From The Couch – K-State Basketball Beats California To Remain Unbeaten
K-State basketball is fun again. Don’t sleep on this team. They might be pretty good. Heck, they’re already pretty good. The Wildcats traveled to California last night and beat the Bears 63 to 54 after getting off to a 20-point lead in the first half of the game. Cal made a second half run to cut the lead to one before Marquis Nowell hit on a three-pointer while being fouled. He made the free throw to put the Wildcats back up by five points. It was the key sequence in the game, as the Wildcats were able to suppress any additional California rallies.
Here’s some notes, quotes, and highlights from K-State’s big victory…
“We wanted to play a road game – not a neutral site game – but a road game, so we could experience some adversity. You never want to go through what we went through in the second half, but it’s the only way you learn and get better. I thought the last game (vs. UTRGV) we only played about 17 minutes of what we are capable of and today I thought we were really good in the first half until the last possession. We ended the game very well, the last 4 to 6 minutes of the second half, so we put together 24 to 25 minutes of good solid basketball. We are building and heading in the right direction.”…Jerome Tang, post-game
JM: The Wildcats looked like a surefire NCAA tournament team in the first half. They couldn’t keep that momentum going in the second half, as they slowly let California back in the game. Hey, you see this all the time. One team gets out to a huge lead, gets lazy, and the other team goes on a run to get back in it. Usually the team making the comeback runs out of steam, and that’s exactly what happened last night. That, and a huge play by Marquis Nowell…
“This is great team win. A great road win. We battled through adversity when they went on their run. But that last 5 minutes, we call that ‘the 5 to grind’ and we tried to get as many stops as possible. We came together, talked it out and decided what we needed to do to win.”…Guard Marquis Nowell, post-game
JM: Nowell was both good and bad in the game, but he did enough good to push this K-State team to victory. Jerome Tang pulled Nowell from the game with about two minutes left after a sequence of bad turnovers and shot selection and he never returned. Tang gave him the stink eye as Nowell walked by him on the bench. From what I could tell, benching him in a key part of the game got the point across, as I didn’t see Tang say anything to him.
“I thought our speed and quickness affected them. Also, when you play defense in front of your own bench (in the first half) and the whole team is calling out their action and helping on that end, while in the second half, you’re away from the bench so now they have to talk to each and for each other, so there is always a difference. I thought our bench did a great job of relaying information and the guys are really locked into what they are doing.”…Jerome Tang, post-game
JM: This is an interesting point and observation by Tang that I don’t often hear coaches talk about. Perhaps the switching of direction at halftime had a lot to do with the two very different halves of basketball that we saw.
“I just really thank my team for giving me the ball and believing in me late in the game.”…Forward Keyontae Johnson, post-game
JM: Johnson is a stud. He had 16 points and nine rebounds in the game and had a couple of key buckets. If he continues playing this well and at this trajectory, he is a contender to make the all-Big 12 first team at the end of the season.
JM: This game was broadcast on the PAC 12 Network, so many people couldn’t watch it. I had to sign up for a free trial of FuboTV in order to watch the game, which I promptly canceled right when the game was over. The broadcast mistakenly thought assistant coach Kevin Sutton was Jerome Tang for the entire first half. The first time they showed the graphic above, they referred to him as “Jerome Yang.” Then a few minutes later they realized their typo and went back with the correct spelling, but showed Kevin Sutton again. About halfway through the first half, when the announcers were talking about Jerome Tang, the video showed Sutton yet again. While I think this is mostly funny, it’s pretty sad that whoever was working this game for the PAC 12 Network didn’t even make the effort to figure out who the real Jerome Tang is!
JM: This play from Marquis Nowell to Nae’Qwan Tomlin is SportsCenter Top 10 material. Does ESPN still do that? Anyway, I jumped off the couch screaming after this play put K-State ahead by 15 points in the game. It’s so good, would you like to see it from another angle? Why not?
JM: Here are some more highlights from the game…
JM: K-State has six days off before their next game against Kansas City next Thursday at 5:30 in Bramlage Coliseum. If this basketball team hasn’t been on your radar, you may want to check them out. They’re fun to watch.
Reggie Blackwell and Joe Mathieu have a podcast! Check it out at the links below!
https://bleav.com/shows/bleav-in-k-state/
Listen on Apple Podcasts:
Listen on Spotify:
Contact us at:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kstatejoe
Twitter
Joe: https://twitter.com/joemathieu
Reggie: https://twitter.com/ReggieRbsports
Check out The Reggie Blackwell Show on 590 The Fan in St. Louis.
