SE: K-State Uses Group Chat for Motivation, Focus in Run to Elite Eight Battle with Loyola Chicago
Mar 24, 2018 | Men's Basketball, Sports Extra
By Corbin McGuire
ATLANTA — K-State's basketball players have a number of different group chats they communicate through, each with its own purpose.
Funny videos, pictures or short highlights circulate between the Wildcats on Instagram. Silly moments are captured and shared via Snapchat. Then there's the team's actual text message group chat, a much more business-like form of communication.
"We want to make sure that we're on top of everything and that we're not leaving the arena with any regrets at the end of the day," senior walk-on Mason Schoen said, as K-State (25-11) prepares to take on Loyola Chicago (31-5) in the NCAA Tournament's Elite Eight on Saturday at 5:09 p.m. (CT), on TBS.
As junior guard Barry Brown has found, the old-fashioned text message group chat is also an effective place to funnel motivation. Since the beginning of the year, he and Schoen have taken the lead in sending a variety of messages to their teammates to keep them focused and hungry.
An example?
When the Big 12 preseason polls came out last October, a message was sent reminding the Wildcats where they were picked: Eighth. They finished fourth.
"We knew there was a lot of doubt and we played with a chip on our shoulders throughout the whole season, just trying to prove people wrong," junior guard Kamau Stokes said. "I feel like we're showing them."
With All-Big 12 First Team forward Dean Wade's status questionable entering K-State's first two NCAA Tournament games, his teammates fielded countless questions about how the odds seemed stacked against them. They won both games without him on the floor to advance to the Sweet 16.
"We've been under picked and unranked all year so that's just our goal, to prove people wrong. We have that chip on our shoulder and I feel like we've been playing with that chip all year," sophomore Xavier Sneed said. "We're just trying to prove people wrong, show them how good of a ball club we are and the way K-State really plays basketball."
After the first two rounds, multiple national media outlets ranked the teams in the Sweet 16. K-State was slotted last in more than one. As national pundits and college basketball "experts" made their picks of which teams would advance to the Elite Eight, nearly all selected the blue, highly recruited Wildcats from Lexington, Kentucky, not the purple-clad, under-the-radar Wildcats Bruce Weber brought in.
K-State saw it all and snapped Kentucky's eight-game winning streak in the Sweet 16.
"I appreciate them because everything I was seeing on social media, I was just feeding it to our guys in our group message, letting them know that people think we're still not supposed to be here and we're still a bad team. We were seeded as the 16th team out of the last 16 that were in. I think that attitude added to our fire," Brown said after Thursday's win. "Reading what they said, saying we have no chance, telling our guys that we're not supposed to be here, people still think we're a fluke, this and that, I think they took that as fuel to the fire, came out and played, proved that we're supposed to be here right from the start and kept that same energy throughout the game."
"It's been a great motivation to us," added Schoen, who was teammates with Loyola Chicago's Clayton Custer and Ben Richardson at Blue Valley Northwest. "I think just a huge story is the fact that we were picked to finish eighth in the league and now we're sitting at the Elite Eight, so we've kind of used that as motivation all year long. I think it's shown in the last few weeks especially."
The group chat includes more than outsiders' doubt, too. It's also a place to get everyone refocused. Case in point: A few hours after K-State's Sweet 16 win, the team's phones buzzed with a message from their leaders.
Sophomore walk-on Pierson McAtee summed up the late-night message as such: "Great win tonight. It's good to celebrate it a little bit but let's get some sleep and let's get our minds straight. We have bigger and better things ahead."
K-State is now seeking the program's first Final Four berth since 1964, with No. 11 seed Loyola Chicago standing in its way. The Ramblers have already knocked off sixth-seeded Miami, third-seeded Tennessee and seventh-seeded Nevada by a combined four points.
The Wildcats, who feel overlooked all season, have no intention of giving Loyola Chicago the same treatment.
