12/11 KANSAS STATE (0-0) vs. KENNESAW STATE (0-0)

Friday, November 9, 2018 >> 7:07 p.m. CT >> Bramlage Coliseum (12,528) >> Manhattan, Kan.

$5 GA ticket available for those showing their K-State/Kansas football ticket

Advanced Single Game: $5 (bench/GA)

Gameday Single Game: $10 (bench/GA)/$20 (chairback)

Group (12+): $3

 

COACHES

Kansas State: Bruce Weber (Wis.-Milwaukee ’78)

Overall: 438-235/21^st season

At K-State: 125-80/7^th season

1. Kennesaw State: 0-0

 

Kennesaw State: Al Skinner (UMass ‘74)

Overall: 421-349/26^th season

At Kennesaw State: 36-58/4th season

1. Kansas State: 0-0

 

PROJECTED STARTING LINEUP

Kansas State (0-0)

G: #3 Kamau Stokes

G: #5 Barry Brown, Jr.

G: #20 Xavier Sneed

F: #32 Dean Wade

F: #14 Makol Mawien

 

Kennesaw State (1-0)

G: #0 Bobby Parker

G: #4 Tyler Hooker

F: #5 Isaac Mbuyamba

F: #24 Bryson Lockley

F: #33 Kosta Jankovic

 

SERIES HISTORY

Overall: K-State leads 1-0

In Manhattan: K-State leads 1-0

Last Meeting: W, 82-54, 12/17/2006

Weber vs. Skinner: First Meeting

 

OPENING TIP

• No. 12/11 Kansas State (0-0) will officially open its 115th season on Friday night, as the Wildcats play host to Atlantic Sun member Kennesaw State (1-0) at 7 p.m., CT at Bramlage Coliseum. The opener will be the first of two games in a three-day span for K-State, as the team hosts Summit League foe Denver (0-0) in the second game of the men’s and women’s basketball doubleheader at 8 p.m., CT on Monday.
• Friday’s opener represents the start of a Wildcat Weekend in the Little Apple, as K-State hosts Kansas in the Dillon’s Sunflower Showdown at 11 a.m., CT on Saturday followed by a volleyball match against Baylor at 6 p.m., CT. Fans can purchase a $5 general admission ticket for Friday’s game by showing their football ticket.
• K-State is 89-25 (.781) all-time in season openers dating back to the first season in 1903, including a 77-9 (.895) mark at home. The Wildcats have a 24-2 (.923) record in season openers played at Bramlage Coliseum, which includes a 16-game winning streak from 1995 to 2012. The two losses in that span have come to Southern Miss (74-60 on Nov. 27, 1993) and Northern Colorado (60-58 on Nov. 8, 2013). Overall, the team is 26-4 (.867) at Bramlage Coliseum in home openers.
• The Wildcats have won 23 consecutive games against non-conference opponents at Bramlage Coliseum since the start of the 2015-16 season. Overall, the school has an 95-6 (.941) record at home in non-conference play since 2006-07, including 93-5 (.950) in the regular season, and has won 84 of their last 89 non-conference home games. The team went 11-2 in non-conference action in 2017-18, including 8-1 at home venues. The lone home loss came to Tulsa, 61-54, on Dec. 9, 2017 in Wichita.
• K-State, which has won 14 of its last 15 home openers, earned an 83-45 win over American in last season’s opener on Nov. 10, as Dean Wade paced five Wildcats in double figures with a game-tying 17 points on 6-of-7 shooting. Cartier Diarra came off the bench to score 13 points with a career-best 4 treys, while Makol Mawien nearly recorded a double-double with 12 points and game-high 9 rebounds. The 45 points by American were the fewest in a home opener since 1986.
• Head coach Bruce Weber is 18-2 (.900) in his 20-year head coaching career in season openers (Southern Illinois, Illinois and K-State), including an 18-1 (.947) mark in home openers. He is 5-1 (.833) in season openers at K-State.
• K-State played just one exhibition game, using a stellar defensive effort to defeat Pittsburg State, 79-39, on Nov. 2 at Bramlage Coliseum. The Wildcats held the Gorillas to 39 points on just 19.7 percent (13-of-66) shooting, including 17.2 percent (5-of-29) from 3-point range. The 39 points tied for the fewest allowed in an exhibition game in school history, matching the 39 points scored by the University of Windsor (Canada) on Nov. 29, 1979.
• Senior Kamau Stokes and Dean Wade led a balanced offensive attack in the exhibition win, scoring a game-tying 14 points in limited minutes, as 12 of the 13 available players connected on at least one field goal. Senior Barry Brown, Jr., did not play as a precautionary move due to injury.

