The Kansas State men’s basketball team will once again be without its head coach and many of its best players when the Wildcats hit the road to play West Virginia at 1 p.m. on Saturday.
Because of COVID-19 issues within the team’s roster, K-State is only expected to have one coach and eight players on the sideline this weekend.
Jermaine Henderson will serve as head coach for the game while Bruce Weber, Chris Lowery and Shane Southwell all stay home after testing positive for COVID. The Wildcats will also be missing Kaosi Ezeagu, Davion Bradford and Logan Landers, leaving them without a true center to play against the Mountaineers.
K-State had to deal with many of the same absences during its last game against Texas, a 70-57 home loss, but Southwell served as head coach for that one. Needless to say, the Wildcats will once again be at a significant disadvantage.
“We have stayed around that number where, according to Big 12 rules, we have enough coaches and players to play,” Weber said. “I don’t think it’s right. I think it’s unfair. I have expressed that to the league office. I did that last year. I did it this year to our administration. But those are the rules and you have got to play by the rules.”
Big 12 rules stipulate that any team with at least six healthy players and one coach is expected to play conference games this season. Any team falling under that threshold will have its games postponed.
That has created unbalanced schedules early on this Big 12 season. Texas got to play West Virginia and K-State while both teams were missing key players. TCU went on a COVID pause and will have a shot at playing its remaining games at full strenght. The Wildcats, meanwhile, will be short-handed for their first three league games.
“It’s a difficult situation,” Weber said. “Obviously, it’s frustrating.”
Weber said he is currently feeling fine, but began experiencing COVID symptoms of back aches, congestion and fatigue on Saturday when K-State played its Big 12 opener against Oklahoma. All three of K-State’s centers began experiencing similar symptoms the following day, so the Wildcats ran some tests.
The results left all of them, plus associate head coach Chris Lowery and a few walk-on players, in quarantine.
They should be able to rejoin the team next week. Southwell tested positive for COVID later then that initial group. So he may miss the next two games.
Despite all that, it’s not entirely bad news for K-State.
The Wildcats are expected to have Markquis Nowell back against West Virginia. The junior point guard missed K-State’s previous two games while in COVID protocols but he is now ready to play.
His return should give a scoring boost to the Wildcats. He is averaging 12.8 points, 4.9 assists and 4.0 rebounds this season.