For nearly 20 years — before Bob Huggins, Michael Beasley and Bill Walker arrived in Manhattan, KS — nobody viewed Kansas State as a serious basketball program. Long forgotten were the 4 Final Fours, 11 Elite Eights, 16 Sweet Sixteens, 19 Conference Championships, 36 All Americans and 48 NBA Draft picks of years past. K-State had been an afterthought nationally and even by some of the Wildcat Nation.
K-State represents a program that Street and Smith named the 22nd best college basketball program of all time. And yet, it had slipped past the point of oblivion and lay dormant for nearly 20 years, a perennial Big 12 Conference bottom feeder. Something dramatic had to take place to put them back into the nation’s spotlight.
After Huggins, Beasley and Walker, K-State was at least back on the map. But entering this season the Wildcats were still only picked 4th in the Big 12.
The Wildcats rose from the ground up into the nation’s spotlight after a win over then-No. 1 Texas. K-State has earned the identity of being a tough, physical team that mirrors head coach Frank Martin. After finishing 2nd to Kansas in conference, earning the program’s highest NCAA Tournament seed ever, and advancing to the Sweet 16 for the first time since 1988, many around the nation view K-State as a legitimate Final Four contender once again.
Kansas State has emerged as a favorite to take the West Region of the NCAA Tournament. But who will K-State have to beat to advance further in the tournament and continue the Wildcat reprise? Here’s our look at Xavier and other possible opponents should they continue their march to the Final Four.
Xavier
Talk about a hyped program coming into the 2009-10 college basketball season. Guard Jordan Crawford was and still is one of the most watched players in college basketball, seeing that he dunked on LeBron James this past summer.
Responding to his high expectations, Crawford led the Musketeers into the Sweet 16 for the third straight year. Xavier has been an amazing home team. The Musketeers finished the season with a 25-8 overall record, none of the losses coming on their home court. But one of those road losses was yielded to Kansas State in Manhattan.
Kansas State was just too much defensively for Xavier as they held the high powered offense to just 56 points. That’s 23 points under their season average and is a season low.
No doubt, this isn’t the same Xavier team from December so it is doubtful that the Wildcats will manhandle the Musketeers like they did in the last meeting, winning by double-digits.
K-State will square off against the Musketeers tomorrow night in Salt Lake City. The game tips off around around 8:40 PM.
Butler
Talk about saving the NCAA Tournament from the upset-minded Murray State Racers in the final seconds.
But that’s about all the Bulldogs have going for them. The Bulldogs are not a very strong rebounding team, and in the past the Wildcats always win when they’re dominating the glass.
In addition, the Bulldogs are not a great three-point shooting team which allows Kansas State’s zone to work wonders on the inside. This would cause trouble for Butler, seeing that their front-court players are not used to the physicality of a defense like K-State brings to the table.
If these two were to play, the game could be close until the last ten minutes of the ballgame.
Syracuse
Syracuse is the No. 1 seed in the West Region and is equipped with one of the deadliest zones college basketball has seen in a while. With Andy Rautins harassing the ball-handler the Orange and head coach Jim Boeheim has a lot of success with their tough zone defense.
However, Kansas State has had success against zones plenty of times this season.
They’ve done it by passing the ball around and working for the open shot. This is something Kansas State does very well. Another plus for the Wildcats, when Syracuse is out-rebounded on the offensive glass it usually results in a loss.
Kansas State is one of the better teams in the nation on the offensive glass. In fact, the Wildcats are the No. 4 team in all of college basketball, ripping down 15.2 a game.
Syracuse certainly would be a tough match-up for Kansas State, but this is one that could go either way. Due to the injury of Syracuse’s center Arinze Onuaku, the Wildcats could hold a slight edge.
Time will tell if the Wildcats will make it to their first Final Four since 1964. First, they must take care of business and beat an extremely tough Xavier team on Thursday night.
