Takeaways from K-State’s stressful win over Chicago State before Big 12 play arrives

Putting an end to stressful home games against inferior opponents was apparently not on Jerome Tang’s list of New Year’s resolutions.

The Kansas State basketball team had to sweat every second of a 62-55 victory over Chicago State on Tuesday at Bramlage Coliseum.

The Wildcats trailed 30-27 at halftime and needed heroics from Cam Carter, Arthur Kaluma and David N’Guessan to avoid a humiliating defeat.

Chicago State was not supposed to test K-State in its final nonconference game of the season. The Cougars, who don’t even belong to a conference, entered the day on a three-game losing streak and ranked outside the top 300 in Ken Pomeroy’s college basketball ratings.

K-State was favored by 20.5 points.

But this isn’t the first time the Wildcats have struggled against a team they were expected to easily defeat. They needed overtime to beat both Oral Roberts and North Alabama at home earlier this season. Bellarmine also played them tough and lost by single digits.

The good news for K-State is that it doesn’t have to play another home game against a mid-major opponent this season. There won’t be another game like this. The bad news: Big 12 play begins against UCF on Saturday at home, and every conference game is going to be a challenge.

Until then, here are some takeaways from the Chicago State victory:

Cam Carter saved the day with two massive dunks

On a night when little was going right for the Wildcats, Cam Carter found a way to make a pair of impressive plays that pumped life into the crowd and helped K-State avoid disaster.

Both of them were dunks that gave the Wildcats much needed momentum.

The first was a lob dunk that gave K-State a 48-44 lead midway through the second half. Tylor Perry sent a perfect pass to Carter as he cut toward the rim on the baseline and jumped high into the air for a crowd-pleasing dunk.

K-State hadn’t tasted a high-energy play like that all night, so seeing Carter throw down a dunk seemed to give a boost to everyone on the roster.

A few minutes later, Carter delivered an encore when he came up with a steal at midcourt and took the ball all the way to the basket for another slam. This time, he gave K-State a 52-44 lead.

He also delivered a timely pass to Taj Manning for an important layup in the final moments that left everyone on the Chicago State bench shaking their heads in frustration. The Wildcats were never truly in danger again.

Carter deserves a lot of credit for K-State winning this game. The sophomore guard led all scorers with 19 points, seven rebounds and three assists even though his outside shot wasn’t falling.

This team has lost its shooting touch from the outside

It’s hard to explain why the Wildcats continue to struggle from 3-point range. They have quality outside shooters in Perry, Carter and Kaluma. All three of them are capable of erupting from beyond the arc on any given night, but that isn’t happening right now.

K-State entered this game shooting just 30.4% from 3-point range and didn’t do anything to improve that statistic while making 3 of 14 shots from downtown against Chicago State.

Outside shooting was supposed to be a strength for this group. Right now it’s a weakness.

That needs to change if the Wildcats are going to compete for a spot in the NCAA Tournament or high finish in the Big 12 standings.

Bad injury luck for senior guard Ques Glover

For weeks, K-State had this game circled as the long-awaited debut for senior guard Ques Glover.

The transfer guard, who came to K-State after stops at Florida and Samford, missed the first 12 games of the season with a lower-body injury, but he was supposed to return to the court at full strength against Chicago State.

Things didn’t pan out that way.

Glover once again watched this game from the sideline, as he was spotted hobbling around the arena on crutches during warmups.

He suffered another injury setback during practice on Monday and was once again unable to play. The extent of his injury is not yet publicly known, but he’s probably not looking at a quick recovery given that he needed crutches to walk on Tuesday.

Glover averaged double figures in each of the past two seasons at Samford. Tang was hopeful that he could provide a scoring spark once he joined the K-State rotation. He will have to wait at least a bit longer for that to happen now.

K-State fans feared two other players might join Glover on the sideline when Perry and N’Guessan both briefly left this game with injuries. But both players were able to quickly return to the court and finish out the contest.