How Markquis Nowell led Kansas State to victory over Wichita State without Nijel Pack
No Nijel Pack. No problem.
Those are two statements that rarely, if ever, have gone together for the Kansas State men’s basketball team. Pack, a sophomore guard, is the squad’s leading scorer, top shooter and best all-around player. Take him out of the equation, and the Wildcats usually struggle. He missed five games last season, and K-State lost all five of those contests ... by an average of 20.2 points.
As Pack goes, so goes K-State hoops.
At least that’s the way it seemed until the Wildcats defeated Wichita State 65-59 without him in front of 14,488 fans on Sunday at Intrust Bank Arena.
Markquis Nowell took over for Pack in the starting lineup and he responded by scoring 16 points, grabbing eight rebounds and sending out four assists. He also created havoc for the Shockers with his defensive play. He was so good that Wichita State coach Isaac Brown said he thought his team would have been better off taking its chances against Pack.
“I think it maybe helped them, because it forced the little point guard to play a lot more minutes,” Brown said. “I thought his ball pressure was tremendous. He put a lot of pressure on the ball. We had a lot of costly turnovers and I just think any time you got a guy like that that can pressure the ball, it’s hard to run your offense.”
Brown didn’t know his name, but Nowell earned his respect.
This is why K-State aggressively recruited Nowell as a transfer when he announced plans to leave Arkansas-Little Rock last season. Nowell wasn’t a prized commodity at the highest levels of college basketball because of his size. But he plays full speed every minute he is on the floor and can make shots from just about anywhere across half court. Bruce Weber didn’t care that Nowell is only 5-foot-8. He saw a guard who played bigger than his frame.
Much bigger.
He proved Weber right in this game by draining two deep three-pointers, by finding creative ways to make shots in the paint and by getting the ball inside to center Kaosi Ezeagu for a number of easy dunks. Ezeagu isn’t usually known for his offense, but he scored 14 points against the Shockers.
“We thought if we could get into paint, it’s a good thing,” Weber said. “They converge to the ball, and we just made the right reads and got the ball to the right place. The other part, we just kept telling them to go side to side and make people guard. Even the best teams, they’re eventually going to break down if you put pressure on them. I think we did enough of that.”
Nowell delivered the biggest shot of the night with 1 minute, 33 seconds remaining. The score was tied at 54-54, and Wichita State had just made a three-pointer to bring the crowd to its feet. K-State needed an answer.
The Wildcats put their faith in Nowell in that situation and he didn’t flinch. Nowell swished a three-pointer from NBA range that silenced the crowd and sparked a game-changing 8-0 run.
“They had a three previous to that on their possession and that was like a momentum shift for them and then that was a momentum shift for us,” Nowell said. “It was just a read that we do every day in practice. I have taken that shot countless times. I saw the ball screen and their big drop back so I just shot it.”
Nowell also came through with a pair of key free throws during that stretch.
“It’s very special because I know how hard we’ve worked and all the stuff we went through last year,” Ezeagu said. “After all the (losses) we really worked for this one, because we we’ve experienced the other end of it. We have we have all those experiences under our belt and we really prepared for this one. So it feels really good to come home with a win.”
Nowell wasn’t around last season when K-State only won nine games, but he has heard stories. He came to Manhattan in hopes of changing the team’s narrative.
A statement victory like this will help.
“It’s been great to see this kind of shift,” Nowell said. “It’s great for our team. This is a big one.