K-State basketball avoids injury scare but can’t complete wild comeback vs. BYU

Kansas State doesn’t have much experience playing late-night games in Provo, Utah.

The Wildcats will hope they don’t get sent out west after dark again anytime soon after they suffered a 72-66 loss against the BYU Cougars on Saturday at Marriott Center.

The No. 21 Cougars were the superior team all night long and sent the Wildcats home with their fifth loss in six games. BYU led by as many as 17 midway through the second half and held an advantage for 33 minutes, 36 seconds.

K-State (15-9, 5-6 Big 12) was barely competitive for most of this game and appeared on its way to a blowout loss against BYU (17-6, 5-5 Big 12). But the Wildcats refused to quit and made things interesting with a late run.

After many fans in attendance considered the game over, the Wildcats reeled off a 16-2 run to make the score 66-64 with 1:11 remaining. A wild come-from-behind victory was suddenly within reach.

Arthur Kaluma sparked the valiant comeback effort by scoring 18 points and grabbing eight rebounds. He drained a 3-pointer to pull K-State within two in the final moments. But it was too little too late.

As soon as the Cougars truly felt threatened they pushed back with a series of clutch buckets to escape with the victory. Jaxson Robinson drained a 3-pointer to end K-State’s run and then Spencer Johnson clinched things with a driving layup.

That made this a painful loss for head coach Jerome Tang, who thought his team played admirable grit and determination.

“This was different than at Oklahoma State,” Tang said on his postgame radio show. “We didn’t deserve that win. We weren’t together, we weren’t tough, we didn’t play with energy. That wasn’t K-State basketball. But tonight there was effort, there was energy, there was togetherness. We just didn’t execute at the end.”

Cam Carter also scored 14 points for the Wildcats, but nobody else in purple reached double figures, save for the leading duo.

Fousseyni Traore led BYU with 14 points. Four of his teammates also eclipsed double-figures in the winning effort. The Cougars were the more balanced team, and that’s why they continually got better looks than the Wildcats.

K-State will try to bounce back in its next game against TCU next weekend inside Bramlage Coliseum.

Until then, here are some takeaways from Saturday’s action against BYU:

No one can question K-State’s fight

One thing you can just about always count on from the Wildcats is that they will play with maximum effort for 40 minutes. Heck, they often play hard for 45 minutes. There’s a reason why they are 6-0 in overtime games this season, right?

They might not play well or sharp during the course of basketball games, but they never give up.

That was once again clear during this game when K-State trailed by 17 midway through the second half and still found a way to make the Cougars sweat in the final minute.

Some, including Tang, could take it as a good sign that the Wildcats were able to push a pair of ranked teams until the bitter end this week.

“I am really proud of the progress that we’ve made,” Tang said.

Moving forward, though, Tang needs to figure out how to use that to his advantage. The Wildcats are clearly capable of making runs and coming up with big plays against quality competition. They proved it against the Cougars and defeated No. 4 Kansas at home earlier this week.

But too often the Wildcats go into long scoring slumps and play bad basketball. That is why they were down by nearly 20 points in this game. That is also why winning with any kind of consistency has been hard for them to pull off in conference play.

Had K-State only trailed by 10 before it made a late run it may have been able to win this game.

Fighting for 40 minutes is not a challenge for this team. Playing well for 40 minutes is the issue. That needs to change if the Wildcats want to make a late push at the NCAA Tournament.

Arthur Kaluma avoided an injury scare

K-State basketball fans everywhere held their breath when Arthur Kaluma fell to the floor and clutched his left leg in pain in the second half of this contest.

For as much as the Wildcats rely on Carter, Tylor Perry and Kaluma, they could ill afford to lose any of them to a significant injury.

The thought of trying to make it through even a small stretch of Big 12 games without a junior wing who averages 14.4 points and 7.1 rebounds per game was scary, to say the least.

Fortunately for K-State, the talented 6-foot-7 player was able to return to the game after a brief absence. Kaluma limped off the floor with help from two team trainers, but he must have simply landed in an awkward way after fighting for a rebound. He was able to walk off the pain after a few minutes and then returned the game.

That might have been the best thing that happened to the Wildcats on Saturday night.

Kaluma finished with 18 points, eight rebounds and two assists.

Freshman guard gives K-State an early boost

Dai Dai Ames has started three straight games for the Wildcats.

It was easy to see why Tang has put so much trust in the freshman guard at the beginning of this game.

Ames did exactly what he was supposed to do and gave K-State a major boost of energy the moment he stepped onto the floor. He showed off his scoring touch immediately after tip and scored eight points before four minutes ticked off the game clock.

The Chicago native opened the night with a 3-pointer and then drained another to give the Wildcats a 6-2 lead. A few moments later, he made a driving layup. When the first media timeout arrived the Cougars led 9-8, with all eight of K-State’s points coming from Ames.

He was unable to sustain that pace and didn’t score again, but this was still an encouraging effort for him.

Tang went with a new starting lineup against Oklahoma State last week because he was tired of watching the Wildcats get off to slow starts. Those have been a thing of the past with Ames playing in the opening minutes.