Males’s basketball defeats California, Wildcat’s second-straight win

Kansas State males’s basketball advances to 2-0 after defeating California 63-54, with coach Jerome Tang changing into the fourth consecutive first-year head coach to win their first highway recreation.

The primary 9 minutes noticed pretty even play. Each defenses took over for a lot of early play till the Wildcats went on an 11-point run. The burst allowed the Wildcats to achieve a 15-point lead with 3 minutes remaining within the half. This lead can be held by Okay-State all through the remainder of the sport.

California made sizable runs, creating strain on the Wildcats offense to provide; nevertheless, senior ahead Keyontae Johnson and senior guard Marquise Nowell made giant impacts in offensive scoring and defensive rebounding.

California pushed again within the second half, occurring an 11-point scoring run up till the ultimate 5 minutes. Nowell broke the run and capitalized with a 4-point play to push the Wildcats out on an 8-point run, resulting in their eventual victory.

Johnson made his presence identified, main the workforce in each factors (16) and rebounds (9). Nowell additionally had a productive day with 13 factors and 7 assists.

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“We wished to play a highway recreation — not a impartial website recreation — however a highway recreation,” Tang mentioned after the sport. “So we might expertise some adversity. You by no means need to undergo what we went via within the second half, however it’s the one means you study and get higher. I believed the final recreation [vs. UTRGV] we solely performed about 17 minutes of what we’re able to and in the present day I believed we had been actually good within the first half till the final possession.”

The second half was a check for the Okay-State offense. Though they didn’t put up the very best statistical numbers, they rallied and had been in a position to push via with a win.

“It is a nice workforce win. A terrific highway win.” Tang mentioned. “We battled via adversity after they went on their run. However that final 5 minutes, we name that ‘the 5 to grind’ and we tried to get as many stops as attainable. We got here collectively, talked it out, and determined what we would have liked to do to win.”

The Wildcats will return to Manhattan for his or her subsequent match at 5:30 p.m. on Thursday, Nov. 17, in Bramlage Coliseum to play in opposition to the 0-2 College of Missouri-Kansas Metropolis Roos.