Let's recap Kansas State's trip to Tuscaloosa to take on the Alabama Crimson Tide in The Final at K-StateOnline.

Kansas State hit the floor for the first time since Tuesday night's loss - and brawl - against rival Kansas on Saturday, facing hot SEC member Alabama in Tuscaloosa.

The Wildcats certainly showed plenty of effort, coming all the way back from a 16-point second-half deficit on the road for a chance to win in the final minutes, but the Crimson Tide would eventually hold on for a 77-74 victory.

Cartier Diarra did not get the start in the contest - the first time that's happened this season - but he did enter with more than 14 minutes still left to play in the first half and K-State tied 14-14 with the Crimson Tide. Diarra fouled a 3-point shooter (who made all three) just more than 60 seconds after entering the game, a pet peeve of coach Bruce Weber, but the K-State coach stuck with Diarra. The junior knocked down a triple the next trip down the floor, too, to put K-State back ahead 20-18.

Mike McGuirl, who had missed three straight games with a concussion, returned with 12 minutes left in the first half and the Cats holding that two-point lead. His first points came shortly thereafter - with 10:31 left in the first half - as he knocked in a free throw to make it 23-21.

K-State did hold a 30-25 lead with about five minutes left in the first half, but by the four-minute mark a 6-0 Bama spurt had the Crimson Tide back in front at 31-30. Levi Stockard would knock in a short jumper to end a six-plus minute field-goal drought, and it was also enough to give the Wildcats a 37-36 lead at halftime.

David Sloan picked up his third foul late in the first half, leading to the Wildcats going with Diarra to start the second half.

K-State, as a whole, struggled out of the break.

Diarra would turn it over back-to-back possessions just more than two minutes into the half to help Alabama turn a one-point deficit into a six-point lead very quickly, and Sloan would quickly replace Diarra despite the junior college transfer's foul trouble. K-State ended up scoring three points on Sloan's first possession back, a free throw from him and then two more from Xavier Sneed after multiple K-State offensive boards.

Alabama star John Petty was called for a technical foul, and personal foul, with 16:14 still left to play. The two whistles give Petty his third and fourth fouls and send the dangerous 3-point sniper to the bench with Bama in front 45-40.

Unfortunately for K-State, though, not even three minutes later the lead for the Crimson Tide had extended the lead to 13 points.

Sneed would later hit a triple with K-State trailing by 16, its biggest deficit of the game, with just under 12 minutes left on the clock. Sneed's second straight make from long range made it 61-51 in favor of the Crimson Tide at the ten minute mark; and a pair of Diarra free throws left it an eight-point contest with 9:30 still left. The next trip featured a McGuirl to Makol Mawien ally-oop to trim it to six, and a Diarra bank-shot triple in transition one trip later made it a 15-2 run for K-State to create just a 61-58 Alabama advantage.

Another Diarra three sliced the deficit even further, to one, after a single Bama free throw. The next two trips, though, ended in a Diarra miss and a K-State turnover with the Wildcats in a position to regain the lead. Bama would finally connect on a field goal, though, with just more than five minutes left to finally slow the momentum and go back up three.

It was just a one-point game at the three-minute mark before Bama had a three roll around - then in - for a four-point advantage, but Diarra came back yet again with a two-point jumper to make it 69-67 with 2:48 left to play. Diarra would miss a lay-up, though, at the two-minute mark on the next trip that would have tied the game. That miss would turn into a pair of free throws at the other end, and four-point lead for Alabama as opposed to a tie game.

K-State would get the ball back down one possession (three points), but not until there were just two seconds left.

McGuirl knocked in a deep, deep triple with 16 seconds left to make it just 74-72 in favor of the Tide. Alabama would make two free throws to go back up four before K-State answered with Mawien dunk to get back within two with 2.2 ticks on the clock. Diarra ultimately had a long heave to tie at the buzzer that was off, and Alabama officially help off the furious K-State rally.

