Kansas State had the opportunity to finally get a win as a sigh of relief amid a horrid Big 12 campaign.
Instead, more heartbreak occurred as it blew a huge first-half lead to TCU and fell in the final seconds with sloppy turnovers. And it wasn't just Wildcats and TCU fans witnessing the defeat.
The TNT Sports cast gave their immediate postgame thoughts, crushing the team for their poor late-game execution.
"It tells you a lot when you’re 1-9, especially in the Big 12, these mistakes start to show that you’re not a winning basketball program at this particular time, because the habits are not there throughout the course of the game,” analyst and former CBB star Jamal Mashburn said.
PJ Haggerty and Nate Johnson both had sloppy turnovers in the final seconds, basically handing the game to the Horned Frogs when they had the opportunity to seal it with just over 19 seconds left.
"Just not handling the ball correctly. I have no idea where [Nate Johnson] was going or why he was going towards the sideline," Mashburn said. "He had a whole left side open on the court, not a whole lot of pressure. Right here as well, fouling at the end of this thing and putting him on a free-throw line. And why [is PJ Haggerty] going underneath through a handoff when you’ve got a whole left side of the court open there?"
Jalen Rose had some harsh choice words for them as well, beyond just critiques of the game itself. He and Mashburn reduced Kansas State to a lowly unit, as reflected in its 1-9 conference record.
"Losing teams sometimes show you who they are and you have to believe them," Rose said. "As a point guard, you’ve gotta be the guy that calms everybody down, especially coming out of a timeout. So when you get the inbound, you’ve got the whole left side two separate times, and you dribble right to the corner where they can trap you. The refs aren’t gonna give you the benefit of doubt in those situations."
It was a meltdown that reflected pretty much everything the Wildcats have faltered with this year: reckless fouls, ill-timed turnovers, and an over-reliance on Haggerty's star performances. This somehow feels worse than a plain blowout because Kansas State was good enough to win and should have taken the cake on Saturday afternoon. Now, the team has another ugly loss to add to a season of failure.