Nov 09, 2026 | Men's Basketball
The Wildcats and Bluejay face off on Tuesday night at Bramlage Coliseum.
MANHATTAN, Kan. – Kansas State head men's basketball coach Casey Alexander, along with sophomore Matt Gilhool and junior Pape N'Diaye, met with the media on Monday afternoon (Nov. 9) as the Wildcats prep for their home game vs. Creighton.
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Links to the video are above with a transcript of Alexander availability below.
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The game is dubbed "Doom After Dark" with fans being encouraged to wear anthracite with the first 2,000 fans and 1,000 students receiving Lite Up Rally Towels.
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The teams will meet for the second consecutive season after K-State recorded its only road win of the season with an 83-76 win in Omaha on Dec. 13, 2025. The Wildcats have won each of the last four matchups, including a 69-59 win in the 2018 NCAA Tournament in Charlotte, N.C.
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K-State holds a narrow 9-8 edge in the all-time series, including a 5-0 mark in Manhattan. This will be the first meeting in Manhattan since 1986.
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Led by first-year head coach Alan Huss, Creighton is off to a 2-0 start after decisive home victories over Kansas City (76-61) and Le Moyne (83-55). The Bluejays are led by senior newcomer Wes Enis (20.5 ppg.), who was the Most Outstanding Player of the American Conference Tournament after leading South Florida to the title. Two others – junior Jackson McAndrew (12.0 ppg., 6.0 rpg.) and senior BJ Davis (11.0 ppg., 5.0 rpg.) – also average in double figures.
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Huss, a 2002 Creighton graduate and longtime assistant coach (2017-23) to Greg McDermott, returned as associate head coach and head coach in waiting in 2025-26, after spending two seasons at High Point, leading the Panthers to a 56-15 record, a pair of Big South Conference titles and the program's first NCAA Tournament bid.
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Fans can purchase Doom After Dark Bramlage Bundle ticket packages which include one GA ticket, one $10 concession voucher and one Rally House coupon for $10 off any anthracite gear.
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HEAD COACH CASEY ALEXANDER
On the health of Timo Malovec…
"He's back and with us, and just more day-to-day than ever before. I think we're getting a lot closer. Got to see how he does. Make sure we don't have any setbacks. But he's progressing very well. It shouldn't be long."
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On Creighton and how hard this matchup is…
"All things are hard. When I think about Creighton, I really don't think you know they're a team without real deficiencies. They've got great scoring. They've got good size. They've got good athleticism. They've got good balance. They've got good depth. They're well coached, and so it's a tall order for us. You know, not a game that we don't think we can win, but we'll have to play really well on both ends and have to do it for the better part of 40 minutes in order to do so."
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On your evaluation after the first week…
"Yeah, the sting from Game One is going to be there for a good while, and but I thought we responded very well. Northridge was a completely different challenge. Style of play was very difficult, simple to prepare for in some ways, but very difficult to play. Saw some of that in the second half. They kind of imposed their will on us a little bit, but I felt like our response to Tuesday night's loss, the mentality of our team, the way they approached Friday, the way they played much better Friday was what we wanted to see."
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On the response by this team after a win…
"Yeah, it's the same. You know, again, our players, in my opinion, have been remarkably consistent with their effort and readiness to go every day. They understand both the micro and the macro of what we're doing and how to approach that. And so, they've got great trust from me in their approach. And it's really the least of my worries. You know, some of those things bear themselves out over time. And you all there are always surprises in a season. But we haven't had to spend any of our time motivating players or you know bringing them back into the fold or anything like that. They've been really consistent."
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On the key factors going against Creighton…
"They definitely present some new challenges. It's dangerous. Coaches are always talking about doing all of it right. You know, you can't emphasize everything, every practice, and every game definitely has some challenges that you are going to focus on. Transition defense, for example, is really important against them. They are dynamic with three-point shooting. The amount of threes they get in transition is pretty alarming, and so that's a challenge that we haven't really faced yet. But really, there's a lot more to it than that. They're just a really good team."