Antonio Gordon

Antonio Gordon, of course, did not play in this contest as he serves a three-game suspension for his actions during Tuesday night's fight in Lawrence.

DaJuan Gordon

DaJuan Gordon got the start instead of Cartier Diarra, and he got his first basket on an offensive put-back to put K-State up 10-8 less than five minutes into the contest. Goredon's second hoop came attacking the rim, too, to put the Wildcats up three points with more than 11 minutes remaining before the break.

Gordon was quiet beyond that point, fouling out with 22.2 seconds left.

Montavious Murphy

Montavious Murphy re-joined the starting lineup in this one, and he scored his first points almost immediately on a triple to give K-State a quick 6-2 edge over the Tide. At the 13:30 mark Murphy hit his second three of the half, and on the next possession he scored, again, inside, to make it 17-15 Wildcats with 12:50 still left in the opening half.

Murphy's first hoop of the second half came shortly after the Alabama technical, a hoop inside that made it 45-43 in favor of Alabama. Murphy did force a key turnover late with the Wildcats down four to create some hope, but he also missed a pair of free throws with 46.2 seconds later that would have cut the Alabama lead to just two.

Once again K-State found itself in a tight game at the under-four timeout. Once again the opposing team simply made more plays, and K-State was on the wrong side of a close loss. The Cats had a really nice first half to take a lead into halftime, but an awful start to the second saw K-State fall down by 16. The comeback was nice - and K-State even had multiple opportunities to take the lead - but the Wildcats simply couldn't get over the hump.

THREE THOUGHTS

1. Terrible Twos: K-State made 16 2-point shots compared to 13 for Bama, but it took 24 more shots to get there. Bama outshot the Cats 61.9% to 35.6% from inside the arc, and those missed opportunities were a big reason for this loss.

2. Foul defense: The defensive efficiency ended up being pretty good, but another huge difference was sending Alabama to the free throw line 18 more times, leading to a +15 point differential there in favor of the Crimson Tide. Also, K-State had key misses late from the FT line and got out shot by 10% on free throws. In a close game, those come back to bite you.

3. Some good things: The Cats were relentless on the offensive glass, rebounding 42% of their misses compared to only 12% for Alabama. Also, TOs are always key, and K-State forced Bama to turn it over on 22% of their possessions compared to 18% for K-State.

I'm a broken record on this, but you are only as good as your best players.

Diarra and Sneed both played hard, had nice moments, and were key figures in this game, but at the end of the day neither made enough plays to win this type of game. The 31 combined points was nice, but it took 35 shots to get there and both had offensive ratings of 1.01 and .94 respectively. That simply isn't efficient enough.

Mawien ended up with one of his better games of the year, but it was still about missed opportunities too many times. Murphy was impressive. McGuirl had a nice return. Sloan was solid but struggled with foul trouble along with D. Gordon.

It is also notable that this team played another game with only eight recruited, scholarship players seeing the floor, which isn't an ideal situation for any program.

K-State took a couple of quick, questionable threes early in the game, one by Xavier Sneed and one by Montavious Murphy. However, over the next ten minutes the Wildcats got a bunch of good looks in rhythm and in the flow of the offense. K-State did so by giving Alabama a lot of different looks and by moving well without the basketball. Both Sneed and DaJuan Gordon were extremely active without the basketball. We saw both pin down screens and flare screens for Sneed. Gordon ran hard off of baseline screens. Twice Gordon cut to openings at the elbow area. The first led to an open look for a teammate, and the second he finished on his own at the basket.

The Wildcats did a better job of showing Alabama some window dressing before getting into their high ball screen action. The point of doing so is to get the defense moving and out of position to ultimately make it easier to score on the primary action. On two separate occasions, Sneed and Gordon brought the ball up the floor with either David Sloan or Cartier Diarra breaking open from the wing. The Wildcats then ran a dribble hand-off on the wing before setting the high ball screen.

