The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly

The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly

It’s time for a mid-season look at K-State basketball with a current version of the good, the bad, and the ugly! It’s been a long and very difficult season for the Wildcats.  They are currently 5-11 overall and 1-7 in the Big 12. Let’s dig in.

THE GOOD

Everyone on the roster should be back and ready to go for the game against Baylor in Waco on Wednesday night.  Guard Nijel Pack has been out for a little over two weeks due to Covid protocols and assuming everyone stays healthy in the next 24 hours they will have a full roster available for the first time in a long time.  Montavious Murphy is out for the season because of knee surgery, but other than that every player that started the season will be available to try to beat the Baylor Bears.

THE BAD

K-State had 28 turnovers and lost 69-47 to the West Virginia Mountaineers on Saturday.  This was their sixth loss in a row and during that stretch, they’ve lost by an average of 16 points.  

THE UGLY

Sometimes you can watch a bad team play and find some positives.  For example, a team may struggle offensively but play great man-to-man defense.  They may be a bad shooting team but may be good at rebounding the ball.  They may have a bad two-point shooting percentage but have a couple of great three-point specialists.  You get the point.  Unfortunately, there is not much, if anything, positive that this K-State team is doing right now.

The Big 12 Conference tracks 21 basketball team statistical categories.  K-State ranks 8th, 9th, or 10th in the league in 18 of those 21 categories.  The futility seen here is somewhat mind-boggling:

Kansas State is dead last in the Big 12 in scoring, averaging 62.4 points per game.

They are also dead last in the Big 12 in scoring margin, at minus 9.2 points per game.

They are also dead last in the Big 12 in field goal percentage at 41.5%.

If that’s not bad enough, they are also dead last in the Big 12 in field goal percentage defense at 48%.

Three-point field goals?  Dead last at 29.2%.

Free throw percentage?  Ninth at 68%.

Steals?  Dead last at 5.5 steals per game.

Blocked shots?  Dead last at 1.5 blocks per game. 

The three categories in which they are not 8th, 9th, or 10th?  They are seventh in the league in assists at 13.5 per game, seventh in offensive rebounds, and second in defensive rebounds, which tracks the number of rebounds your opponent gets on average.  I guess since their defense is so porous that there aren’t many rebounds to be had by the opposition.  A pretty high percentage of opposition shots are going in.

The bottom line is that I can’t tell you what Kansas State is good at, because there isn’t anything they’re good at right now.  All K-State fans can do is hope things improve for this “young” and “inexperienced” team.

3 thoughts on “The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly

  1. I'm fairly confident he'll get at least another year. They're not going to make a change during a Covid season unless there are a few more games like the one last night.

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