Kansas State big man Ismael Massoud giving Wildcats major boost at new position
After starting the first 14 games of the season as a stretch forward, Ismael Massoud has discovered a new, and potentially more valuable, role with the Kansas State men’s basketball team.
The sophomore big man is now coming off the bench as a center.
That’s not something he envisioned for himself when he transferred to K-State from Wake Forest last spring. He actually left the Demon Deacons in part because he thought they played him too much at the five. Massoud would rather use his 6-foot-9 body to create mismatches on the perimeter and shoot threes than post up a defender. But there is no arguing with results.
Massoud has reached double figures in each of his past two games, and the Wildcats are on a winning streak with him spending more time in the paint.
“In my head I think I’m a guard,” Massoud said, “so whether I’m at the five or the one as long as I’m on the court I’m not going to argue. If coach puts me at the five, I’m not going to say, ‘I don’t want to go in.’ I’m going to say, ‘Yeah, put me in.’ It doesn’t matter. Either you’re on the court or you’re on the bench.”
Ideally, K-State coach Bruce Weber would prefer to play a big lineup with Massoud playing inside and out as a stretch four. That is why Massoud started all those games at the beginning of the season. But center has been a major weakness for the Wildcats since Big 12 play began, with Davion Bradford, Carlton Linguard and Kaosi Ezeagu often struggling to avoid zeroes on the stat sheet.
With Mark Smith improbably leading the Big 12 in rebounds as an undersized four, K-State has switched to a small lineup that features only one big man on most possessions.
Massoud fits in that rotation better as a center.
He learned to embrace that role following a conversation with his coach last week. Weber pulled Massoud aside and told him to stop worrying about the things he hasn’t been doing and start worrying about the things he can do to help the team.
Turns out, there is plenty he can do as the big man in a small lineup.
“When I go in at the five,” Massoud said, “as long as I do my part like I feel like I did today in terms of guarding the paint and being strong, it helps these guys out. It helps them get in the lane and create plays, because now you have got to account for me at the three-point line. Just playing off of these guys makes my job a lot easier.”
He is still far from perfect. Even though he gave K-State a big boost by scoring 11 points against Iowa State and then followed up that performance with 13 more against West Virginia, he only grabbed a total of four rebounds in those games.
But he is improving as a defender, and his ability to shoot from the outside has drawn rim protectors away from the basket.
Massoud’s new role appears here to stay.
“It’s definitely a weapon,” Weber said. “When we need a change of pace and we need some freshness there’s no doubt it has been pretty good for us. It has been a good weapon. Sometimes he just has to realize that he has to go to the basket. He can’t keep (shooting) when he’s the tallest guy on the court.”