 

NOTES ON KENNESAW STATE

• Kennesaw State returns seven lettermen, including three starters (Tyler Hooker, Isaac Mbuyamba and Kyle Clarke, from a squad that posted a 10-20 overall record and finished sixth in the Atlantic Sun Conference with an 8-6 mark in 2017-18. The Owls also welcome eight newcomers, including Division I transfers Danny Lewis (UCF) and Drew Romich (Longwood).
• Kennesaw State was picked seventh in the nine-team Preseason Atlantic Sun Conference coaches and media polls, ahead of Steton and North Alabama. Lipscomb was picked to win the league in both polls.
• Kennesaw State opened the season on Wednesday night with a 68-57 win over Division II Oglethorpe College at home. Junior guard Tyler Hooker scored a game-high 25 points on 8-of-16 field goals to go with an 8-of-10 effort from the line, while Ugo Obineke and Kosta Jankovic added 17 and 17 and 12 points, respectively. The Owls won their only exhibition game, 81-78, over Clayton State on Nov. 1, as Hooker poured in a game-high 36 points.
• A season ago, the Owls averaged 72.7 points per game on 45.5 percent shooting, including 36.5 percent from 3-point range, with 32.9 rebounds, 14.9 assists, 7.2 steals and 3.1 blocks per game, while allowing opponents to average 77.6 points on 47.8 percent shooting, including 32.6 percent from long range. The team connected on 69 percent from the free throw line.
• Hooker is the lone returner to average double digits in 2017-18, averaging 10.8 points on 41.1 percent shooting to with 2.7 rebounds, 2.6 assists and 1.3 steals in 26.1 minutes per game. He led the Owls in free throws made (81) and attempted (114). Other returning starters – Clarke and Mbuyamba – averaged 4.2 and 3.1 points per game, while Jankovic averaged 7.0 points.
• Head coach Al Skinner enters his 26th season as a head coach with a 421-349 (.547) overall record, including a 36-58 (.383) mark in his fourth season at Kennesaw State. Skinner has also served as head coach at Rhode Island (1988-97) and Boston College (1997-2010), guiding the schools to 12 trips to the postseason, including nine NCAA Tournaments.
• Interestingly enough, Skinner has nearly as many wins (421) as Kennesaw State has in its entire basketball history (464), which started competition in 1985-86 and joined Division I in 2005-06. The Owls did win the Division II national championship with 35-4 record in 2004 under Tony Ingle.

 

SERIES HISTORY

• K-State and Kennesaw State have met once in their respective histories with the Wildcats, earning an 82-54 victory on Dec. 17, 2006. The team raced out to a 55-19 halftime lead on 61.3 percent shooting and never led in the second half by fewer than 28 points.

 

• The game provides an interesting footnote to K-State history, as it served as the debut of freshman Bill Walker, who became eligible just two days prior to the game and scored 15 points off the bench in 22 minutes. David Hoskins led three Wildcats in double figures with a game-high 17 points on 6-of-9 shooting, while Cartier Martin added 12 points.
• K-State is 8-0 all-time against teams from the Atlantic Sun Conference with all eight wins having come at Bramlage Coliseum. The wins include three over North Florida (2010, 2011, 2012), two over Lipscomb (2002, 2003) and USC Upstate (2012, 2017) and one over Kennesaw State (2006).

 

LAST TIME OUT

• K-State used a stellar defensive effort to win its lone exhibition game, 79-39 on Nov. 2, as the Wildcats held Division II Pittsburg State to 39 points on just 19.7 percent (13-of-66) shooting from the field, including 17.2 percent (5-of-29) from 3-point range. The school has won 24 consecutive exhibition games at Bramlage Coliseum dating back to 2004.

 

HISTORY IN SEASON OPENERS

• K-State is 89-25 (.781) all-time in season openers dating back to the first season in 1903. The Wildcats have a 77-9 (.895) record in season openers played at home, including 24-2 (.923) at Bramlage Coliseum.
• K-State will open the season at home for the 16th consecutive season on Friday night with the Wildcats holding a 14-1 (.933) record in that span. The lone loss in that span came in a 60-58 loss to Northern Colorado on Nov. 8, 2013, which snapped the school’s 16-game winning streak in home openers. The last time K-State opened the season away from home came in 2002-03 when the squad played in the Paradise Jam, Nov. 23-25, 2002.

