The Kansas State Wildcats started sloppy, but came out with the win tonight against the Washburn Ichabods with a final score of 65-55.
Senior forward Makol Mawien struggled against Emporia State last Friday night, however, tonight was much different. Mawien was just shy of a double-double with 16 points and 9 rebounds.
“My teammates were great. They gave me the ball, and I went to work,” Mawien said.
If Mawien can stay out of foul trouble, and get going early, the Wildcats will have no trouble in the front court.
Mawien was not the only big man that showed some promise, freshman forward Montavious Murphy really came to play racking up 11 points and 5 rebounds for the Wildcats.
“I thought [Murphy] was good,” head coach Bruce Weber said. “He’s got to make those layups. If he can get a couple of those down he’ll be doing pretty well.”
Despite some good offensive efforts, the Wildcats had a horrific time keeping the ball in their own hands. The ichabods forced 21 turnovers, which is nearly double the amount of turnovers K-State had last Friday night against Emporia State.
What is interesting is neither Weber nor senior forward Xavier Sneed had much concern on the turnover troubles, just giving a lot of credit to the way that Washburn prepared.
“Their guys did a great job scouting, they got coaches that have been in the Big 12, we just dribble penetrate too much from time to time and got too deep, and lost the ball,” said Sneed.
Weber said he was also impressed with the way Washburn’s defense played.
“We need to do a better job, they kind of got us flying around, kickin it, swinging it, and shooting those threes”.
Shooting threes was something that the Ichabods had going for them. Despite shooting 45 threes, they only connected on 14 of them which still attributes to 42 of their 55 points.
Junior Ichabod Guard Tyler Gieman as well as Senior Guard Kevin Briggs combined for 29 points, shooting 9-18 from three-point land.
Head Coach Brett Ballard was pleased to see his guys play hard and give the Wildcats a run for their money.
“I’m proud of our guys, I thought we came in and played hard. You know you came into these exhibition games, and I think there’s two objectives. Obviously we want our team to get better, compete and learn from this one…but obviously we also understand the other side of it and were trying to help K-State prepare for their season,” Ballard said.
The Kansas State Wildcats will be back in Bramlage Coliseum next Tuesday, November 5th at 7 p.m. officially kicking off their season against the Bison of North Dakota State.
