Dec 07, 2018With revenge on their minds, the No. 16 Kansas State Wildcats travel to Tulsa Saturday to face the Hurricane at the Reynolds Center.The teams met last season in Wichita, Kan., about halfway between the two campuses, and Tulsa came away with a 61-54 victory. The Wildcats were plagued by poor shooting (31.6 percent, including 12.5 percent from long range) and poor rebounding (they were outrebounded 40-30).The Wildcats (6-1) also are looking to avenge their first loss of the season, an 83-71 loss on the road to Marquette. The Cats' problem in that game was too many fouls, as four of five starters had at least four fouls and two fouled out."We've got to learn from it," head coach Bruce Weber said following the loss. "We could have easily stayed at home and played a bunch of games, but we felt this was good for us in the long run. Now we've got a week until another game at Tulsa, who beat us last year."I told them a couple of weeks ago that I didn't want them to learn from losing, but we have to go through that. Now, we have to get better in practice over this next week." The Wildcats are led by seniors Barry Brown and Dean Wade with 15.7 and 15.4 points per game, respectively. Xavier Sneed is chipping in 11.8 points per game. Wade also leads the squad with 7.7 rebounds per game, and the 6-10 center is best with 41.7 percent from three-point range.K-State is averaging a scoring margin of better than 12 points per game, but not against top-level competition. Tulsa will be a good test for the Wildcats. The Hurricane (6-3) have a balanced scoring attack with eight players averaging at least 5.0 points per contest. The leaders are DaQuan Jeffries (13.4), Martins Igbanu (12.4) and Sterling Taplin (10.3).They lost to No. 5 Nevada by just 10 points, 96-86, in the Las Vegas Holiday Invitational.Tulsa returns eight lettermen, including three starters (Igbanu, Taplin and Darien Jackson) from a squad that posted a 19-12 overall record, including a fourth-place finish in the American Athletic Conference with a 12-6 mark.The Hurricane leads the all-time series against the Wildcats, 6-1, and it has won all three meetings in Tulsa. Tulsa also has won 12 consecutive home games and 21 of its last 23 contests at the Reynolds Center dating back to last season. The squad is 6-0 at home this season. They are coming off a 74-71 win over Oklahoma State on Wednesday night."It's a great opportunity for our guys when you have Power Five programs come into your building," Hurricane coach Frank Haith said prior to the Oklahoma State game. "I think our guys are excited about the chance to compete against teams that are really good."Hopefully we can continue to have games like this in our building. It takes a lot of work. It wasn't that easy to get done. I'm very grateful for Bruce and (OSU coach) Michael (Boynton) to give us the opportunity to have that."
Looking for More Picks?
You can browse all the individual handicapper picks below.
Kansas State
Tulsa
Pick Center
NCAAB
FINAL (12/8/2018)
1WinningPickADay
