NCAA Tournament outlook in precarious spot for Kansas State; pivotal games ahead
It’s been a frustrating two weeks for the Kansas State men’s basketball team.
Not only have the Wildcats have lost three straight games for the first time under head coach Jerome Tang, they have lost three straight games to Big 12 competition by double digits. Some are beginning to wonder if K-State will come up short in its pursuit of an at-large berth in the NCAA Tournament.
That is certainly a fair subject to discuss as K-State (14-7, 4-4 Big 12) has moved to the wrong side of the March Madness bubble.
But Tang thinks it is far too early for anyone to hit the proverbial “panic button” when it comes to this team.
“Things are not getting away from us,” Tang said after recent loss to Oklahoma. “We are 4-4 in the best league in America. Like I’ve said from the very beginning of the year, if you get nine wins in this league you are going to the NCAA Tournament. Nothing has changed for us. Right? It’s just the order in which things happen. Sometimes people make a bigger deal out of it than needs to be.”
So what are the chances that K-State will end its losing streak and make a push for the Big Dance during the final 10 games of the regular season?
That depends on whom you ask.
ESPN bracket expert Joe Lunardi didn’t include K-State anywhere in his latest projection, not even in the “first four out” or “next four out” sections. CBS expert Jerry Palm had the Wildcats as a No. 10 seed in his latest projection, but it hasn’t been updated since Monday.
Bracket Matrix, a web site that averages out a team’s ranking from dozens of different bracket projections, currently has K-State among the first four teams out of the tournament field.
In other words, the Wildcats are on the bubble. Three straight losses have left them with work to do if they hope to play for a national championship in March. They need to improve their record against Quad 1 opponents (1-4) and boost their ratings at Ken Pomeroy (74) and the NET (83) before Selection Sunday arrives.
Here’s the good news for K-State: Its closing schedule is among the most difficult in all of college basketball, so the Wildcats may not need many more wins to feel confident about their chances. Four or five could realistically be enough.
The bad news: With six remaining games against ranked opponents, wins won’t be easy to come by.
It feels like the next two games will be extremely important. K-State travels to Big 12 bottom feeder Oklahoma State on Saturday and then hosts rival Kansas on Monday at Bramlage Coliseum.
Both games will be considered toss-ups for the Wildcats, so they need to take advantage.
Win both, and all will be right in Manhattan next week. A split would leave the Wildcats in roughly the same position they are today. A pair of losses would be hard to overcome.
That makes this an important stretch for K-State. It is running out of time to improve its NCAA Tournament resume.