MANHATTAN, Kan. — Everyone in the Big 12, with the obvious exception of those in Lawrence, are rooting for the damn streak to end.
Bill Self, as he tends to do, is figuring things out and has the Jayhawks lurking as they go for Big 12 championship No. 15. While Kansas was blowing out West Virginia on Saturday, two of the teams with the best shots to kill the streak faced off 100 miles to the west. Kansas State entered with a two-game lead, and the grit and experience that was starting to make some folks believe the Wildcats were finally the team that wouldn’t just crumble down the stretch like so many other contenders before.
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Iowa State was the group that made us doubt Kansas in the first place, running the Jayhawks off the court back on Jan. 5 at Hilton Coliseum. The Cyclones have the most talent in this league, and on some nights, they look like the best team. Then there are days like Feb. 9, when they treated defense like a chore and lost at home to TCU, 92-83, putting them two games behind Kansas State in the loss column.
Iowa State coach Steve Prohm realized it was one of those times in a season when a team is at a pivotal point, and a trip to Manhattan could either spring his Cyclones toward a great finish or loosen the screws. So in the days leading up to the game, Prohm put together a list, a way to point out the Jekyll and Hyde to his talented roster.
“Team A,” he told his players, “runs the floor, shares the ball, spaces the floor, competes on D, plays with toughness and effort, executes the game plan and plays selfless, plays for each other, focused at timeouts and huddles.”
Those Cyclones ran Kansas off the floor in Ames, are the only team to win at Texas Tech and have the most unguardable offense in the Big 12.
“Team B,” Prohm read from his phone, “drinks the Kool-Aid, reads the press clippings, not as dialed in to the scouting report, may not get enough extra shots on the day of the game, let’s struggles on one end affect play on the other and doesn’t compete with anywhere near the effort or execution it takes to win at this level.
“Team A is really good! Team B can get humbled.”
The A-team showed up to Bramlage Coliseum, winning 78-64 and making a jumbled mess of the conference standings. With three weeks to play, the Wildcats (9-3) still hold a one-game lead in the loss column over KU (9-4), Texas Tech (9-4) and the Cyclones (8-4).
There’s just one issue for K-State. Well, two actually: senior star forward Dean Wade limped to the end of the bench with 9:18 remaining and left Bramlage Coliseum with a boot on his right foot, the same foot that forced him to miss most of the NCAA Tournament last year and held him out of six games earlier this season.
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The Wildcats, remember, made the Elite Eight without him a year ago, but that’s where issue No. 2 comes in. They’re also without Cartier Diarra, who had surgery on his left ring finger on Tuesday. (He shoots lefty, so it’ll be tough to rush him back.) Coach Bruce Weber already had a short rotation, relying heavily on his top six, so now the Wildcats could be without two of those guys for who knows how long.
“We didn’t have enough players for practice on Thursday,” Weber said. “You’ve got pneumonia, you’ve got bronchitis, you’ve got feet, you’ve got hands…”
You’ve got problems.
The schedule breaks right for the Wildcats, as they play the league’s worst two teams (West Virginia, Oklahoma State) next before traveling to KU in eight days for Big Monday. Barry Brown Jr., who scored 23 points against the Cyclones, should be able to will them to wins in the the first two. There’s no reason to rush Wade back for those games, and ideally he’ll be able to return for the KU game.
The Cyclones had their own injury issues early in the season when leading returning scorer Lindell Wigginton missed 10 games with a foot injury, and sophomore big man Cameron Lard missed seven games because of suspension and then two more with an ankle injury. Prohm said on Saturday that this is as healthy as his team has been all year, and that means he essentially has seven starters. Wigginton and Lard, Iowa State’s best two players a year ago, both come off the bench.
