![]() ![]() All three were in the lane with a chance to anticipate the pass, meaning the odds of successfully completing said lob were slightly worse than my odds of having a date on a given Friday night. Yes, this lob pass was attempted against Baylor, who sports a front line of unbelievable athletes who stand 6-7, 6-9, 6-11. Instead, the Wildcats attempted to lob a pass from out of bounds to get a dunk or tip-in. Good or not, the shot would have provided the most suspenseful moment of the Wildcats' season so far. As the ball arced toward the hoop, the silence of anticipation would have enveloped the Octagon of Doom. It was a good opportunity to get McGruder a look at the basket after coming off a screen. ![]() Now inbounding the ball from the baseline, the Wildcats had 3.4 seconds to put the ball in the hoop, tying the game or - should the intestinal fortitude of the team be great - taking the lead. It looked as if he had a wide-open lane, but a Baylor defender caught up with him to knock the ball away. Instead, freshman Angel Rodriguez ended up with a chance to drive to the basket. The K-State possession never put the ball in the hands of McGruder. With the team trailing by 2 with 20+ seconds remaining, it seemed obvious that McGruder might get a chance to tie the game. ![]() Rodney McGruder had scored 30 points on the evening, showing both the ability to attack the basket and to hit from long-range. The response to said urgency? Somehow it involved ignoring the best player on the team. best I can tell, there were no tears in the space-time continuum during the game), the Bears had eliminated the Wildcats' lead, pushing K-State from a sense of protection to a sense of urgency. Instead, K-State handled the basketball the way my three-year-old niece treats balloons, batting it around with no real regard for where it ends up. The Wildcats seemingly had the game in-hand late, simply needing to have a few good offensive possessions in order to protect a four-point lead. The 75-73 loss to Baylor - the fourth-ranked team in the nation - was that sort of game one that had fans jumping in celebration when Jordan Henriquez was on the receiving end of yet another lob pass and shouting in exasperation when the Wildcats, once again, passed the ball directly to a Baylor defender as if it was a Mama's Family DVD that they were trying to regift. As the basketball rolled toward midcourt and the final buzzer sounded, my first reaction was to look over to my brother and say, "What the hell was that?" The answer, of course, was "periods of decent basketball largely overshadowed by lousy basketball that led to great disappointment," but the question still rattled in my head. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |