photo by: AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall

Kansas guard AJ Storr drives up court during the first half of an NCAA college basketball game against Iowa State Wednesday, Jan. 15, 2025, in Ames, Iowa.

The Kansas men’s basketball team, which had been riding high off three straight wins led by dominant defensive efforts, came back down to earth with a double-digit loss at Iowa State on Wednesday.

By the time center Hunter Dickinson made it to the media room for his postgame press conference, he and his teammates were wasting no time in looking ahead to their next challenge, Kansas State, just two and a half days away.

“We know they’re going to play their tails off,” Dickinson said, “and we got to try to get back on track.”

The ninth-ranked Jayhawks will look to return to their winning ways and maintain an 18-season winning streak in games against their rival at Allen Fieldhouse, as they will welcome the struggling Wildcats to Lawrence on Saturday.

“Not sure if they’re going to make the tournament or not, but if they don’t, this is the type of game that they’re going to talk about in their banquet, if they beat us at our place, so we can’t allow that to happen,” guard Rylan Griffen said on postgame radio. “And we know this is a season-defining type (of) game for them. Their season is going to be pretty much predicated on the two times we play them, so just got to make sure we don’t let them have a great banquet.”

The Jayhawks will have to tackle Saturday’s challenge without senior forward KJ Adams, who suffered a shoulder injury against ISU. On Friday, Self said he had a separated shoulder and would be “week to week.”

Like KU, K-State is trying to get its season back on course, but in the Wildcats’ case they’re working through much more significant setbacks.

After missing the NCAA Tournament last season, K-State revamped its roster with big investments in the transfer portal that have not yet paid off in full. The Wildcats suffered nonconference losses to teams like Liberty, Drake and Wichita State and has since opened Big 12 play 1-4, making them the only team in the Big 12 with a losing record on the season.

Late-game cold spells have been particularly deadly for KSU. At TCU on Jan. 4, the Wildcats went ahead 62-56 on a 3-pointer by Max Jones and didn’t score for the rest of the night in what became a one-point loss. Most recently, hosting Texas Tech on Tuesday, K-State made exactly one shot in the final eight minutes and 17 seconds.

The Wildcats’ biggest-name transfer, Coleman Hawkins, formerly played at Illinois and is a versatile 6-foot-10 forward averaging 10.6 points, 6.9 rebounds, 3.9 assists and 2.2 steals per game, who forms a potent frontcourt duo with 6-foot-9 returnee David N’Guessan (12.6 points, 7.4 rebounds, a league-leading 64.3% field-goal percentage). Junior guard and Villanova transfer Brendan Hausen provides a contrasting style as one of the league’s best and highest-volume outside shooters — he’s 50-for-124 (40.3%) from deep on the year and has taken just 20 shots within the arc.

“To me they’re a scary team offensively, because they can shoot and haven’t shot it well consistently,” KU coach Bill Self said.

K-State’s rotation has fluctuated quite a bit from game to game. Most recently, head coach Jerome Tang has opted for a starting lineup of Hausen, Hawkins and N’Guessan joined in the backcourt by transfers Dug McDaniel, a former teammate of Dickinson’s at Michigan, and Jones, from Cal State Fullerton.

Stats don’t flatter the Wildcats this season. They rank 14th in the Big 12 in scoring offense and 13th in scoring defense and have been particularly deficient on the glass, where despite the efforts of Hawkins and N’Guessan they are last in the league in rebounding (33.9 per game) and defensive rebounding (23.2, 308th in the nation).

“They’re going to be desperate because they’re under .500, but we’re going to be desperate too because we’re in the middle of the pack of Big 12 rankings right now,” Griffen said on Friday. “We don’t have any room for error right now either. It’s going to be two desperate teams playing, and we’re going to be on our home floor, so we have to be even more desperate than them.”

Tang has split his four matchups with KU since taking over. The rivals will face off a second time in Manhattan on Feb. 8.

No. 9 Kansas Jayhawks (12-4, 3-2 Big 12) vs. Kansas State Wildcats (7-9, 1-4 Big 12)

• Allen Fieldhouse, Lawrence, 12 p.m.

• Broadcast: CBS

• Radio: Jayhawk Radio Network (in Lawrence, KLWN AM 1320 / K269GB FM 101.7 / KMXN FM 92.9)

Keep an eye out

The most salient storyline entering Saturday’s game for KU is the impending absence of Adams.

Adams has been a fixture in KU’s starting lineup for so long that it’s hard to conceive of one without him. (Self said on Friday he hasn’t decided whom to start yet.) Adams hasn’t missed a game since the Jayhawks played Providence in the Sweet 16 in 2022, meaning he has appeared in 89 in a row, and he has started 84 of them, including every game this season.

“He’s played so well the last four games,” Self said. “He’s been without question our best and most consistent performer. I think that’s a blow, but it’s also a great opportunity … Hopefully somebody can develop through this as well.”

One of the main assets Adams provides KU is his versatility on defense as an extremely physical and athletic 6-foot-7 forward, allowing him to guard all five positions. That would have been useful against Hawkins and N’Guessan. Freshman center Flory Bidunga has shown flashes of being able to do the same and will be a likely candidate to occupy some of Adams’ minutes, especially given the Wildcats’ athleticism in the frontcourt. He and Dickinson will need to stay out of foul trouble, which has been a challenge at times for Bidunga in particular.

KU could also miss Adams’ intangibles.

“We have to pick up for his energy,” Griffen said. “He always has great energy on the court. You always know he’s on the court.”

The other players who can expect to stay on the floor longer in Adams’ absence are transfers Rylan Griffen and AJ Storr, who have both struggled to establish a rhythm this season on either side of the ball, Storr in particular.

Freshman wing Rakease Passmore, who acquitted himself well in spot minutes at ISU to the point Self said he was second to Adams in “production per minute,” might also find his way into the rotation, particularly if Griffen and Storr aren’t living up to expectations.

“AJ, Flory, Rylan (and) Rakease will have significantly bigger roles than what they’ve had thus far,” Self said. “So I see that certainly being different, and can we play small? Are we tough enough, can we rebound well enough to actually play small? Could we even play Rylan or Rakease at the 4 some — and AJ’s going to certainly have to play there some.”

One possible silver lining could be improved spacing for the Jayhawks. Opposing defenses have been known to sag off Adams in order to clog the paint, both preventing opportunities for guards to drive and denying possible paint touches for Dickinson. Especially against lineups with wings like Griffen, Passmore or Storr, opponents will have to respect the possibility of 3-pointers a bit more.