Wigginton scored 23 points on 7-of-9 shooting against the Wildcats and has started to live up to the hype he built for himself after an impressive freshman season. He’s averaging 17 points and making 51.6 percent of his 3s over the last six games. He was shooting just 31.9 percent from deep before his current hot streak. Lard is also coming around, and he scored eight points on 4-of-4 shooting against K-State. The other star for the Cyclones on this day was freshman Talen Horton-Tucker, who buried 6 of 9 3s and scored 23 points.
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Wigginton and Horton-Tucker are the best two NBA prospects on the roster and great scorers. Leading scorer Marial Shayok, who went for 13 points and 13 rebounds against KSU, can also get his own just about whenever he wants it. The issue the Cyclones run into is those three can get sticky fingers. That’s when the B-team shows up.
What makes the Cyclones — or the A-team — so dangerous is Prohm has four playmakers on the court at all times, and five shooters when starting big man Michael Jacobson is on the floor. When the ball is moving and they’re making shots, it puts defenses in such a bind they look silly.
K-State, for instance, has one of the best and most disciplined defenses in the country. But the Cyclones were stroking it on Saturday — they made 14 of 24 from deep — so when they ran ball-screen action and spaced the floor with shooters, the Wildcats gave up some easy baskets inside because they were so worried about the outside shooters.
“You’ve got to trust your defense,” Weber said. “You’ve got to trust we’re pretty sound defensively. The coaches do a great job scouting. They got us strung out a little bit, and that’s what they’re good at — dribble-drive. They got a lot of weapons. They spread you out.”
Weber was disappointed because his help-side defenders were not tagging the rollers, but it’s understandable why. In the video below, the Cats were more sound in their coverage. Xavier Sneed stays in help position long enough to allow Makol Mawien to recover to the screener (Lard), but Wigginton runs into Sneed on the ball reversal — almost like an illegal pick route in football — and that sets up Horton-Tucker for an open 3.
“We worked on that all week of filling up and trying to get that shot right there,” Prohm said. “It was good to see them execute that late.”
Watch the video again and focus on Wigginton as the shot goes up and then through the rim. He’s as pumped about the screen and Horton-Tucker burying the shot even more so than if he took the shot himself. That’s the selflessness of Team A.
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Of course, there were other huge shots that were not the result of team ball — like a step-back 3 from Horton-Tucker from well beyond the 3-point line — and those shots are simply the result of ridiculous talent. The ability to hit those shots when a possession goes awry also makes the Cyclones dangerous.
Having the confidence to take and make those shots is something Prohm wants and why it’s sometimes difficult to preach selflessness and confidence. “People watch our team play and we want to be very good offensively, but I think one of the things that make you good offensively is if your kids are second-guessing themselves what’s a good shot and what’s a bad shot,” Prohm said. “I’ll let them know in my way, but eventually they’ll start saying, ‘Hey, that’s my fault. My bad on that shot.’ But if they’re always thinking good shot-bad shot, then they don’t go 6-for-9.”
And when they, or rather, Horton-Tucker and Wigginton, shoot like this and the Cyclones are on their A-game, no team in the Big 12 can touch them. Their best is the best.
That’s why Prohm should have left Bramlage on Saturday with a feeling that his team could be the one to end KU’s streak. But when asked if he believes his Cyclones have a shot to win this thing, Prohm replied, “I don’t know. It’s just going to be …” His voice trailed off, reluctant to make any declarations.
“Our thing is more about experience,” he said, “and learning how, when we’re not making shots, being able to play through that.”
The team that has that experience and plays with more maturity than anyone else in the league is K-State. “They can win on bad offensive nights,” Prohm said.
But can the Wildcats win without Wade? They’re 8-1 with him in league games and 1-2 without him, the one victory a game in which they rallied from a 21-point, second-half deficit at home against West Virginia.
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So, yeah, K-State’s loss of Wade could be everyone else’s gain. Hopefully, he returns soon, because no one wants to see a championship lost through an injury.
The best team should win. And the good news for Iowa State? Team A could be the one.
(Photo of Iowa State’s Cameron Lard: Scott Winters/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
