What Oklahoma State hoops said before road trip to Kansas State

Overall thoughts on Kansas State:

“It’s a young, Bruce Weber team, who always seems to get better as the season goes along. I wasn’t in the league yet, but I remember watching Dean Wade, Barry Brown and Kamau Stokes as freshman and watching them go through the process of learning how to compete and win in the Big 12. I think all the people in Manhattan would say it wasn’t pretty, but they stuck with the process, they believed in what they were doing and they became Big 12 Champions, and went to the Elite Eight one time. They’ve got a little big of carry over from the team. I think Mike McGuirl is the only one left, I think, but that’s kind of who they are again.

“That’s college basketball in many ways right? If you’re going to do it the right way and you’re going to not cut corners, you’ve got to get a bunch of young guys, you’ve got to teach them how to play. You’ve got to learn through some bumpy roads, and eventually is they stick together long enough they can find success. I think this team is getting better. They’re much better today than they were a month ago. I expect them to be better a month from now than they are today. It’s a credit to his staff and the guys commitment to their team. We’ll have a challenge. It’s not like we’ve got a bunch of old guys running around here either. They’ll be tough to compete with. Davion Bradford, who we recruited for awhile, he’s a load in there and he’s getting more comfortable as the games go along. They’ve got some really, really athletic players and guys who can really shoot it.”

On helping forward Kalib Boone with struggles on the court:

“Be brutally honest with him as well. The only way you can do that is if you’ve got real relationships. Because at the end of every conversation, no matter how hard or easy it is, I tell those kids I love them, because I do. It’s not personal, it’s just that I want better for him. And if he’s better than our team’s better. It’s really simple. He works hard, but he’s not doing enough at the level he’s capable of to help our team. If we’re gonna have the success that we think we can then he’s going to have to step up. It’s really that simple. He’s capable of it. He’s shown flashes. He just hasn’t put it together consistently. The beauty of it on one hand is there’s still some time. The hard part is there’s no guarantees this year. We’ve got our fingers crossed that we can continue to play and stay away from any issues, but this is one of those things you’ve got to know. You can’t take it for granted. There’s no guarantees. Every time you go out there and you waste  an opportunity, it’s one that you may not get back. That’s been the message to him. Let’s do it now. Let’s not wait and say woulda, coulda, shoulda. Because again there’s no guarantees.”

On what stood out on film from West Virginia loss:

“We went back to the film. I’ve probably watched the game six times. We just relaxed as a group and that’s on me to make sure that they don’t. We’ve got to continue to send a message that as long as there’s time on the clock you better be playing to win. The moment you relax — it’s not like the guy on the other sideline hasn’t been down before and hasn’t had a way to figure out how to come back — they’re going to continue to compete at this level. There was more at stake, they had already lost one of their games. You go on a road swing like that, you want to win both, but you lose the first one and it’s like, ‘We’ve got to get this split.’ That’s the mentality that West Virginia had, so they continued to play. Again, it’s on me to get that message across to those guys and to let them understand when that momentum starts to shift, you’ve got to do something about it. We had four straight turnovers and missed a layup to start that segment and we never got it back. All the sudden West Virginia starts to feel more and more confident that they can get it done. Then all you need is a couple things to not go your way. Maybe a missed call or a missed shot you usually make, or you don’t get a defensive rebound and there you go. Just the mentality of keep playing with your foot on the gas is what we’ve been preaching.

“In fact, the last two days of practice, we practiced with a score board with only time on it. No score. We didn’t talk about the score until it was over. What my message was, it doesn’t matter. Don’t scoreboard watch. If there’s time on the clock, you do your best on both ends to execute the game plan. You execute, you screen, you run, you talk, you block out, you rebound. If you keep doing that, then the 19-point lead doesn’t disappear.”