Bragging rights are up for grabs Saturday as one of the Big 12’s most heated rivalries returns in the Sunflower Showdown.
The first of two meetings tips off in Manhattan and couldn’t come at a better time for the Jayhawks (14-5, 4-2 Big 12), who are coming off a six-point win over Colorado.
Scouting the Wildcats: A ‘rebuild’ still in progress
It’s safe to say the Kansas State (10-9, 1-5 Big 12) offense runs through one man: Big 12 leading scorer PJ Haggerty. He’s played 30+ minutes in each of the last seven games and has led the Wildcats in scoring in nine of their last 10 contests.
Haggerty ranks third in the nation, averaging 23.4 points per game, and stands alone as the only guard in the conference averaging at least 23 points and five rebounds.
In K-State’s most recent win over Utah, he recorded a game-high 34 points, 28 of them in the second half, also totaling eight rebounds, four assists, and two steals. Haggerty was the only Wildcat guard to score in the first 12 minutes of the second half.
But it’s a formula that hasn’t fully clicked for the Wildcats, who opened conference play 0–5 for the first time since the 1996-97 season. Only two of those losses came by more than a single possession, including a three-point setback to Arizona State and a heartbreaker 84–83 defeat at Oklahoma State.
The Wildcats played their last game with only 10 players, and were without leading three-point shooter Abdi Bashir.
Kansas riding momentum following win at Colorado
The Jayhawks earned their first true conference road win on Tuesday against Colorado, a contest highlighted by 18 points from Melvin Council Jr., who scored 10 in the final 5:07.
Tre White grabbed a season-high 15 rebounds, the most by any Kansas guard in conference play this season.
Four Kansas players finished in double figures, including Council, White, Darryn Peterson, and Flory Bidunga.
Council’s 18-point performance marked his third conference game with 18 or more points. He is averaging 14.6 points in conference play and enters the rivalry having shot 53.8% from the field against the Buffaloes.
Jayhwks recent struggles in the ‘Octagon of Doom’
Kansas has played a number of close games inside Bramlage Coliseum, but there’s a kicker: the Jayhawks haven’t won this game on the road since 2022.
Two of their last three road losses came in overtime by five points or fewer, with the exclusion of the most recent, an 81-73 defeat in which Hunter Dickinson tallied 21 points, nine rebounds, and four assists.
Dickinson is one of only two players, along with Jalen Wilson, to score 20 or more points on the road against Kansas State.
Kansas also hasn’t won by more than five points in Manhattan in over four years, a streak that ranks among the longest in any college basketball rivalry in the last decade.