “what the heck’s happening?”
Turned out K-State had just announced that Baylor won, which Weber didn’t know until his phone started going “ding-ding-ding-ding” and then-athletic director John Currie called to offer congratulations.
In hindsight, Weber blames himself for perhaps making too much of that championship and having it come back to haunt the team with a round of 64 NCAA Tournament loss to LaSalle.
“We were so worried about getting that banner up there, getting that group, their names and numbers up there,” he said. “I didn’t help them for the NCAA Tournament. And that’s what we told these guys: This is just phase one of our mission.
“We have to keep going. Moving forward, there’s a lot more stuff to add to their reach.”
Even after getting to have and hold the trophy right away — and the right way — this time around.
This story was originally published March 9, 2019 at 9:43 PM with the headline "No delayed gratification this time as K-State swarms Sooners for Big 12 title."