Kansas State basketball's first true road game showed the Wildcats both at their best and their worst.
Unfortunately for the Wildcats, their worst was too much to overcome.
A motivated St. John's team rebounded -- literally -- from a four-point halftime deficit to exploit K-State's weaknesses in a big way Saturday on the way to a dominating 88-71 victory at Carnesecca Arena in Queens, N.Y.
Before the game, St. John's (7-2) celebrated the life of longtime former coach Lou Carnesecca, who died exactly one week earlier at the age of 99.
K-State (6-3) turned in arguably its best half of the season to lead 39-34 at intermission, but then two recurring problems -- spotty shooting and a lack of rebounding -- resurfaced and it was all downhill from there.
St. John's took control with a 12-1 run early in the second period and the Wildcats never made a serious run the rest of the way. Junior forward Zuby Ejiofor was the catalyst for the Red Storm, scoring 17 of his career-best 28 points and grabbing seven of his game-high 13 rebounds after the break.
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"When they got that separation, there was never any real score pressure after that," said K-State coach Jerome Tang, whose Wildcats were outrebounded 27-16 and missed all 10 of their 3-point shots in the second half. "They just kept getting rebounds, and that's something we've got to look at the film and figure it out.
"Because the first half we competed on the boards, but in the second half we didn't.They were just more physical and tougher than we were."
Indeed, each team had 24 rebounds in the first half and K-State rode the hot hand of guard Brendan Hausen, who made 6 of 8 3-point attempts and scored 21 points before the break. The Wildcats were 8 of 15 from behind the arc.
But St. John's locked in on Hausen in the second half, limiting him to two difficult 3-point attempts the rest of the way. He still finished with a career-high 27 points, while David N'Guessan had 15 points and seven rebounds and Coleman Hawkins 11 points with nine rebounds.
"He was able to get some separation. There was some good action," Tang said of Hausen, who made 9 of 17 shots, including 6 of 10 3-pointers, for the game. "The second half they just sat on top of him.
"Some way, we have to come up with some things to be able to help him in the second half. For him to only get off two 3-pointers in the second half when you're 6-for-8 in the first half, that's just poor coaching on my part, so we're going to do a better job of that."
Tang also blamed himself for the Wildcats' inability to handle a true road environment, especially when St. John's took control early in the second half.
"First road game and trying to teach a lesson I hadn't taught them is when the crowd gets louder on the road, you play slower. You don't play faster," Tang said. "And we played faster, and that allowed them to go."
With the crowed whipped into a frenzy, Tang was unable to get the attention of either his team or the officials as he tried to call timeout to stop the bleeding.
"It was loud in here, but it's something that I should have thought of to discuss with them, our first road game, ahead of time," Tang said. "There's just so many things you're trying to teach a new team, and so that's on me."
With a 20-game Big 12 schedule looming, K-State can ill afford more nonconference losses. The Wildcats now are off for 10 days before taking on Drake at T-Mobile Center in Kansas City on Dec. 17, and then go on the road to Wichita State before the league opener against Cincinnati on New Years Eve in Bramlage Coliseum.
"Every game we're learning something about them," Tang said of his team. "I love our guys, love their competitiveness.
"There's some areas we've got to improve, and this exposed some of it. And so, we'll get back to the gym and keep getting better."
Arne Green is based in Salina and covers Kansas State University sports for the Gannett network. He can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter at @arnegreen.