Poor Distance Shooting Dooms Kansas State Men’s Basketball vs. BYU

MANHATTAN, Kan. — Kansas State knew it needed to play well to upset 10th-ranked BYU on Saturday at Bramlage Coliseum. The Wildcats also knew they had to contain BYU’s AJ Dybantsa.

Instead, the Wildcats went nearly 33 minutes without a three-pointer. They fell behind by double digits in the first half and never made a run. And Dybantsa was as good as advertised, if not better.

Kansas State (9-5) lost, 83-73, to BYU (13-1) in its Big 12 opener. It was BYU’s first-ever victory at Bramlage Coliseum.

The Wildcats’ three-point shooting, a useful path to victory for an underdog, was abysmal. Coming into the game, K-State was ranked ninth nationally shooting from distance at 39.9 percent.

Against BYU, the Wildcats shot 3-of-21 from distance. That’s a paltry 14 percent. The Wildcats went from the 15:24 mark of the first half, until the 2:57 mark of the second half between threes, both by Abdi Bashir Jr. K-State shot a respectable 42 percent on two-pointers.

“I’d say we just missed shots,” K-State guard P.J. Haggerty said at a news conference when asked if it was the Wildcats misfiring or the BYU defense. “It happens. It’s part of the game.”

Given that stat, and how much the Wildcats depend on the three-ball, a 10-point losing margin is almost remarkable. The final score could have been much worse.

“Well, they didn’t go in,” K-State coach Jerome Tang said at a news conference about the three-pointers. “The ones that we took, they weren’t bad shots.

“I thought we turned down some, probably like four or five that we should have been ready to shoot that we wasn’t ready to shoot. And some of that’s a credit to their length, right?

“I don’t know why we didn’t take certain shots that we normally take. I told them, we can’t make threes if we don’t shoot them. That’s one of the strengths of our team.”

Wildcats come up short

K-State lost the battle of the boards, 47-35. Control of the boards can be a legitimate factor for an underdog. Instead, BYU — coming off a 12-day holiday layoff — dominated the glass.

The Wildcats played solid and sincere defense but BYU had too many weapons. The Cougars shot 44 percent from the field and 38 percent from distance.

BYU’s likely top-5 NBA pick Dybantsa was smooth and strong, despite foul trouble. He scored 24 points and shot 8-of-15 from the field with a variety of shots and moves. BYU had four players in double figures.

Kansas State didn’t score a field goal in a seven-minute drought in the first half and BYU grabbed a 45-35 lead at the half. K-State never challenged the Cougars in the second half, never made the kind of run that would juice up the first sellout crowd of the season.

“It was super physical, everything the coaches said, super physical,” Bashir said about his Big 12 debut. “It comes down to the little things.

“We’re good enough to compete with them. They just did the little things more than we did. They got more offensive rebounds [16 to 11], for one. We didn’t finish layups, for two.

“There’s a couple of things we have to fine tune. We can’t hang our heads. We showed we can compete. Just moving forward, clean up those little things.”

Haggerty matched Dybantsa’s scoring total with 24 points, as the senior tried to keep K-State close. BYU had 19 turnovers (to K-State’s 12). “We have to capitalize off the turnovers they gave us,” Haggerty said. “We missed a lot of opportunities.

“I think all around we didn’t play our best game. I still think we gave [ourselves] a chance. We just lost but it’s one game. Just try to flip the page for Arizona [K-State’s next opponent].”

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