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Do you want to know more about BC's opponent besides its won-loss record? No problem. BCI brings you the "cheat sheet" for a quick rundown of BC's next opponent, Kansas State.
Recent Results
Kansas State hasn’t faced much competition yet as it has started the year with four straight double digit wins. BC will be by far the best test yet though.
The Wildcats are coming off of a mediocre standard for Bruce Weber’s standards going 17-16 and 5-13 in Big 12 play.
Personnel
It all starts with wing man Wesley Iwundu who is the focal point of the team and the one player that is a legitimate NBA prospect. Coach Bruce Weber probably summed it up best when he said of Iwundu, "He should be one of the best players in the league if he accepts that he has to do everything for us."
Iwundu has been a complete mismatch for the mid-major teams that K-State has went against this year because of his size at 6’7" and his athletic skills. The wing players have been too short to guard him and four men are too slow. A.J. Turner will be assigned to go against Iwundu in what should be a prelude to see if Turner will be able to handle similar duties in ACC play this year.
Two other players to watch are the backcourt combination of Barry Brown and Kamau Stokes. Both players are athletic and disruptive and can cause headaches for opposing backcourts. Brown is the team’s leading scorer
The X-Factor could be 6th man Xavier Sneed who is a freshman 6th man. He has been impressive in his first four games averaging 10.5 points per games. Can that success translate under the big lights in NYC?
Behind The Numbers
One of the reasons that Kansas State was so bad last year was because it was just a bad shooting and sloppy team. The Wildcats ranked 270th in effective field goal percentage and 300th in turnover percentage turning it over a ridiculous 20.3% of possessions. On top of that, K-State ranked 335th (there were 351 teams) in three point shooting at a pitiful 30% clip, which was the worst of any power five team. This year the Wildcats are shooting much better and have shot up to a 57.5% effective field goal percentage but continue to turn the ball over at a high rate of 21.2%.
One thing that you can count on from Bruce Weber’s club is that it will be a good rebounding team on the offensive end. Since Weber arrived at K-State in 2013 his team has regularly finished in the top quarter nationally in offensive rebounding percentage, and typically in the top 50.
What to Expect
K-State plays an aggressive man-to-man defense that is going to try and disrupt the opposition from doing what it wants to do. For BC, it runs the offense through feeding Mo Jeffers in the paint and inside-out, so look for K-State to deny any passes down to Jeffers. It will be key for the young BC players to not fall out of the rhythm of the offense and let it breakdown if the ball can’t be fed down to Jeffers.
A.J. Turner is going to have to come up huge in this game on both ends of the court. On defense, he will be responsible for covering K-State’s star Iwundu. Against Towson, Turner got in foul trouble early which led to a shortening of his minutes in the game. The Eagles absolutely can’t afford to have Turner in any kind of foul trouble in this game. On offense, Iwundu does come with a bit of a reputation for taking plays off. Turner has to take advantage of that and give BC a scoring pop.
The thing that worries me the most is how the Eagles will perform on offense. So far this season the offense has carried the team, as is evident by the team ranking 64th nationally in effective FG% and 48th in three point percentage. This will be the first opponent that doesn’t let BC do what it wants on offense and how the young team responds to that will be key. With two guards that can stop Jerome Robinson it will be a tall order for the Eagles to come up with a win in Brooklyn. However, if Turner can play up to his potential and Robinson can overcome a bad match-up then the Eagles can pull this off. If they do we might be in for a more exciting ride than expected this year.