It was not a coincidence that when K-State did not share the ball the outcome was typically not good. Sloan attempted a straight line drive from high out on the floor and was called for a charge at the basket. Diarra took a step-back three early in a possession. And later, Diarra drove to the basket before no passes were made in the possession and had his shot blocked. Mike McGuirl saved the possession by tipping the loose ball out to Sneed, but Sneed was called for an offensive foul after he backed the ball out and tried to go one-on-one.

The season long struggle from the five-spot continued tonight. K-State does not need those guys to make many plays. They simply need them to finish plays that are made for them. Sneed has done a nice job of curling off pin down screens and making the right play off the screen. Early in the game he found Murphy, who was able to finish with a reverse layup. Later, he correctly flipped one up for Levi Stockard at the rim, but Stockard was caught flat footed and did not go after the ball. On subsequent possessions in the screen and roll game Sloan made a pocket pass to Makol Mawien and threw a pass over the top to him. Mawien was not able to finish either play, with the second one leading to Sloan’s third foul and two free throws for Alabama.

For the second straight game, K-State wasn’t completely locked in on the defensive end. And, to Alabama’s credit, the Crimson Tide did some things to put K-State’s defense in a bind. Early on the Wildcats did not do a good enough job of getting back in transition, which led to a couple of clean looks for John Petty, Jr. In the second half, Alabama got a wide open dunk off a simple high screen and roll. The reason, typically K-State helps on the roller with their weak side defender. However, Alabama put Petty in the weak side corner, and Diarra was afraid to come too far off of him.

Despite K-State getting the benefit of a call, where the referees called Alabama out of bounds along the sideline instead of a foul on Murphy and Alabama missing free throws, K-State was unable to get over the hump due to not being able to finish plays and poor decision making. Diarra missed a layup, and McGuirl’s short shot in the lane rimmed out. Sneed forced two threes in one possession, and Diarra took a questionable three. Even before the made three from McGuirl, I was impressed by what he did in the last two minutes. Twice he put the ball on the floor and created scoring opportunities for his team.

On Kira Lewis USA team/tonight’s game...

“Twenty-six points is pretty good. He (Kira Lewis Jr.) was hitting some big three pointers, he played at a high level. My thing is that it’s an honor for him to be on the team, whether he played 20 minutes or 5 minutes. To be on there to represent the United States and to win a gold is unbelievable. The other thing is to watch the guys around the country. Did it help them get better? And he is a better. I think Coach Oats has done a great job. I think we did a pretty good job on (John) Petty, we never really let him get going, but we couldn’t control Kira. He made the big plays.”

“You love his quickness. He’s an unbelievable downhill driver. He really shot the ball well. When he has those open three pointers. He made a couple big daggers today, long ones that changed it. He’s got that burst of speed. I think as he grows and learns how good he is and how hard he can play, how hard he should play, he has a chance to be special. I think again that’s part of the summer. Going against pros and older guys and from other countries and seeing what you have to do and hopefully a confidence builder.”

On last week’s distraction...

“My whole thing is for the kids and that’s all I care about, is helping them. I hope I did a good job. It wasn’t easy, it wasn’t easy for them. I guess the way we played, against a team that’s very very hot, a team that just beat Auburn, who was undefeated. We gave them a heck of a game. Our guys came focused and played their butts off. I’m happy for that, obviously for the guys that have covered us, same old story again, we’re right there, but we can’t get over the hump.”

On how things could have been done differently...

“We had a couple chances. We had a couple good shots and we had a couple tough shots. When we execute we’re pretty good. Credit to them, little (James) Bolden has that West Virginia in him, he really pressured us. I thought he was a key that disrupted us in the second half. He doesn’t have that many stats, but his ball pressure really bothered our guards and got us out of our rhythm. We didn’t get into stuff. I thought that little stretch there was a big turning point.

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