K-State Q&A: Spring football, Bruce Weber and predictions for next basketball season
It’s time for another K-State Q&A.
We’ve got lots of great topics to cover this week, so let’s dive right into your questions. Thanks, as always, for providing them.
This is a difficult thing to predict, considering I have never seen K-State’s incoming freshmen play live and we don’t know if Xavier Sneed will return for his senior year.
But I’m prepared to make an educated case. So here goes. K-State’s starting five next season will be ...
DaJuan Gordon, Cartier Diarra, Xavier Sneed, Montavious Murphy, Makol Mawien.
Of those five, I’m least confident about Gordon. Bruce Weber talks about him like he’s the greatest recruit he’s ever signed, and the Chicago Sun-Times just named him the best high school player in the Windy City, so I’m giving him the edge. But Shaun Neal-Williams has loads of potential. They will both play major minutes, regardless of who starts.
Mike McGuirl will also push for a starting role, but I think he comes off the bench to help both Diarra and Sneed. If Sneed turns pro, I think McGuirl starts at the three. Murphy seems ready to start at power forward, unless fellow freshman Antonio Gordon can beat him for that spot, and Mawien is a lock to start at the five.
The Wildcats will take a step back without their seniors, but I think they will reload more than rebuild next season.
Cartier Diarra, Xavier Sneed and Makol Mawien provide a solid foundation. Mike McGuirl, Shaun Neal-Williams and maybe Levi Stockard seem ready for bigger roles. And Weber has one of his best recruiting classes coming in, at least on paper.
I’m expecting K-State to win 20 games and return to the NCAA Tournament for the fourth straight season. Next year’s team could resemble what we saw in 2013-14 or 2017-18.
1. The Elite Eight season of 2009-10.
K-State won 29 games that year and earned a No. 2 seed in the NCAA Tournament. With Jacob Pullen and Denis Clemente leading the way, the Wildcats fell just short of the Final Four. They probably would have made it there had they beaten Xavier in regulation (instead of double overtime) during the Sweet 16.
2. The Big 12 championship season of 2018-19.
The Wildcats finished the Big 12 portion of their schedule 14-2 to dethrone Kansas and share a conference championship with Texas Tech. The celebration that followed was epic. We will always wonder what could have been in the NCAA Tournament with a healthy Dean Wade.
3. The Big 12 championship season of 2012-13.
Rodney McGruder was really something as a senior, and this team was great. Losing three games to Kansas and bowing out in the first round of the NCAA Tournament kept this team from the No. 2 spot.
4. The Elite Eight season of 2017-18.
It may be a long time before K-State lands a bigger victory than Kentucky in the Sweet 16.
5. Jacob Pullen’s senior year of 2010-11.
The Wildcats ended the regular season with six straight wins. They beat No.1 Kansas by 16, No. 20 Missouri by 10 and No. 7 Texas by five. Never seen any other K-State team play better than that. But that team also lost 11 games.
His approval rating might have peaked during the Big 12 championship trophy presentation at the end of the regular season.
He will need to take the Wildcats to the Final Four or win a national championship to feel that kind of universal love again. And even then someone will probably react like Randy Quaid’s character in Major League 2 ...
Weber is at an interesting point in his K-State career. He’s won over most fans and silenced the haters that once lobbied for him to be fired. But his NCAA Tournament success, or lack thereof outside of last year’s Elite Eight run, has left some fans wanting more.
I thought Sam Mellinger put it really well last week when he pointed out fans can view Weber any way they want right now. On one hand, he has two Big 12 trophies and an Elite Eight on his resume. On the other, he has only advanced to the Round of 32 once in seven seasons.
His approval rating still seems solid from where I’m sitting. He made some coaching errors against UC Irvine, but he was also playing a 30-win team without Dean Wade. It wasn’t a colossal upset.
His approval rating dipped afterward. That’s sports. We’ll see how long it takes him to boost it back up.
Soft? I don’t know how anyone could call Big 12 basketball soft. Take a look at the NIT. TCU is heading to New York and Texas can join the Frogs there by beating Colorado on Wednesday night. The Big 12 might have three teams still playing in April. Three! There’s nothing soft about that.
OK, now that I’ve got my sarcastic answer out of the way I guess I can share some actual thoughts on the Big 12’s face plant this March.
