Three takeaways from Kansas State’s road basketball defeat against Colorado
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Colorado had two massive runs and won 79-70 over K-State.
- K-State missed their final six shots late, ending their rally chance.
- Elias Rapieque returned, gave a lift, then left after a hand to the face.
This was a game of runs.
Colorado made more of them than Kansas State, which allowed the Buffaloes to win 79-70 on Wednesday at CU Events Center.
But the Wildcats had just enough improbable runs of their own to make things interesting.
The Buffaloes reeled off two gigantic scoring spurts against the Wildcats to control this game for most of the night. They went on a 16-0 run in the first half and a 17-0 run in the second half. It’s nearly impossible for a team to lose when that happens.
K-State tried to battle back with a 15-2 run of its own that began late in the first half. That allowed it to pull within five points and make the score 42-37 early in the second half. Give credit to the Wildcats for fighting late in a disappointing season with interim head coach Matthew Driscoll in command on the sideline.
But that meant little in the grand scheme of things, because the Buffs responded with 17 straight points to lead by 22.
The game truly seemed over at that point.
Once again, though, K-State pulled close when Andrej Kostic hit a 3-pointer to make the score 73-70 with 2 minutes, 13 seconds remaining. All of a sudden, the Wildcats were in position to steal a win. But they missed their final six shots and Colorado ended things with a 6-0 run.
Isaiah Johnson led Colorado with 18 points. PJ Haggerty led all scorers with 25 points.
K-State (11-17, 2-13 Big 12) will try to move past its loss to Colorado (16-12, 6-9 Big 12) when the Wildcats return to action on Saturday against TCU inside Bramlage Coliseum.
Until then, here are takeaways from Wednesday’s action:
K-State continues to lack a winning instinct on the road
This loss dropped Kansas State’s road record to 0-8 in conference play.
The Wildcats have been close in plenty of those games, but they simply couldn’t make winning plays in crunch time.
Case in point: K-State pulled within three points in the final moments against Colorado and then missed six straight shots with the game on the line.
Haggerty, despite scoring 25 points, was unable to rise to the occasion. He missed his two final shots of the night and was too eager to give the ball to his teammates in bad spots when he was unable to get good looks of his own over the final six possessions.
Colorado blocked three shots during that stretch.
Over the weekend, it briefly looked like K-State might throw a similar scare into Texas Tech on the road when it pulled within 10 in the second half. But the Red Raiders pulled away to win by 28.
The Wildcats once again put pressure on Colorado, but they only led for 3:11 of game action. They couldn’t surge ahead on the road when they had their chances.
K-State only has one road game remaining in the regular season. The Wildcats will need to beat Kansas at Allen Fieldhouse on March 7 to avoid an 0-9 road record in the Big 12.
The Wildcats struggled from beyond the arc
An obvious key to victory for K-State heading into this game was 3-point shooting.
Colorado entered the day with the worst perimeter defense in the conference. It is allowing opponents to make 36.4% of its shots from beyond the arc this season.
The Wildcats have lived and died from the 3-point line at times this season. With that in mind, it seemed like they held an advantage in that matchup. But things didn’t turn out that way.
K-State made just five of 23 shots from beyond the arc, with Nate Johnson (five) and David Castillo (four) combining to miss all nine of their attempts. If some of those looks had splashed through the net, perhaps this would have been a different game.
Elias Rapieque looked good in his return to action
After an 11-game absence, K-State big man Elias Rapieque was able to get on the court for the Wildcats against the Buffaloes.
Rapieque missed time with an undisclosed injury, but he was inserted back into the rotation when K-State needed reinforcements in the frontcourt. Dorin Buca missed this game with an ankle injury.
Rapieque, a 6-foot-9 and 225-pound forward from Germany, gave the Wildcats an instant lift in the second half. He scored five points, grabbed three rebounds and sent out one assist. That was a pleasant surprise. But he was unable to stay on the court after he took an inadvertent hand to the face in the second half.
K-State outscored Colorado by eight during the six minutes that he was on the floor.
If Rapieque can stay healthy, he could continue to help the Wildcats as the season winds down.