Instant takeaways: Kansas State races past Cleveland State

Focus and intensity

To be honest, I think Kansas State was lacking focus and intensity Tuesday night versus New Orleans. K-State fell behind by 10 points early and waited until halfway through the first half to really bring the energy. The Wildcats brought the energy early Saturday afternoon versus Cleveland State. Kansas State raced out to a 10-2 lead in the first three minutes highlighted by a four-point play by Brendan Hausen.

While the intensity was better all around, there were still some lapses of focus. Turnovers were a major plague in the first 20 minutes with K-State equalling its team total of nine turnovers from Tuesday night in the first half Saturday. Defensive rebounding was also an issue for the Wildcats in the first half with the Vikings hauling in 10 offensive rebounds leading to eight second chance points.

For the most part, the second half focus and intensity was better in terms of sloppy mistakes. Kansas State grew the lead out to a 23 point game. However, sloppy turnovers returned and led to a quick Cleveland State run to cut the lead down to 15 with 8:23 to go. The quick run by the Vikings was the only stretch of bad play of the entire second half for the Wildcats until garbage time.

Improvement from game one to two

Where Kansas State really shined Saturday afternoon was defensively. Their length really bothered Cleveland State and it was tough for the Vikings to even get shots off on some possessions. Kansas State forced three shot clock violations in the first nine minutes of the game. The biggest improvement seemed to be in connectivity defensively. Rotations were more crisp Saturday and on-ball defense was much better. K-State also seemed to be more locked into the scouting report and backing off of non-shooters for the Vikings.

A Kansas State adjustment

After shooting 28 three pointers in the exhibition and 34 versus New Orleans, Kansas State really seemed to make an adjustment versus Cleveland State. The Wildcats made a more conceded effort to get the ball in the paint. The result was K-State getting to the free throw line at a high clip Saturday afternoon. Paint points and points off of drives were a major factor for the Kansas State offense. Coleman Hawkins in particular was impressive on drives and drawing contact. He lived at the free throw line and really took what the Vikings gave him. Cleveland State was playing no help on Hausen and Hawkins kept getting to the rim going to the same side as Hausen resulting in one-on-one opportunities. Getting to the rim early and often led to 26 free throws for Kansas State. However, you would like the Wildcats to be more efficient from the charity stripe in the future. Under 60% of the free throws were made by Kansas State.

Workman like

Kansas State’s win over Cleveland State may not blow you away. However, the game was never really all that competitive and K-State took control early and never looked back. It is an impressive performance after the Wildcats really struggled in the early non-conference play last season. Winning games handily in this era of college basketball and analytics is important.

Jerome Tang‘s team is now 2-0 and doing what they are supposed to be doing in the buy games.