Kansas State men’s basketball extended its losing streak to four games as Central Florida took care of business at home, downing the Wildcats 80-76.
“We all have to take ownership of this one and moving forward because it doesn’t get any easier.,” K-State head coach Jerome Tang said to K-State Athletics. “We are in the second-best league in America this year, but over the last, you know, seven years been the best league in America, and that’s what we signed up for.”
K-State (13-15, 7-10 Big 12) dealt with adversity, erasing an 11-point second-half deficit in its second game without forward Coleman Hawkins.
Senior Max Jones paced four Wildcats in double figures with a season-high 22 points on 6-of-17 field goals, including 3-of-7 from 3-point range, and 7-of-8 from the free throw line. It was his 27th career 20-point game, including his first as a Wildcat. He was joined in double figures by juniors C.J. Jones (12 points), Brendan Hausen (11 points) and Dug McDaniel (10 points).
The Knights marched to a 14-6 lead early before Max Jones scored a four-point play to bring the score closer, and Hausen and McDaniel helped lower the Wildcats’ deficit to 28-27.
However, UCF’s own guard duo of Keyshawn Hall and Darius Johnson helped the Knights close out the first half with a 10-0 run, going up 41-34 into halftime.
Less than three minutes into the second half, the head coach for K-State, Jerome Tang, called a timeout. This was because UCF scored six unanswered points, making the score even more in its favor.
“The 10-0 run to end the half and the 6-2 run to start the second half, it’s a 14-point swing,” Tang said. “We’re not good enough to do those things. I love our guys’ toughness, grittiness, you know, we keep fighting to come back and stuff, but at some point we have to fight to come out, just fight at the beginning, and then you don’t have to worry about the comeback. We’ve got to be better.”
Max Jones and C.J Jones each put three points on the board for K-State after the timeout, making the game closer. After a pair of free throws from Max Jones, though, seven straight points from the Wildcats occurred, which put the game in range at 69-65.
With 1:10 left, the Wildcats had a chance to tie the game after forcing a turnover, but a missed layup from McDaniel kept the Knights in front. UCF closed the game out once and for all, as the Johnson-Hall guard tandem combined for 49 points.
“Their players made plays,” Tang said. “[Darius] Johnson and [Keyshawn] Hall going for 49 tonight, when we had an emphasis on them, sometimes you just need dudes to be dudes, and they were dudes tonight. And then making free throws down the stretch was big for them. So, all the credit goes to those guys.”
The Wildcats have a chance to snap the four-game losing streak with Colorado (11-18, 2-15) at Bramlage at 3 p.m. on Sunday.
