Amid Kansas State's 1-7 Big 12 start, it's hard to see any positive outlook amid devastating loss after devastating loss.
Well, at least one player got some praise from a major sports outlet. ESPN ranked Wildcats star guard PJ Haggerty No. 42 on its list of the best players in the country thus far.
The article wrote:
"A year ago, Haggerty was a star at Memphis and a second-team AP All-American who anchored the most successful season of coach Penny Hardaway's tenure. Haggerty was one of the most coveted transfers in the portal, too. Some things haven't changed. Haggerty has one of the most impressive stat lines in the country again -- 23.4 points, 5.2 rebounds, 4.5 assists, 37% from 3 -- even if he has been unable to lift Kansas State out of the Big 12's basement. The Wildcats' performance is, in part, why he has fallen toward the bottom of these rankings."
Even amid the disastrous conference start, Haggerty remains one of the best scorers in the nation. He is averaging 23.0 points on 47.8 percent shooting, along with 5.2 rebounds, 4.4 assists, and one steal. As Kansas State's star, Haggerty remains one of the best pure shooters in the NCAA, able to score at all three levels. He is having a career season at the scoring end, already topping what he did at Memphis and Tulsa.
It's just hard not to imagine how much further Haggerty could ascend if he played full 40-minute games instead of depending on second-half surges. His slow starts have arguably set the offense back, a unit already struggling without Abdi Bashir Jr. and Khamari McGriff.
In his latest affair against West Virginia, Haggerty had just 16 points on 31.5 percent shooting, scoring zero points on 0-of-7 shooting in the first half. Even then, he had a late-bucket opportunity toward the end of the game that fell short as he tried to draw a foul instead of just trying to get a shot off.
"I want him to rise up and shoot the basketball, not worry about the foul," Wildcats coach Jerome Tang said in his WVU postgame interview. "He's a shot maker. Rise up and make the shot. He felt he got fouled, but you can't worry about a foul in that situation, even though it happened to us before."
The Wildcats face No. 8 Iowa State (18-2, 5-2 in Big 12) on Sunday afternoon.