Key stat led to K-State’s loss to Cincinnati, which could loom large Selection Sunday
There is no such thing as a must-win game during the regular season of college basketball, but Saturday’s tilt between Kansas State and Cincinnati at Fifth Third Arena was the closest thing to a do-or-die contest for both teams.
The winner was going to greatly boost its odds of reaching the NCAA Tournament. The loser was going to be trending toward the NIT.
With that in mind, there was no way for Wildcats coach Jerome Tang or his players to sugarcoat a 74-72 loss to the Bearcats.
Only one team made a clutch play in the crucial final seconds and walked away with an important win. It wasn’t K-State.
“In our league, every night is like this,” Tang said. “It’s tough when you are on the short end of it. But we wouldn’t want it any other way than competing against the best coaches and the best players in the best conference in America. Hats off to Cincinnati. They did a great job ... and they made a big play. That is what happens in this league. Players make plays.”
The biggest play of all came shortly after the Wildcats fought back from a 13-point deficit in the final 7 minutes to lead by one with 19.6 seconds remaining. Cincinnati forward Simas Lukosius responded with an enormous 3-pointer to take the lead back with 10 seconds still on the clock.
Neither team scored again and Cincinnati won.
K-State nearly stole a game — that it only led for 1 minute, 45 seconds — thanks to 26 points from Tylor Perry, 15 points from Jerrell Colbert and 13 points from Cam Carter. But it wasn’t enough. The Wildcats started from too far behind to pull off a furious comeback.
But they did throw a scare into the home crowd.
“We’ve been here before,” Perry said. “We have just got to keep going. We have been in those situations plenty of times and we have been behind. We have seen every type of game this year and you have just got to keep fighting. I think we did a great job of that. We spotted them double-digit points twice in the second half and we made runs both times. When we figure out how to stop those lows it is going to take us to a higher level.”
John Newman led the Bearcats with 18 points, but he got plenty of help from seven other scorers
Combined, they were too much for the Wildcats.
Where does Tang’s team go from here?
The good news for K-State (17-12, 7-9 Big 12) is that it still has time to play itself into the NCAA Tournament. If the Wildcats can win their remaining two games at Kansas on Tuesday and against Iowa State next weekend on Senior Day, they will remain on the March Madness bubble. They can always boost their postseason resume at the Big 12 Tournament, too. For now, though, all eyes are on the Jayhawks.
“We’ve got the biggest game of the season on Tuesday,” Tang said.
In any case, there is no doubt that K-State’s path to the Big Dance became much more difficult following this loss to Cincinnati (17-12, 6-10 Big 12). The Wildcats will need to play better than they did on Saturday to make up for the defeat.
Turnovers take a toll
By now, everyone knows that K-State commits a large number of turnovers.
The Wildcats entered the weekend with turnover rate of 21.3%, a number that ranked 350th in the nation. It has been such a problem that Tang has more or less shrugged his shoulders and tried to win despite all those giveaways.
Well, K-State needed a better answer against Cincinnati.
Not only did the Wildcats give the ball away too many times against the Bearcats, they did so in the worst possible way. When K-State committed turnovers, the ball ended up taking a favorable bounce for the home team and enabled Cincinnati to score easily on the other end. The Bearcats took advantage of 19 K-State turnovers by scoring a whopping 29 points off of them.
“We didn’t value the ball,” Tang said. “They do a good job of being in the gaps and raking on the second interval. We knew that, we just didn’t execute very well.”
One of the most costly turnovers of the night happened late in the second half when K-State was down only three and had a chance to tie things up. Cam Carter attacked the basket off the dribble but had the ball stolen away in the paint. That led to a fast-break dunk for Newman that pushed the Cincinnati lead back up to five.
Of course, Perry losing the ball out of bounds with 2.7 seconds remaining as he attempted to put up a game-tying shot that would have forced overtime ended up being even bigger.
It was a fitting end for the Wildcats.
Very few teams can expect to win games with those numbers going against them. Turnovers cost K-State this game, plain and simple.
Jerrell Colbert was a bright spot for the Wildcats
K-State got a surprising 15 points and seven rebounds from its starting big man.
Jerrell Colbert isn’t known as much of a scorer. He has only scored more than two points in seven games all season. But this was one of them. Colbert delivered important production for his team by making plays in the paint against Cincinnati’s front line.
So much so, that he was the team’s leading scorer for much of the first half.
He put up career highs in two valuable statistics. This was a performance he can build on.
“I just put my heart out on the court, really,” Colbert said. “I was giving it my all and doing anything I can for my teammates. I just told myself to keep going, no matter what.”
The Wildcats are never out of it
Just when it looked like K-State had gotten to a point in the season where it was starting to figure some things out on offense the Wildcats slid back into their old ways and struggled mightily to send the ball through the hoop for long stretches Saturday.
K-State had topped 80 points in each of its past two games, but that was not the case here, especially in the first half.
Not only did K-State miss shots, it slumped through long scoreless droughts and turned the ball over too often.
That was most certainly the case in the first half when the Wildcats scored 27 points on 7-of-24 shooting while turning the ball over 11 times. Worst of all, Cincinnati took advantage of all those giveaways by scoring 15 points off turnovers and took a 34-27 halftime lead.
K-State didn’t score at all until the 15:44 mark of the first half when Dai Dai Ames made a 3-pointer. And the Wildcats didn’t score a field goal during the final 5:26 of the first half.
It was not pleasant for K-State fans to watch.
Despite all that, and later trailing by 13 with 6:51 remaining in the second half, the Wildcats found a way to shift into a different gear and nearly win this game. They led in the final minute, for crying out loud.
K-State plays with so much energy and fight that it is almost never out of a game. Only three of their Big 12 losses have come by double digits. Even when the Wildcats have faced significant deficits they have routinely fought back to make things interesting in the final moments.
That type of effort won’t make up for 19 turnovers, but it will give the Wildcats hope as they try for a better result in their next must-win game.
This story was originally published March 2, 2024 at 8:52 PM.