K-State Q&A: The case for and against Bruce Weber. Plus floor slaps, baseball and more
I don’t remember much about the boxing movie “Cinderella Man,” but one of its opening scenes popped into my mind earlier this week as I watched Kansas defeat Kansas State 59-41 in a men’s basketball game that was harder on the eyes than looking directly at the sun while wearing night-vision goggles.
In that Russell Crowe movie, a pair of boxers are handed the ultimate insult. After a round or two, the referee steps in and stops the fight because it has been deemed too boring. Furthermore, everyone in attendance is promised a refund for their ticket, because they were watching such a boring fight.
The fans that showed up at Bramlage Coliseum for the Sunflower Showdown on Wednesday deserved that kind of treatment. Guess it’s a good thing the game was on ESPN+ and more folks than usual missed it.
Both teams played good defense, but it’s easy to play good defense when the other team refuses to make a shot.
K-State (3 of 24) and KU (4 of 16) combined to shoot seven of 40 from three-point range. Only three players reached double figures. Marcus Garrett scored a game-high 14 points. The Wildcats’ starting lineup scored a grand total of 17 points ... on 38 shots! That’s how you set a new low for points scored at Bramlage.
Jacob Pullen once scored 38 points all by himself against the Jayhawks, and he only needed 17 shots to do it.
That seems like a good summation of just how poorly this season has gone for the Wildcats.
Now, let’s dive into your questions. Thanks, as always, for providing them.
This isn’t a question, but I included it because this is pretty much the only thing I see in my Twitter mentions following K-State basketball games anymore.
We’ve been over the Bruce Weber debate ad nauseum, but I guess we will keep discussing it until a decision on his coaching future is etched in stone. And we will probably keep on talking about it afterward.
You can make a case for or against him.
For: He has hung three banners and coached a pair of players who will probably have their jerseys retired at Bramlage Coliseum. He’s only two years removed from a Big 12 championship and there is some nice young talent on the current roster. He is a good guy and recruits by the rules. This season was ruined by the coronavirus pandemic. He will turn things around next year!
Against: He has good years and bad years, with virtually nothing in between. The past two seasons have been a train wreck, and the team is on a 13-game losing streak. Some fans never liked him. It seems like a good chunk of fans are ready for a change. There isn’t enough talent on the current roster. Things won’t get any better next year!
Under normal circumstances, I think the arrow would be swinging hard in the “against” direction. But buyout money is hard to come by right now, and even if it weren’t paying a coach $2 million to not work while other employees are getting laid off or are dealing with salary reductions is an optics nightmare.
Maybe that’s part of the reason why athletic director Gene Taylor has publicly said he’s leaning “for” at the moment.
Or maybe something else will happen. Weber is 64. It’s possible he could consider retirement, though he has previously said he is eager to keep coaching for many more years.
This is my long way of saying I don’t know what is going to happen yet with Weber.
I think Jeff Mittie is safe, though. More on the women’s basketball team below.
The most realistic hope for next season is that Mike McGuirl returns as a “super senior” and every other young contributor on the team comes back healthy right along with him.
I could see that team winning enough games to move back into the middle of the pack in the Big 12 standings and challenging for a spot in the NIT, maybe even the NCAA Tournament if they make enough improvements.
K-State has some very promising freshmen in Nijel Pack and Davion Bradford.
Next season could depend on everyone else.
Can DaJuan Gordon stay healthy and develop an outside shot? Can Montavious Murphy get back on the court?
Can Antonio Gordon and Kaosi Ezeagu keep getting better? Can Cartlon Linguard or Seryee Lewis help at the four in addition to the five?
Selton Miguel looked good at times early on this year and has now gone scoreless in back-to-back games. He could be a difference-maker with an outside shot and more left-handed drives. But he’s not much without them. Will he develop? The jury is also out on Luke Kasubke.
An impact transfer could really change the outlook on next season, but Weber has never been good at landing those.
I’m not expecting much right away from K-State’s 2021 recruiting class. And we don’t know if McGuirl will come back next season.
In other words, it’s fair to expect improvement in 2021-22. But it’s a long journey from 20 losses to 20 wins.
This is the first time I have been asked to rank things that don’t include a single positive item.
You’ve heard of Power Rankings? Well, these are No Power Rankings!
Should I have gone with Wimp Rankings instead? It was a tough call for me. Both are opposites of power. But rolling blackouts have been in the news recently, so I went with that.
In any case, this clip from Back to the Future II should explain my Lack of Power/Blackout Rankings.
5. Women’s basketball team: Jeff Mittie’s team has won a game within the last week.
4. Gene Taylor: As terrible as the past two seasons have been, there is still some logic in an athletic director defending his men’s basketball coach. And even if K-State brings Weber back for another season, he is only two years removed from a Big 12 championship.
3. Bruce Weber: One more loss, and his team will match the school’s longest losing streak of all time at 14 games.
2. The weather outside: Until this week, I didn’t realize that 20 degrees could feel warm.
1. The men’s basketball team: I don’t care how cold it is outside, it’s still not as frigid as the Wildcats’ shooting numbers against the Jayhawks earlier this week. Their starting five scored 17 points on 38 shots. Their non bench warmers made one three-pointer on 22 attempts. K-State was staring at 35 points until garbage-time heroes Joe Petrakis and Carlton Linguard lit up the scoreboard in the final minutes with a pair of threes.
You’re right. I dropped the ball on that one.
Who cares about the Big 12 championship if Kansas State and Iowa State don’t get a rematch at Bramlage Coliseum later this season? They might as well put an asterisk next to the final standings if we are deprived of that game.
There’s only one reason not to play Farmageddon II: Bruce Weber and Steve Prohm don’t want to risk taking a loss against the only other hapless team in the conference.
