Wildcats’ Offensive Struggles in Lawrence Continue
By Cole Manbeck I’m not going to spend much time breaking down Kansas State’s 68-57 loss Saturday in Allen Fieldhouse. Let’s just take a quick look at a few numbers from the loss in Lawrence:
- K-State had only three players score in the first 27 minutes and 43 seconds of play on Saturday. In that 27:43 time frame, players not named Marcus Foster or Thomas Gipson had combined for four points on 1-of-19 shooting.
- Gipson made five of his first nine field-goal attempts. The rest of the team was a combined 3-of-29 (10 percent) from the floor over the first 23 minutes of play.
- KU started the game 9-of-14 from the floor, while K-State began the game 1-of-12 from the field.. After the Jayhawks’ 9-of-14 start, they went 17-of-44 (38.6 percent) the rest of the way. KU entered the game making 43.6 percent of its shots on the season. The Jayhawks shot 45 percent overall against the Wildcats, and when you factor in KU being at home, K-State’s defense was decent for the most part.
- If you wanted to take a positive away from Saturday, it was K-State’s seven turnovers in the game. However, before you feel great about that number, note that KU is 289th in the country in turnover rate on defense. The Jayhawks force a turnover on less than 17 percent of the opponents’ possessions. K-State turned it over on 11 percent of its possessions against KU.
K-State’s offense in its last five first halves in Allen Fieldhouse
| Year | FGs/FG% | 3-pters/% | Total Points |
| 2015 | 6-35/17% | 0-7/0% | 17 |
| 2014 | 11-25/44% | 1-5/20% | 28 |
| 2013 | 9-24/37.5% | 5-9/56% | 29 |
| 2012 | 8-29/27.5% | 1-6/17% | 20 |
| 2011 | 7-36/19% | 1-12/8% | 20 |
| Average | 41-149/27.5% | 8-39/20.5% | 23 points per half |
In K-State’s last five trips to Lawrence, it has shot 27.5 percent from the floor while KU has shot 53 percent in the first half. KU had led by an average score of 39-23 at the half in each of the last five seasons. Aside from the KU game, putting together quality halves of basketball continues to be a problem for this team. The Wildcats have now played 13 halves of basketball this season where they have scored less than 30 points. The Wildcats are 13-of-64 (20 percent) from the floor over their last two first halves (West Virginia and KU). The Wildcats go into prolonged scoring droughts far too often. The following table shows 11 of the K-State’s worst halves of the season on offense. K-State’s tale of two halves offensively
| Opponent | FGs | 3-pters | Turnovers | PPP | Total Pts | Half |
| Pittsburgh | 6-23 | 1-6 | 8 | 0.74 | 20 | 2nd |
| At Tennessee | 5-20 | 0-7 | 13 | 0.55 | 17 | 1st |
| Bradley | 3-13 | 1-4 | 11 | 0.62 | 18 | 1st |
| Georgia | 5-23 | 0-7 | 16 | 0.38 | 12 | 1st |
| At Oklahoma St. | 7-24 | 0-3 | 7 | 0.58 | 18 | 2nd |
| TCU | 7-19 | 2-6 | 9 | 0.85 | 22 | 1st |
| At Oklahoma | 11-32 | 1-5 | 3 | 0.83 | 24 | 2nd |
| Texas Tech | 8-22 | 2-6 | 7 | 0.96 | 28 | 1st |
| Baylor | 10-24 | 2-6 | 9 | 0.77 | 24 | 1st |
| West Virginia | 7-29 | 0-2 | 14 | 0.60 | 24 | 1st |
| At KU | 6-35 | 0-7 | 3 | 0.52 | 17 | 1st |
| Totals | 75-264 | 9-59 | 100 | 0.67 | 234 | |
| Average | 28% | 15% | 9 per half | 0.67 | 21 per half |
The Wildcats also have scored less than 60 points in nine games this season. That’s the most sub-60 point games since the 2000-01 season (Jim Wooldridge’s first season at K-State), when the Wildcats had 10 games of less than 60 points on the season. K-State has now put itself in a position where it will likely need to go 6-3 over its last nine games to make the NCAA Tournament (for a detailed breakdown of K-State’s NCAA Tourney chances, see last week’s blog). That means that the Wildcats really need to go 2-0 this week at Texas Tech and at home against Texas. If they can accomplish that task, the hope of playing in the Big Dance will remain alive.
