Tylor Perry sparks a rally, but K-State falls hard vs. Oklahoma: 3 takeaways
One thing Kansas State basketball fans have been able to count on from the Wildcats since Jerome Tang took over as coach is that he always has them ready to play their best at home.
Until now.
The Wildcats no-showed during a 73-53 loss to Oklahoma on Tuesday at Bramlage Coliseum. Just how bad was it for the EMAW squad? Well, K-State didn’t possess the lead for a single second and Oklahoma held a double-digit advantage most of the way.
K-State did battle back from an early 17-point deficit to cut the lead down to seven midway through the second half thanks to some heroics from Tylor Perry, but that was as close as it could get. Oklahoma responded with a series of big plays and regained a comfortable lead.
With the loss, K-State (14-7, 4-4 Big 12) dropped its third straight game and fell to a nervous spot in the quest for a NCAA Tournament berth. The Wildcats are almost certainly now on the wrong side of the bubble with a challenging schedule still staring them in the face. Oklahoma (16-5, 4-4 Big 12) got an important road win.
This kind of result came as a major surprise for a K-State team that went 16-1 at home last season and entered the week 10-1 at home this season.
Even when the Wildcats have lost inside the Octagon of Doom over the past two years they played with toughness and made the opposition work for 40 minutes. But this game felt over in the opening minutes as K-State missed an avalanche of shots and allowed Oklahoma to pull ahead in their final regular-season game as Big 12 opponents.
Perry led K-State with 23 points, but none of his teammates reached double digits. Jalone Moore led the way for Oklahoma with 23.
The Wildcats will try to bounce back from this performance when they return to the court on Saturday at Oklahoma State.
Until then, here are some takeaways from Tuesday’s action against Oklahoma.
The Wildcats appear lost on offense
Scoring is a challenge for this team.
K-State has tried to win with defense more than offense throughout this season, but the Wildcats are currently making so few baskets that it doesn’t really matter what they do on the other end of the floor. Nothing short of a flawless defensive effort would have been enough for them to beat Oklahoma.
Jerome Tang’s team appeared lost on the offensive end from the start of this one and no one outside of Tylor Perry was able to get in sync. Even he looked inefficient in the first half as he struggled to do much of anything against Oklahoma while the Sooners focused much of their defensive attention on him.
K-State’s other primary scorers, Cam Carter (5) and Arthur Kaluma (4), were held to single digits. The Wildcats need their big three to score, and that hasn’t been happening with much consistency lately.
As a team, K-State shot a meager 30% from the field and 14% form 3-point range.
The most concerning thing about K-State’s scoring output against Oklahoma was that it wasn’t the first time something like this has happened to the Wildcats. They also scored just 12 points in a half against Nebraska earlier this season and have failed to reach 60 points in three of their conference games.
Awful start
Another game, another slow start for the Wildcats.
An unfortunate trend is beginning to form early on in K-State contests. The Wildcats have started off cold in each of their past three games, making it virtually impossible for them to mount a comeback.
Things reached a new low on Tuesday. This was K-State’s worst start of the entire season. The Wildcats came out so cold that they didn’t score a single point until David N’Guessan drained a free throw with 11:49 remaining in the first half. They needed even longer to make their first field goal, on a runner from N’Guessan at the 10:30 mark.
The Wildcats missed their first 11 shots from the field.
That meant that K-State had to huddle up for the first two media timeouts of the game with a zero hanging over its head. As a result, Oklahoma was able to build a 17-point lead in the opening half.
It might be wise for Tang to consider taking a different approach at the opening tip and maybe even changing his starting lineup. K-State isn’t going to win many games if it continues spotting opponents that many points.
Tylor Perry got going in the second half
Even in a losing effort, fans on both sides of this game had to tip their hats to what Tylor Perry accomplished in the second half.
The senior guard put his team on his back and tried his darndest to will the Wildcats back into the game by playing as aggressively as he possibly could. He shot 3-pointers when he was open, he drove at the rim when OU defenders tried to pressure him and he got to the free-throw line for some easy points.
He ended with 23 points, 18 in the second half.
There weren’t many positives for K-State in this game, but that was one of them. Perhaps he can build on that moving forward.