How does a team struggling to make the NCAA Tournament, fresh off of an emotional loss at Colorado, beat the newly crowned #1 team in the country? How does Kansas State win against Kansas last night by 16 after having been blown away, by KU, by 24 last month?
Let's break it down:
- Jacob Pullen. No surprise, the first reason listed has to be the 38 points posted by Pullen, the emotional leader of Kansas State and the guy who's had the up-and-down season, both on and off the court. Pullen played like the fearless kid from Chicago who had a coming out party nationally during last year's NCAA Tournament run to the Elite Eight. He played like the guy many expected to contend for first-team All-American honors this year.
- Frank Martin. Martin's been taking shots all season for these under-achieving Wildcats. Last night, Martin had his kids ready to play--not an easy task on the heels of the gut-wrenching loss to Colorado and the drama surrounding Curtis "is he on or off the team" Kelly. Martin got his team to take control early, be aggressive, and throw the first punch--figuratively, of course. KU looked stunned and never recovered.
- Jordan Henriquez-Roberts. The kid who had no points in Lawrence had the following line: 5 of 7 from the field in 22 minutes, coupled with 5 rebounds and a blocked shot.
- Immaturity. Kansas has struggled all season with immaturity--the bonehead play, the intentional foul, the technical for woofing, coupled with a dangerous penchant for turning the ball over. All the signs of this immaturity were on full display last night.
- Toughness. A team who has had few games where they played tough reverted back to the 2009-2010 version of toughness. Last night's Wildcats again resembled last year's version--they outrebounded Kansas 29-23 and forced the nation's best shooting team into a 44% performance from the field. On January 29, when these teams last played, KU outrebounded the 'Cats 37-31 and forced K-State into 33.8% shooting while making 61.8% of their own shots.
- Thomas Robinson. Robinson is Kansas' energy guy. Unfortunately for KU, he was sitting in street clothes on the bench due to his knee injury.
These are the reasons Kansas State beat Kansas. Yeah, the crowd was juiced but, guess what--it's been juiced for every other Kansas game in Bramlage Coliseum and this is only the second time the Wildcats have salvaged a win. No, this loss was about Kansas regressing back to the form they displayed too often in the non-conference season and forgetting what had delivered six straight conference wins by an average margin of 18.3 points. The Jayhawks lost their poise, they didn't move the ball crisply, they didn't value every possession and they weren't tough. Unfortunately, they ran into an opponent who played to the potential expected of them, and who decided, at least on this one night, to play the brand of basketball which Frank Martin expects.
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