Both coaches are on the hot seat. K-State is 1-13 in the Big 12. Iowa State is 0-12 in the Big 12. The only conference game that either of them won came way back on Dec. 15 when the Wildcats were victorious in Ames.
Both teams are desperate for a win. But a loss would feel like Fort Hays State all over again for K-State and, well, like K-State all over again for Iowa State.
They are on a collision course for last place, and it would be a crime to not reschedule the game. There is also a chance that the Big 12 would flip a coin to determine their seeds at the Big 12 Tournament if both teams finish 1-17 with wins against each other. I hope they televise that.
Iowa State has three games to reschedule at the moment. K-State only has one. The conference may need to get creative to make the game happen, but it will be motivated to do so for TV money.
Here’s hoping it happens. It’s the regular-season finale Big 12 fans deserve.
The floor-slapping from K-State is starting to become a bit obnoxious for a team that ranks 209th nationally in adjusted defensive efficiency, per Ken Pomeroy.
K-State currently ranks last in the Big 12 in terms of two-point defense, block percentage, steal percentage, effective field goal percentage and overall efficiency defense. It also ranks ninth against three-pointers.
Still, the Wildcats have improved on defense since Weber gave his “no stance, no chance” speech before the Texas Tech game on Feb. 6.
K-State has allowed an average of 69.7 points over its past four games and looked downright good defensively against KU. The Wildcats were just so awful on offense that hardly anyone noticed.
I’m not sure floor-slapping is worth showing on the team’s pregame pump-up video, though. They have got a long way to go before they can claim to be average on defense.
E-MAIL QUESTION: It’s been hard to tell on TV why Kansas State got hit with technical fouls in some of its games lately. It happened against KU, as well as the Texas Tech and maybe the Texas games. Can you shed some light on what happened there? - Andrew B.
That is an unfortunate part of TV announcers calling college basketball games from their homes instead of inside the arenas.
Explaining things like technical fouls and other issues is no longer guaranteed.
I can tell you that the officials thought Bruce Weber complained a little too much about calls during the Texas Tech and Kansas games.
He wanted a foul on Mac McClung (for swiping at Mike McGuirl on a fastbreak) and Ochai Agbaji (for a charge against McGuirl). Both calls went the other way. I don’t remember a technical against Texas.
When Weber animatedly pleaded his case to the officials, they hit him with a technical foul in both games.
Juggling work and home school during the fall semester of 2020 is probably the most stressful thing I have ever dealt with.
Professor Kellis is good at teaching his children valuable information. Journalist Kellis is good at writing about sports. But they can’t co-exist. I can’t even imagine how Clark Kent managed to be a reporter for the Daily Planet at the same time he was Superman.
But at least in the fall of 2020 there were some K-State football victories to write about. Am I right?
In all honesty, it’s not that challenging to find something positive to write about during a losing season. Even on Wednesday, sophomore guard DaJuan Gordon played well in his return from injury. That’s positive.
Chris Klieman recently landed some transfers with immediate impact potential. That’s positive.
Baseball is about to start. That’s positive.
The hard part is getting anyone to read those stories when the fan base remains focused on a struggling basketball team.
E-MAIL QUESTION: How long did it take you to beat Punch Out! with your kids? That is not an easy NES game. - Jeff M.
My wife will tell you that I locked myself in a room for almost 48 hours and didn’t come out until I beat the game, but it actually only took me about four hours spread out across last weekend. And I never locked myself in a room to play the game. I beat Mr. Dream (wish I had the Mike Tyson version) with kids climbing on my back and heckling me after every defeat.
I never beat the game as a kid, but I did conquer it about four years ago. It took quite a bit of practice and I watched lots of tutorials on YouTube before I eventually beat the game. But beat it I did.
Beating Punch Out! was a simpler task this time around. I remembered most of the punch sequences and led Little Mac to many knockouts. My kids usually handled the Minor Circuit fighters, especially Glass Joe, and I took it from there.
Mr. Dream was still a pain, though. I probably lost 100 times before I beat him once. My all-time record against him now stands at about 2-500. The first 1 minute, 30 seconds of that fight is like Ivan Drago vs. Apollo Creed. But if you can get past the point where every punch he lands knocks you down, you can beat him like Rocky Balboa vs. Ivan Drago.
And let me tell you, winning that fight is a thrill.
Pro tip: memorize the continue code 0073735963.
Right now I am trying to decide if I want to attempt to beat the game all the way through without using the code. That seems like a lot of work, but people have also done it blindfolded, which makes my accomplishment seem much less impressive.
I don’t think COVID will postpone college baseball games the way it did in basketball and football.
There are so many players on baseball teams that there should just about always be enough healthy pitchers and hitters to play games as originally scheduled.
But maybe I’m wrong on that. We’ll find out soon enough when the season begins on Friday.
By the way, this could be a fun year for the Bat Cats. Pitcher Jordan Wicks is getting a ton of preseason love, and the team looked good last season before all sports were shut down.
The women’s basketball team’s struggles are hard to evaluate, because of a few factors.
1. It got off to a 5-4 start and then had to shut down everything because of COVID issues. The Wildcats played nine games before Christmas and then didn’t play their next game until Jan. 20. They didn’t get to practice much during that window.
That month off seemed to de-rail any mojo the team had going early in the season.
2. Only two players have been on the court for all 19 games. Injuries have been a factor.
3. The supporting cast around Ayoka Lee and Christianna Carr has been underwhelming.
4. Five of their conference losses have come by single digits. They’ve had some trouble closing out tight games.
Much like the men’s team, none of that excuses a 1-11 Big 12 record. But it does explain what has happened more than a curse being placed on Bramlage Coliseum. It’s not hard to see the women bouncing back next year under normal circumstances.
This story was originally published February 19, 2021 at 5:00 AM.