 

NON-CONFERENCE HISTORY

• K-State has a 98-6 (.942) record at home venues (includes home games played at Bramlage

MORE ABOUT K-STATE

• The Wildcats return 10 lettermen, including six players (Barry Brown, Jr., Cartier Diarra, Makol Mawien, Xavier Sneed, Kamau Stokes and Dean Wade) that combined to start all 37 games a season ago, for a team that posted a 25-12 overall record (10-8 in Big 12 play) and advanced to the Elite Eight for the 12th time in school history and the first time since 2010. It marked just the sixth 25-win campaign in school history, including the second under head coach Bruce Weber, while the school advanced to the NCAA Tournament for the fourth time in six seasons and 30th time overall.
• K-State returns 185 combined starts from 2017-18, which is the most of any Division I team in the country, and ahead of other schools which return all of its starts, including George Mason (165), Iowa (165), Lipscomb (165) and North Florida (165).
• K-State returns 93.2 percent (2,452 of 2,630 points) of its offense from 2017-18, which ranks 11th among Division I teams (trailing George Mason, Harvard, Wofford, Washington, Brown, Iowa, Wisconsin, UC Irvine, Syracuse and St. Francis). The Wildcats also returns more than 90 percent of their field goals made (869/92.7%), 3-point field goals made (232/91.3%), free throws made (482/96%), assists (476/93.3%) and steals (266/90.5%) as well as 80 or better percent of their minutes (6,558/85%), rebounds (905/80%) and blocks (98/89%).
• K-State returns seven of its top-8 scorers from last season, including three with double-digit averages [Wade (16.2 ppg.), Brown (15.9 ppg.) and Sneed (11.1 ppg.). Other returners include Kamau Stokes (9.0 ppg.), Cartier Diarra (7.1 ppg.), Makol Mawien (6.8 ppg.) and Mike McGuirl (3.3 ppg.). The Wildcats return their individual leader in scoring (Wade), rebounding (Wade), assists (Brown), steals (Brown) and blocks (Mawien).

 

‘CATS EARN PRESEASON RANKINGS

• K-State will open the 2018-19 season in the Top 15 in both major polls, as the Wildcats earned a No. 11 ranking in the preseason USA Today Coaches poll to go with a No. 12 ranking in the preseason Associated Press poll.
• It marks the first time that K-State has started with preseason rankings in both major polls since the 2010-11 campaign when the school opened at No. 3 in both the AP and USA Today Coaches polls.
• K-State appeared in the Preseason AP poll for the 17th time in school history, while it was the highest preseason ranking since starting the 2010-11 campaign at No. 3. It was also the 12th time debuting in the AP Top 15 (1951-52, 1952-53, 1953-54, 1956-57, 1957-58, 1958-59, 1961-62, 1964-65, 1965-66, 1975-76 and 2010-11).
• The Wildcats have received several preseason rankings, including No. 11 by NBCSports.com, Yahoo! Sports, Street & Smith’s, Lindy’s and Athlon, No. 12 by ESPN.com, CBSSports.com, USA Today, Stadium, No. 13 by The Athletic, Blue Ribbon Yearbook and No. 14 by SI.com.
• K-State was one of four Big 12 teams to place in both Top 25 polls, as Kansas was the unanimous No. 1 team. West Virginia was No. 13 in both polls, while TCU was ranked No. 20 (Coaches) and No. 21 (AP), respectively.

 

 

NEXT UP: DENVER (1-0)

• K-State will make a quick turnaround from Friday’s game to play Denver (1-0) in the second game of men’s and women’s doubleheader on Monday. The Pioneers opened the season with a 63-50 win over Maine on Tuesday night at home, as Creighton transfer Ronnie Harrell, Jr., posted a double-double with 18 points and 13 rebounds.
• Denver returns six lettermen and three starters from a squad that posted a 15-15 overall record and finished third in the Summit League with an 8-6 record in 2017-18. The Pioneers were picked third in the preseason poll and earned one first-place vote, while senior Joe Rosga (15.3 ppg., 4.1 rpg.) was selected to the Preseason All-Summit League First Team.

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TOM GILBERT
Director for Men’s Basketball Communications | K-State Athletics