The Kansas State men’s basketball team will play West Virginia University on the road Saturday after losing to Kansas on Monday night.
K-State was stifled after the Jayhawks showed a zone defense for the majority of the second half after not being able to effectively guard junior Dean Wade.
“None,” head coach Bruce Weber said about how much the players had prepared for the zone coming into the matchup. “They haven’t played zone, and we’ve gone against [zone] the last three games and we carved it apart. We didn’t move the basketball and we didn’t ever have great rhythm.”
The Wildcats have still won five of their last seven games; both losses came to Kansas.
West Virginia on the other hand has been trending downwards lately after being demolished by the Iowa State Cyclones on Wednesday, 93-77.
K-State and West Virginia are tied at fourth in conference play going into this game; both of them are 5-4.
Last time the two teams played, the Mountaineers got the best of the Wildcats on New Year’s Day inside Bramlage Coliseum, 77-69.
In that game, Mountaineer freshman Teddy Allen carved up the Wildcats coming off the bench and provided 22 points for West Virginia, while sophomore Lamont West had 19 in the winning effort.
For K-State, sophomore Xavier Sneed had 20 points, and juniors Dean Wade and Barry Brown had 17 and 14, respectively.
The Wildcats still had junior Kamau Stokes in that game, but he was no real help to K-State’s offense, going 0-10 from the field. Stokes was cleared by medical staff to play against KU, but Weber held him out for cautionary reasons.
The Wildcats might see more zone Saturday, but with the way West Virginia plays, they will likely see a back-and-forth type of contest.
“We just have to move on from what happened and just focus on our defense,” Wade said after Monday’s loss. “We have to move on to the next play, and in this case, the next game, which is West Virginia.”
Kansas sits atop the Big 12 currently at 7-2, and it will be a tough climb for K-State to catch the Jayhawks after losing twice already to them this season. Texas Tech and the University of Oklahoma are in a tie for second right now at 6-3 after both teams narrowly won their weekday games.
The Wildcats and Mountaineers will tip off at 3 p.m. and can be seen on ESPN2.
