Kansas State no match for Drake in opening game of Little Apple Classic
Bruce Weber’s latest rebuilding project with the Kansas State Wildcats began with a loss.
K-State publicly debuted a new roster that featured just four returning scholarship players against Drake on Wednesday at Bramlage Coliseum, and it may be a while before this group comes together well enough to start winning, as evidenced by the 80-70 defeat it suffered in the opening game of the Little Apple Classic.
The last time we saw the K-State men on the basketball court, they were beating TCU as the No. 10 seed at the Big 12 Tournament for a rare victory in a dismal 11-win season. Things may not be any better this time around.
For one day at least, the Wildcats looked very much like a team that is stuck in transition.
There were some encouraging signs for the Wildcats in this game, such as senior guard Mike McGuirl (22 points) and sophomore DaJuan Gordon (15 points) flexing their muscles as both scorers and leaders, but not nearly enough for them to outlast a determined Bulldogs team that knew exactly how to attack the K-State defense for easy points in the paint.
It seemed like K-State was on its way to victory in its first game of the season when it led 47-40 near the 15 minute mark of the second half. But the newcomers who helped the Wildcats take that lead faded hard down the stretch while the Bulldogs made a string of clutch plays.
Despite boasting a size advantage, K-State allowed Drake players to score a whopping 42 points in the paint. Garrett Sturtz, a 6-foot-3 guard, effortlessly meandered his way through K-State’s lineup of bigs and found ample room for many of those points as he led the Bulldogs with a team-high 15 points.
McGuirl was the player of the game for K-State. He made some big shots to keep K-State in it until the final moments and looked like a much more aggressive player than he was a year ago.
His 22 points were a career high, and they came on 15 shots. He also snared six rebounds. But he needed more help, as none of his teammates outside of Gordon reached double figures. Freshman point guard Nijel Pack had nine points and transfer Kaosi Ezeagu had eight.
Perhaps a lackluster effort should have been expected.
You could tell this was a new experience for both teams. Without as much as a scrimmage or exhibition game against outside competition to prepare for this game, Drake and K-State sprinted into the unknown and made adjustments on the fly.
That showed most in shot selection. Instead of working the ball around for open shots with designed set plays, everyone seemed willing to fire away from three-point range.
Everything about this game also felt strange. The Wildcats didn’t allow fans inside Bramlage Coliseum but the arena still sounded loud because of artificial crowd noise.
K-State will try to bounce back from this loss in its next game on Friday against Colorado at Bramlage.