The most disappointing college basketball team in the country now faces a five-game stretch that will decide its season. The consequences extend much deeper.
So much is wrong with Kansas State. The Wildcats lack leadership, even with a three-year captain and preseason All-American. They lack togetherness, even with a well-respected coach who just last year was recognized nationally. They lack post presence, even with four bigs who average 6 feet 10 and 253 pounds.
Most of all, Kansas State lacks any apparent toughness, even with a reputation as one of the hardest teams in the country. Last year, the Wildcats called themselves Dobermans. This year, they’re far more domesticated.
This is a team on tilt, with coach Frank Martin saying, “We’ve got too much drama.” Senior guard Jacob Pullen saying, “We’ve just got to grow up.”
It’s stunning how quickly this all happened.
Top five nationally in the preseason, K-State must now play its way onto the NCAA Tournament bracket and back into the rankings after the new polls come out next week.
They’ve already lost five times — one fewer than all of last regular season — and stand 0-2 in a Big 12 conference they were supposed to win. Now come five games that the college basketball world will use to judge their talent, resiliency and potential.
Respond well, and nothing is out of reach. But continue to fail, and this could be the beginning of an awfully ugly ending.
Some of K-State’s struggles can be explained logically, starting with Pullen missing three games and Curtis Kelly six for receiving impermissible gifts in the form of giant discounts at a Dillard’s.
The Wildcats miss point guard Denis Clemente more than most expected — his energy and persistence and ability to allow Pullen to play off the ball standing as the most obvious difference from last year’s school-record 29 wins and run to the Elite Eight.
In hindsight, the K-State coaches failed in not parlaying their growing success into signing an elite point guard to replace Clemente.
K-State is soft inside, too, getting outrebounded by nine against undersized Colorado. The post players — Wally Judge and Freddy Asprilla in particular — were either oversold or are now underperforming.
But there’s something else missing here, something more disturbing. It’s the erosion of that street-tough identity created in Martin’s five years at K-State.
This is no longer a new-money program, and they no longer play with a desperate chase for success. Maybe that’s inevitable after a tournament run endeared them to a bigger audience, Pullen made the cover of Sports Illustrated, and any perceived disrespect turned into the highest expectations in program history.
These next five games will shape the narrative. Texas Tech might be the worst team in the league, and getting the Red Raiders at home Saturday gives K-State an opportunity to feel good again. After that, it’s at No. 15 Missouri on Monday, then at No. 14 Texas A&M, home against Baylor and at No. 3 Kansas.
Things are bad right now, but what if K-State is 2-6 halfway through the league season?
Blame will fall predominately on Pullen and Martin.
Pullen probably wishes he could take the words back, but when he said after the Colorado loss on Wednesday that he wouldn’t play if K-State made the NIT, it made questioning the team’s leadership not only easy but mandatory. Even the hint of abandoning the team is a can’t-do.
No matter what, Pullen will leave K-State as one of the most accomplished players in program history, but at the moment he’s writing a regrettable ending.
Martin wears it worst, because that’s what happens when you’re a millionaire college basketball coach. His unique bond with his players is one of the more compelling stories of the local sports scene, and it’s about to be tested in a way many of us thought would come — just not this soon.
Maybe this is the moment that so many whisper about, when the losing and the criticism and the self-doubt conspire to make Martin’s volume turn up and his players’ patience turn down.
There has always been talk from people in and out of college basketball that Martin’s hard-knocks style could last only so long. Reactions on all sides are different on the fun ride to national relevance than the miserable slide back down.
His teams have always played better when they felt doubted, so it would be in character to start winning now.
The alternative could get ugly. There’s a lot more than one season’s results depending on it.
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