It hasn’t been pretty. Was there some bad luck involved? Sure. K-State might still be playing with a healthy Dean Wade and KU might be living it up in Kansas City right now with a full assortment of players. But injuries are a part of sports, and only Texas Tech survived the first weekend of the NCAA Tournament.
The Big 12 was down a bit this season. That’s all you can really say. It featured more good teams than just about any other league, but lacked a truly great team. The conference didn’t produce a No. 1 or No. 2 seed in the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 1999, and now the Red Raiders are their final hope.
Other conferences had much more success. The ACC has five teams in the Sweet 16, the SEC has four and the Big Ten has three. NCAA Tournament results might not be the best way to compare conferences, but the Big 12 has lagged way behind this year.
The Big 12 deserved respect for getting three teams to the Elite Eight (Texas Tech, K-State, Kansas) and one to the Final Four (KU) last year. But it also deserves some jeers this year. The conference couldn’t live up to its KenPom rating.
The Wildcats will need more shooters and more players who can get to the rim and create their own shots when Bruce Weber’s half-court offense runs into trouble against a zone defense.
Scoring droughts have always been an issue under Weber, so it’s hard to see them disappearing next season. But the Wildcats might be more athletic next season, which could help. Give Diarra and Sneed more freedom to create. Hope a teammate or two steps up as an outside shooter. That seems like the recipe for success.
Barry Brown, Kamau Stokes and Dean Wade saved Bruce Weber and rebuilt K-State basketball during their four years together. They won a Big 12 championship, made it to the Elite Eight and played in the NCAA Tournament three times.
That’s a great run. Period. You don’t have to throw in a disclaimer like “all things considered.” Those accomplishments stack up with every K-State senior class since the Wildcats last made the Final Four.
The loss to UC Irvine stings, but it’s not like it was an unbelievable upset. Experts everywhere picked the Anteaters in that game, and it was honestly a toss up without Dean Wade.
It would have been fun to see what K-State could have done in the NCAA Tournament the past two seasons with a healthy Wade in the lineup. That’s the only thing that leaves a what-if feel with this group.
Well, making the NCAA Tournament is an accomplishment. It’s not a big enough deal to slap on a T-shirt or put on a banner all by itself, but it’s not nothing.
This question honestly shows how much Frank Martin and Bruce Weber have raised expectations at K-State.
You have to go all the way back to Lon Kruger (1986-90) to find the last K-State coach that made the NCAA Tournament every year he was employed at the school. Dana Altman, Tom Asbury, Bob Huggins and Martin all coached K-State teams in the NIT. Jim Wooldridge never coached in any postseason tournament, and he was here for six years!
For a while, simply making the NCAA Tournament truly was viewed by K-State fans as a grand achievement. But I don’t think they view it that way anymore. I haven’t seen anyone wearing purple Round of 64 shirts.
That’s what makes next year fascinating for Weber. The last time he tried to build off a Big 12 championship, he had one promising year and then things bottomed out. The Wildcats missed the NCAA Tournament in back-to-back years and he hit the reset button. K-State bounced back well in the end, but I don’t think fans want a repeat of that cycle. They want higher peaks and valleys.
Making the NCAA Tournament is now similar to making a bowl game for K-State. It’s expected.
One or two of the low-minute guys on the team will probably look for fresh starts elsewhere. It happens every year.
James Love and Nigel Shadd seem like transfer candidates.
Not all that much. Chris Klieman will ask a bunch of incoming recruits to play right away next season, and most of them aren’t on campus yet. So the team K-State puts on the field in the fall will look much different from the one we see right now in the spring.
But it’s obvious K-State players like the new coaching staff. They all say energy is up compared to previous seasons. Practice doesn’t feel like a chore to them anymore.
It also seems like Skylar Thompson is having a heck of a spring. He’s got the talent to have a breakthrough junior season. Perhaps a new system will help him pull that off.
Everyone seems really happy with James Gilbert.
The Ball State graduate transfer has already become a leader in spring practices and it looks like he will be the starting running back next season.
I’m not sure if any other running backs currently on the roster will see much playing time next season (incoming freshmen Thomas Grayson, Clyde Price and Joe Ervin seem like more likely options) but I’ve heard some nice things about Harry Trotter and Cornelius Ruff.
It would be great if Trotter and Ruff could get a few carries next season. Both players have outstanding names.
This story was originally published March 27, 2019 at 2:01 PM with the headline "K-State Q&A: Spring football, Bruce Weber and predictions for next basketball season."