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On the difference between games one and two…
"Well, we shot it better early, but I think a lot of that is because we played. We just played. You'll hear me say it all the time. I use the word edge. I thought we had one early in the game. I felt like we were really ready to go, and we got off to a good start, and we kind of fed off of that. Again, I think the defensive game plan and execution of that was really good in the first half, doing a good job with Davis and bottling him up, and so we just we were we were able to string together a lot of good possessions on both ends of the floor, and over time the accumulation of that was good. We didn't sustain it like we want to, but again, I think you have to give them a little bit of credit. They settled in and they and they made some of the plays that we're used to seeing, much of which we saw in the Wichita State game two days prior. So that's just how games go."
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On how you slow down Creighton's offense…
"The best thing to slow down the other team's offensive transition is to have good offensive possessions of your own. If you're scoring, that makes things much more difficult for them. If you're turning it over or taking bad shots, that makes things much easier for them. And so that's where I would start. And then it's just the old same thing for every team at every level. You got to sprint back. You got to get yourself ready. You got to know who you're guarding. You got to be prepared for the possession."
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On how the guys handled two different types of teams last week…
"Yeah, again, I think they handled it very well. It's not like we play every Saturday, and you just follow the same routine. We came back on Wednesday after the loss, and I wouldn't say we went long and hard, but it was a long day, and we got after it a little bit. And we had to address some things, and we had a really good practice. And then the day before the game, you got to do you got to turn around, do it all over again to make sure that you're prepared. And so, we didn't we didn't really get a lot of physical rest and or a mental break between games. And so, for those, and I was really pleased with how they handled that. It was very similar to what you would see on a Wednesday-Saturday conference week, where you got to bounce back and get started all over again, but they handled that very well."
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On how diversity of Creighton's personnel…
"There are so many guys that are a threat. (Wes) Enis shoots 16 shots a game and is a dynamic 3-point shooter. He can really heat up quickly. But (Jackson) McAndrew, I think he had five first half threes in that game together. They were really exceptional. But (Austin_ Swartz is a really good player. (BJ) Davis can do a lot of his own. I like their lineup from top to bottom. Their bigs don't shoot threes. They're pretty isolated in how they play, but they're great at their role. I mean, they're rim protectors, lob catchers. They're really a balanced team."
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On Matt Gilhool's response from game one to game two…
"Matt responded very well to a tough night on Tuesday and bounced back on Friday. You know, and the minutes would reflect that, and that's really the key for him, maybe the team in general, but in particular, you know, we've got several guys that are playing like Jaylen Alexander and Gilly. You know, those guys are, even though Matt was a redshirt last year, he's still playing his first college basketball, and so you're gonna have to endure some of that, and we understand that. I think having Timo back will take some of the burden off of playing our way through that whenever that happens. But Gilly's, we see what he can do. He's got a really bright future. He can help us on both ends of the floor, and so just finding the consistency is what we're looking for."
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On the number of 3-point attempts in the first two games…
"Yeah, I was surprised that was the case. We didn't come here to set school records on three-point attempts. You've heard me say it plenty, though. As long as they are good shots, then we'll take it by our count. There were seven that we definitely would like to have back, but a couple of those, Dez Lindsay's at the end of the first half. Montana Wheeler's at the very end of the game, where he thought the shot clock was still on, and you know, so he just chucked one up there. But we got to get five of those back for sure, and then we had 17 turnovers. So, there's still too way too many possessions out there. If you look at a game where we score 95 points and the percentages are pretty decent, there's a lot of possessions out there that we wasted away."
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On his thoughts on the phrase "live and die by the three" when you're know for 3-point shooting…
"I'm familiar with the phrase, but that's not at all a philosophy of ours. We've always had really good three-point shooting teams, but it's more the cumulative effect of having a lot of guys that can make them than it is a strategy of ours to go out and you know set the nets on fire. And there's going to be games, plenty of games where we make single-digit threes and or the percentage isn't there, and then there's going to be somewhere we're really playing on rhythm, and the ball seems to be going in. I mean, even Rechsteiner, he's gonna have days where it's tough. The Missouri game was one of them. You know, he got off to a really bad start, then he started pressing a little bit. So that just that's the hard part about living and dying with the three is you're gonna die with it some, and you gotta find other ways to win when that's not really what's working for you."
