Kansas State Preparing For Challenge Of Cincinnati's Defense
The Kansas State Wildcats head back home to Manhattan to hopefully end their three-game losing streak.
The road ahead doesn't get much easier, though. They start their conference play against a Cincinnati Bearcats team boasting the country's eighth-best scoring defense.
The last top-ranked defense the Wildcats faced was Drake, who they struggled against offensively. Kansas State made a massive comeback in the second half but could not close it out with late turnovers and an inability to score outside free throws.
Cincinnati provides that same obstacle, allowing just 58.5 points/game. The Wildcats rank near the bottom of the conference in scoring (78.1) and dead last in rebounding (35.5).
To reciprocate this, they need bigger efforts from star players like Coleman Hawkins and Brendan Hausen, who have been relatively inconsistent the last three games. Jerome Tang said this instability trend needs to end for K-State to be successful again.
"[Consistency] is what we haven't been able to get, whether at practice or in games," Tang said in the Wichita State postgame. "Buddy goes for 20 tonight, but then we have other guys who don't play up to what we expect from them. As a coach, it's hard to figure out what to do if you don't what you're gonna get from each guy every night. So we have to figure out how can we get the same production from each guy every night, rather than guessing."
Kansas State hosts the Bearcats tomorrow night at Bramlage Coliseum.
Jayden Armant is a graduate of the Howard University School of Communications and a contributor to Kansas State Wildcats on SI. He can be reached at jaydenshome14@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter @jaydenarmant.
Jayden is a journalism school graduate of Howard University. He was the 2024 recipient of the Terez Paylor scholarship award. He previously worked at the Orlando Sentinel.