"It's definitely helped us that we've been overlooked," Stokes said. "Our coaches, they tell us not to doubt anybody. They tell us we have to come out with the same intensity."
ATLANTA — K-State's basketball players have a number of different group chats they communicate through, each with its own purpose.
Funny videos, pictures or short highlights circulate between the Wildcats on Instagram. Silly moments are captured and shared via Snapchat. Then there's the team's actual text message group chat, a much more business-like form of communication.
"We want to make sure that we're on top of everything and that we're not leaving the arena with any regrets at the end of the day," senior walk-on Mason Schoen said, as K-State (25-11) prepares to take on Loyola Chicago (31-5) in the NCAA Tournament's Elite Eight on Saturday at 5:09 p.m. (CT), on TBS.
As junior guard Barry Brown has found, the old-fashioned text message group chat is also an effective place to funnel motivation. Since the beginning of the year, he and Schoen have taken the lead in sending a variety of messages to their teammates to keep them focused and hungry.
An example?
When the Big 12 preseason polls came out last October, a message was sent reminding the Wildcats where they were picked: Eighth. They finished fourth.
"We knew there was a lot of doubt and we played with a chip on our shoulders throughout the whole season, just trying to prove people wrong," junior guard Kamau Stokes said. "I feel like we're showing them."
With All-Big 12 First Team forward Dean Wade's status questionable entering K-State's first two NCAA Tournament games, his teammates fielded countless questions about how the odds seemed stacked against them. They won both games without him on the floor to advance to the Sweet 16.
"We've been under picked and unranked all year so that's just our goal, to prove people wrong. We have that chip on our shoulder and I feel like we've been playing with that chip all year," sophomore Xavier Sneed said. "We're just trying to prove people wrong, show them how good of a ball club we are and the way K-State really plays basketball."
After the first two rounds, multiple national media outlets ranked the teams in the Sweet 16. K-State was slotted last in more than one. As national pundits and college basketball "experts" made their picks of which teams would advance to the Elite Eight, nearly all selected the blue, highly recruited Wildcats from Lexington, Kentucky, not the purple-clad, under-the-radar Wildcats Bruce Weber brought in.
K-State saw it all and snapped Kentucky's eight-game winning streak in the Sweet 16.
"I appreciate them because everything I was seeing on social media, I was just feeding it to our guys in our group message, letting them know that people think we're still not supposed to be here and we're still a bad team. We were seeded as the 16th team out of the last 16 that were in. I think that attitude added to our fire," Brown said after Thursday's win. "Reading what they said, saying we have no chance, telling our guys that we're not supposed to be here, people still think we're a fluke, this and that, I think they took that as fuel to the fire, came out and played, proved that we're supposed to be here right from the start and kept that same energy throughout the game."
"It's been a great motivation to us," added Schoen, who was teammates with Loyola Chicago's Clayton Custer and Ben Richardson at Blue Valley Northwest. "I think just a huge story is the fact that we were picked to finish eighth in the league and now we're sitting at the Elite Eight, so we've kind of used that as motivation all year long. I think it's shown in the last few weeks especially."
The group chat includes more than outsiders' doubt, too. It's also a place to get everyone refocused. Case in point: A few hours after K-State's Sweet 16 win, the team's phones buzzed with a message from their leaders.
Sophomore walk-on Pierson McAtee summed up the late-night message as such: "Great win tonight. It's good to celebrate it a little bit but let's get some sleep and let's get our minds straight. We have bigger and better things ahead."
K-State is now seeking the program's first Final Four berth since 1964, with No. 11 seed Loyola Chicago standing in its way. The Ramblers have already knocked off sixth-seeded Miami, third-seeded Tennessee and seventh-seeded Nevada by a combined four points.
The Wildcats, who feel overlooked all season, have no intention of giving Loyola Chicago the same treatment.
"It's definitely helped us that we've been overlooked," Stokes said. "Our coaches, they tell us not to doubt anybody. They tell us we have to come out with the same intensity."
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