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On a player who has surprised you so far on the defensive end…
"Jaden Schutt was exceptional against CSUN. Smart player, in position quite a lot. He had multiple deflections from gaps. I think his basketball IQ really helps him on that end of the floor. He's not the best athlete that we have, but he gives us really solid minutes on that end. He really gives us solid minutes on both ends. He's a very dependable guy. Isaiah Abraham is the guy that's going to draw the toughest assignment most days. We deliberately switched him on to Davis on baseline out of bounds plays and side out of bounds plays, where he could get set and ready because he's our best defender. You look at size, strength and athleticism; he can guard a lot of people and do it well."
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On what Timo Malovec brings to the team when he gets back from injury…
"He really will settle us down. It may take him a minute to get his feet wet, you know, and playing the first game whenever that is, and being part of it for the first time in gosh months. You know, he hasn't done anything since July, as far as with the team, and so it's unfair to think he's just going to walk in and really change the course of our team, but over time, I think he will. He is a very intelligent player on both ends, highly skilled offensively, and with size has a lot of guard skills. Defensively also just a smart player. He understands the game, sees things that just naturally gifted in the way that he sees the game on both ends of the floor."
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On the progress made by both JT Rock and Andrej Kostic…
"Both of them were very much health related, and I would say JT is back to 100 percent. He showed that in the game the other day. He was moving so much better, had a much different mentality, and so we're hoping that his setbacks are very far in the rearview mirror. AK is he's just battling a knee injury that he can't really shake, and he works really hard. He does everything that he can, but it's just kept him from being able to string enough days together to work himself into a position where he should be playing instead of somebody else. And he knows that he's very frustrated. But he's doing everything he can, and we're very hopeful that he'll get there. But he won't play until he needs to be playing."
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How to follow the 'Cats: For complete information on K-State men's basketball, visit www.kstatesports.com and follow the team's social media channels on X, Instagram and Facebook.
Â
Links to the video are above with a transcript of Alexander availability below.
Â
The game is dubbed "Doom After Dark" with fans being encouraged to wear anthracite with the first 2,000 fans and 1,000 students receiving Lite Up Rally Towels.
Â
The teams will meet for the second consecutive season after K-State recorded its only road win of the season with an 83-76 win in Omaha on Dec. 13, 2025. The Wildcats have won each of the last four matchups, including a 69-59 win in the 2018 NCAA Tournament in Charlotte, N.C.
Â
K-State holds a narrow 9-8 edge in the all-time series, including a 5-0 mark in Manhattan. This will be the first meeting in Manhattan since 1986.
Â
Led by first-year head coach Alan Huss, Creighton is off to a 2-0 start after decisive home victories over Kansas City (76-61) and Le Moyne (83-55). The Bluejays are led by senior newcomer Wes Enis (20.5 ppg.), who was the Most Outstanding Player of the American Conference Tournament after leading South Florida to the title. Two others – junior Jackson McAndrew (12.0 ppg., 6.0 rpg.) and senior BJ Davis (11.0 ppg., 5.0 rpg.) – also average in double figures.
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Huss, a 2002 Creighton graduate and longtime assistant coach (2017-23) to Greg McDermott, returned as associate head coach and head coach in waiting in 2025-26, after spending two seasons at High Point, leading the Panthers to a 56-15 record, a pair of Big South Conference titles and the program's first NCAA Tournament bid.
Â
Fans can purchase Doom After Dark Bramlage Bundle ticket packages which include one GA ticket, one $10 concession voucher and one Rally House coupon for $10 off any anthracite gear.
Â
HEAD COACH CASEY ALEXANDER
On the health of Timo Malovec…
"He's back and with us, and just more day-to-day than ever before. I think we're getting a lot closer. Got to see how he does. Make sure we don't have any setbacks. But he's progressing very well. It shouldn't be long."
Â
On Creighton and how hard this matchup is…
"All things are hard. When I think about Creighton, I really don't think you know they're a team without real deficiencies. They've got great scoring. They've got good size. They've got good athleticism. They've got good balance. They've got good depth. They're well coached, and so it's a tall order for us. You know, not a game that we don't think we can win, but we'll have to play really well on both ends and have to do it for the better part of 40 minutes in order to do so."
Â
On your evaluation after the first week…
"Yeah, the sting from Game One is going to be there for a good while, and but I thought we responded very well. Northridge was a completely different challenge. Style of play was very difficult, simple to prepare for in some ways, but very difficult to play. Saw some of that in the second half. They kind of imposed their will on us a little bit, but I felt like our response to Tuesday night's loss, the mentality of our team, the way they approached Friday, the way they played much better Friday was what we wanted to see."
