From The Couch – K-State Basketball Slams Nebraska In Kansas City
The K-State men’s basketball team moved to 10-1 on the season with a convincing 71-56 victory over Fred Hoiberg and the Nebraska Cornhuskers in front of over 13,000 mostly Wildcat fans at the T-Mobile Center in Kansas City last night. Keyontae Johnson led the way for K-State with 23 points, despite being double-teamed most of the first half. It’s exciting watching this team versus what we witnessed during the Bruce Weber era. They play strong defense and get out and run on offense with lots of fast breaks and high-flying dunks. Definitely worth the price of admission. Speaking of fun, Jerome Tang was even doing the Wabash at half-court at the end of the game. He has embraced everything K-State and his positive energy is infectious.
Here are some of the game highlights and quotes of note from the post-game presser.
JM: Jerome Tang went seven deep last night and Desi Sills had five points off the bench.
JM: This was the first of many breakaway dunks in the game.
JM: Keyontae Johnson has the most pure basketball talent on this team. He might be the smoothest K-State player since Michael Beasley. It looks like the game comes easily to him.
JM: This lob by Marquis Nowell and dunk by David N’Guessan gave K-State a 13 point lead at halftime.
JM: This three pointer by Keyontae Johnson gave K-State a 16 point lead. Johnson rarely misses that corner three.
JM: K-State played some suffocating defense in this game, forcing Nebraska into shot clock violations and hurried shots as the shot clock was winding down.
JM: Is this guy having fun or what?
“I was blown away by our fans’ support. The staff they came back in, I think it was after the first warmup period, and Dream was like, ‘coach, the energy out there is different. It’s like an NCAA Tournament game, it’s buzzing.’”…Head coach Jerome Tang, post-game
JM: I was there and the atmosphere did have a big game feel to it. I think I’ve been to all of these Wildcat Classic games and the energy around this basketball program is just different. In a good way.
“The couple guys I think as we go along, if I couldn’t get them to just get a little bit more buying, right, we can have a deeper rotation than we have right now. And we’re going to need it for the Big 12 but a lot of dudes, they’re fun to coach and fun to watch and compete out there.”...Jerome Tang, post-game
JM: I agree that only going seven deep probably isn’t going to get it done in the Big 12. Hope he can get buy-in from a couple more guys.
“Oh yeah, it was very special. Just seeing my teammates, showing how much they care about me and just recognizing that that day for me was a big day. So it was called a rebirth day from the day I had collapsed, I think that’s why everybody thought it was my birthday.”…Keyontae Johnson, post-game
JM: It’s been a little over two years since Johnson collapsed during a game against Florida State. He calls it his “rebirth day.” He celebrated by scoring 23 points, grabbing 11 rebounds, adding two assists and getting four steals. I’m sure glad K-State has him.
K-State wraps up non-conference play on Wednesday at home against Radford at 1:30. I looked up the game time in three separate places to make sure it was right, and that appears to be the case. I’m not sure why they would play at 1:30 in the afternoon on a Wednesday, but try to catch it if you can.
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