The Cats secure a third place finish in the US Virgin Islands
For a while in the first half, it looked as though we may be on our way to a listless, soulless reprise of last evening’s listless, soulless loss to Liberty, but the Kansas State Wildcats made a few shots late in the first half, and steadily pulled away in the second half to take down the Longwood Lancers, 80-64.
Longwood had a lead mid-way through the first stanza, and were within a bucket nearly the entirety of the half, until a quick barrage of buckets late put K-State up by 8 at the half, 44-36. Most of the half was recognizable if you watched yesterday’s contest – a combination of bad offense, bad shot decisions, suspect defense, and 9 turnovers to boot kept the Lancers within striking distance, despite the Cats connecting at almost 60% from behind the arc.
K-State came out and stretched a static lead to 12, before another run via a couple of runouts and some threes mixed in pushed the lead out to 21 and effectively put it away. Longwood chipped it back to a 16-point deficit, but wouldn’t really challenge the entire second half.
Notably, Longwood’s arguably two best players – Michael Christmas and KJ McClurg, – were held to the grand total of 3 points (an early 3 by McClurg).
Player Of The Game
We had another rare Coleman Hawkins sighting, who finished with 19 points, 10 boards, and 5 dimes. But, and that’s a BIG BUT – Hawkins was 5-7 from behind the arc, which is a rate we simply can’t count on.
Brendan Hausen finished with 16 points, going 3-4 from 3. David N’Guessan went for 10 and 4, and Dug McDaniel came off the bench again for 11 points and 6 dishes.
Longwood’s Kyrell Luc finished with 15 points, 4 assists, and 3 boards.
Notables
K-State shot 55% from three (11-20), while Longwood only connected at 13.3% (2-15). K-State lost the turnover battle (18-13) and the FT battle (3-5 from the stripe, vs Longwood’s 14-19). The Cats did outrebound the Lancers 36-24, however.
Three In The Key
- Fools’ Gold. The problems readily apparent in the previous game against Liberty were obvious again tonight. The half-court offense sucks, and transition defense is as porous as a screen door. While both of these things are tied directly to team chemistry and predictability, you’d be forgiven to just be tired of and done with hearing about the roster turnover. Also, it’s really hard to count on shooting more than 50% from 3 reliably.
- Need To Go Uptempo. It’s pretty clear that we need to get out and push the ball, even on made buckets. There is zero orchestration in the halfcourt, so if we need our guys to create, they’re gonna need to do it on the run.
- Need To [gasp] Shoot Fewer Threes. We scored way more efficiently not taking half of our shots from deep. Especially Hauser, who still scored 16 points, despite only shooting 4 from long range.
Next Up
Back at home, K-State takes on Arkansas Pine Bluff next Sunday (12/1) at 1:00p.