There were a lot of questions about the Kansas State Men’s Basketball team after a 3-3 start to the season, but a 7-0 December put some confidence back into a young team leading into Saturday’s Big 12 opener against Oklahoma State.

The Wildcats open conference play against the Cowboys who were picked tied with KU at the top spot in the Big 12 going into the season. Oklahoma State will be led by Marcus Smart, who was considered a top pick in the 2013 NBA Draft but elected to return for his Sophomore year and is now projected as a top pick in the 2014 NBA Draft.

“We’re going to have to guard the heck out of them,” Head Coach Bruce Weber said Thursday. “We’ve held a lot of people down, this is one of the top offensive teams in the country, we’re going to see if we can do that against them.”

The Wildcats have held 11 out of their 13 opponents this season to below 65 points, going 10-1 in those games.

Will Spradling, senior guard, said that the non-conference seemed to fly by but, “I feel like we’re ready especially the way we played the last month.”

Spradling said that this team has something to prove being last year’s Big 12 champion.”I was reading something the other day that the Big 12 goes through Lawrence. It was kind of upsetting because it didn’t even say anything about us winning it last year. It said KU won the Big 12 last year and everything goes through Lawrence, but it also goes through here.”

“We’ve talked about it since the beginning that we were defending Big 12 champs and everything is going to come through here,” Spradling said.

Junior forward, Thomas Gipson said that Saturday’s match up will come down to execution, “We just have to execute. If we don’t then they win. If we do then we have a fair advantage at winning.”

Saturday’s game is scheduled for a 3:00 p.m. tip off from Bramlage Coliseum.