Purple Wallflower at the Biggest Dance
Kansas State won 25 games this year. Winning merely one more would have been so much better. The Wildcats accomplished so much this season, battling through all kinds of injuries and adversity to get themselves a share of the Big 12 title, but losing your first game in the NCAA tournament always sours things. Losing as a number four seed in the first round is a slap in the face. Being the highest seed to lose in the first round stings. And losing in the first round in every tournament appearance under Bruce Weber except for last year’s Elite Eight run is more than just an asterisk.
It’s amplified because it’s the NCAA tournament, an event that can make seasons with just a couple of wins, and make otherwise great years seem like a disappointment. In each of the K-State’s championship seasons under Weber, what happened after picking up the hardware created a large “Yeah, but”. The ‘Cats fell to the team that they shared the title with in 2013, Kansas, for the third time in the Big 12 tournament and then flopped as a four seed against LaSalle despite playing in Kansas City. And of course this year lost in the semis of the Big 12 tournament before getting Anteaten Friday.
K-State was somewhat a victim of what they did well last year, that being able to win in the tournament despite their best player Dean Wade being out. Timing sucks when it’s a one game and your out event. Colgate played a spirited game Friday in their 15-2 matchup with Tennessee, despite losing the Patriot League’s player of the year in the first half because he got poked in the eye of all things. Kansas State watched Wade at his bounciest in the final game he would play, the final regular seasons game where they earned their championship, but learned soon after he had hurt his foot in the early portion of the game, but ignored it, adrenalin keeping him going.
In retrospect it was the wrong thing to do. Wade said he felt the injury in the fourth possession of the game. If he came right out, he might well have not injured it further, K-State likely could have won the game without him, but you can understand with all the time he has missed and a title to grab with his teammates that he would gut it out. He would end up playing 8 NCAA tournament minutes in the last two years of his career.
Losses create blame, and there was plenty to go around after Cal-Irivine sprung the 70-64 upset. Much was directed at Bruce Weber, and his decision to sit Brown for the final fourteen minutes of the half with two fouls was the wrong move. It is mostly the way that he does it, and the Wildcats did have the lead. But up by ten, an insertion of Brown back in for a few minutes might well have blown the game open, and it also looked bad that he DID play Cartier Diarra some in the first half with two fouls.
But Brown’s teammates didn’t have to miss their last eleven shots of the half, and Brown himself didn’t have to come out in the second half and look like a shell of himself. It’s easy to say that he lost all of his rhythm sitting, and he somewhat said that after the game. But the narrative could easily have been that a fresh Brown was a big factor if he had played better after the break.
In the end Kansas State’s mediocre offense was their undoing. All season long they had suffered scoring droughts like the six-minute goose egg at the end of the first half. They were the first Big 12 team ever to make the tournament while averaging less than 70 points, and their 64 points was the fifteenth time they had scored that many or less this season.
I have made this point so many times that anybody who has ever read or listened to me is rightfully tired of it, but the phrase “an NCAA tournament run” is so overblown. Teams are said to have made a “run” to the Sweet Sixteen. Sorry, it’s two hops. NEVER would it be called a run in any other circumstance or sport. Two baskets in a row, two wins in a row, two birdies in a row, two blackjack hands in a row….none of them are runs, but the point is clear. NCAA tournament wins are exponentially valued. Even one more for K-State would have been far more satisfying. Instead, dud, failure.
It can be played out the other way for Kansas. This is the team that ended the streak, this is the group that is a .500 squad away from Allen Field House, and a team that got run out of the gym in the game that officially sealed the streaks end, and in the Big 12 tournament title game. But one more win and they will have made their “Sweet Sixteen run”, and their season will be perceived as infinitely more successful than K-State’s. You can decide if it’s fair or not, but it will be true.
Interestingly, if the Jayhawks lose, the fans will share something with their K-State brethren…a bit of apathy. I was out and about after the ‘Cats loss yesterday. There really wasn’t that much heartache. Maybe it was due to the Wade injury, likely last year’s Elite Eight appearance created some cover fire. And from the Jayhawk perspective, this appears to be a complete house money situation. Expectations are not high, Kansas is the underdog. Yes, an appearance here in Kansas City would be great, but will be seen as a bonus, not the birthright that it ordinarily is.
It’s the good and bad of the NCAA tournament. Likely about ten percent of people who filled out brackets knew who the hell Ja Morant was, now he’s Steph Curry. Other folk heroes will be created by the hour. We will find someone else’s version of Sister Jean.
But the other side of it is what the Wildcats get to experience, especially when there are many seniors involved. The thud of disappointment. No dancing. Just towels over their heads, and the quiet thought that someday they will look back at the good times.
Just not right now.