‘We can surprise some people’: Bruce Weber confident in direction of K-State hoops
Less talent. More wins.
That is the formula Kansas State men’s basketball coach Bruce Weber is hoping to mix together for the Wildcats this upcoming season.
It’s an unusual combination, as talent and wins tend to go together like horsepower and fast cars, but he sees a path to improvement even after K-State lost longtime starters Xavier Sneed, Cartier Diarra and Makol Mawien from a dismal 2019-20 campaign in which the Wildcats lost 21 games and finished last in the Big 12.
“I don’t know if we have quite the talent that Xavier, Cartier, and Mak brought to us, their experience or their talent,” Weber said during a video conference with reporters on Wednesday, “but I think we have a little more balance. If we can get them to play the way we want and expect I think we can surprise some people.”
Expectations will be low for K-State this season. Mike McGuirl is the only returning senior on the roster, and he is joined by just three sophomores that played alongside him last season. DaJuan Gordon, Montavious Murphy and Antonio Gordon will help him try to provide leadership for a group that welcomed in nine new players during the offseason.
The good news is that Weber signed the highest rated recruiting class of his K-State career.
Freshmen like Nijel Pack, Davion Bradford, Lake Kasubke, Seryee Lewis and Selton Miguel will try to live up to their high school rankings immediatly.
Older newcomers like Rudi Williams, Carlton Linguard and Kaosi Ezeagu will try to plug any remaining roster holes.
Some have compared K-State’s 2020 recruiting class to the group Weber brought in the last time he overhauled the roster and the Wildcats welcomed Barry Brown, Kamau Stokes and Dean Wade to campus.
“Our young, new players are talented,” Weber said. “They are just going to have a lot to learn as we move forward into practice.”
The bad news is this team won’t benefit from a traditional offseason of team practices and workouts because of the coronavirus pandemic. Things should begin to feel normal when practices officially begin on Oct. 14. Even then, K-State is still working to finalize its schedule. This group will play fewer nonconference games than usual before Big 12 play begins in December.
“We have done a lot more skill work and a lot more breakdown work than we normally would have done,” Weber said. “I think in the long run it is probably going to help them. Now, can we put it all together and let them go play some basketball?”
Further complicating matters: Weber doesn’t know when two of his players will be able to practice full speed.
Kasubke, a freshman guard from St. Louis, recently underwent foot surgery to fix a preseason injury. Weber said he will be in a walking boot until the end of the month. How quickly will he be game ready? That depends on how his body heals.
Weber said Antonio Gordon has been dealing with a number of setbacks and is still working to catch up to the rest of his teammates.
But Weber has been impressed by the veteran leadership on his team. He said McGuirl and Ezeagu asked to return to Manhattan before they were instructed to during the early stages of the pandemic, because they wanted to get a head start on the upcoming season. Their teammates soon followed suit.
Weber said he has seen vast improvement from McGuirl and DaJuan Gordon. He also thinks the Wildcats will play a different style of basketball now that they are blessed with size inside.
Bradford (7 feet), Ezeague (6-foot-10) and Linguard (6-foot-11) are all gifted rim-protectors.
Finding scoring will be of the utmost importance as K-State looks to replace experienced talent with young faces.
“I think you will have a mixture of points,” Weber said. “More than anything, I think we will be balanced. If we can get one or two guys to step up and be really consistent and get us 15 or 18 points every other game obviously that would help.”