Â
On the response by this team after a win…
"Yeah, it's the same. You know, again, our players, in my opinion, have been remarkably consistent with their effort and readiness to go every day. They understand both the micro and the macro of what we're doing and how to approach that. And so, they've got great trust from me in their approach. And it's really the least of my worries. You know, some of those things bear themselves out over time. And you all there are always surprises in a season. But we haven't had to spend any of our time motivating players or you know bringing them back into the fold or anything like that. They've been really consistent."
Â
On the key factors going against Creighton…
"They definitely present some new challenges. It's dangerous. Coaches are always talking about doing all of it right. You know, you can't emphasize everything, every practice, and every game definitely has some challenges that you are going to focus on. Transition defense, for example, is really important against them. They are dynamic with three-point shooting. The amount of threes they get in transition is pretty alarming, and so that's a challenge that we haven't really faced yet. But really, there's a lot more to it than that. They're just a really good team."
Â
On the difference between games one and two…
"Well, we shot it better early, but I think a lot of that is because we played. We just played. You'll hear me say it all the time. I use the word edge. I thought we had one early in the game. I felt like we were really ready to go, and we got off to a good start, and we kind of fed off of that. Again, I think the defensive game plan and execution of that was really good in the first half, doing a good job with Davis and bottling him up, and so we just we were we were able to string together a lot of good possessions on both ends of the floor, and over time the accumulation of that was good. We didn't sustain it like we want to, but again, I think you have to give them a little bit of credit. They settled in and they and they made some of the plays that we're used to seeing, much of which we saw in the Wichita State game two days prior. So that's just how games go."
Â
On how you slow down Creighton's offense…
"The best thing to slow down the other team's offensive transition is to have good offensive possessions of your own. If you're scoring, that makes things much more difficult for them. If you're turning it over or taking bad shots, that makes things much easier for them. And so that's where I would start. And then it's just the old same thing for every team at every level. You got to sprint back. You got to get yourself ready. You got to know who you're guarding. You got to be prepared for the possession."
Â
On how the guys handled two different types of teams last week…
"Yeah, again, I think they handled it very well. It's not like we play every Saturday, and you just follow the same routine. We came back on Wednesday after the loss, and I wouldn't say we went long and hard, but it was a long day, and we got after it a little bit. And we had to address some things, and we had a really good practice. And then the day before the game, you got to do you got to turn around, do it all over again to make sure that you're prepared. And so, we didn't we didn't really get a lot of physical rest and or a mental break between games. And so, for those, and I was really pleased with how they handled that. It was very similar to what you would see on a Wednesday-Saturday conference week, where you got to bounce back and get started all over again, but they handled that very well."
Â
On how diversity of Creighton's personnel…
"There are so many guys that are a threat. (Wes) Enis shoots 16 shots a game and is a dynamic 3-point shooter. He can really heat up quickly. But (Jackson) McAndrew, I think he had five first half threes in that game together. They were really exceptional. But (Austin_ Swartz is a really good player. (BJ) Davis can do a lot of his own. I like their lineup from top to bottom. Their bigs don't shoot threes. They're pretty isolated in how they play, but they're great at their role. I mean, they're rim protectors, lob catchers. They're really a balanced team."
Â
On Matt Gilhool's response from game one to game two…
"Matt responded very well to a tough night on Tuesday and bounced back on Friday. You know, and the minutes would reflect that, and that's really the key for him, maybe the team in general, but in particular, you know, we've got several guys that are playing like Jaylen Alexander and Gilly. You know, those guys are, even though Matt was a redshirt last year, he's still playing his first college basketball, and so you're gonna have to endure some of that, and we understand that. I think having Timo back will take some of the burden off of playing our way through that whenever that happens. But Gilly's, we see what he can do. He's got a really bright future. He can help us on both ends of the floor, and so just finding the consistency is what we're looking for."
Â
On the number of 3-point attempts in the first two games…
"Yeah, I was surprised that was the case. We didn't come here to set school records on three-point attempts. You've heard me say it plenty, though. As long as they are good shots, then we'll take it by our count. There were seven that we definitely would like to have back, but a couple of those, Dez Lindsay's at the end of the first half. Montana Wheeler's at the very end of the game, where he thought the shot clock was still on, and you know, so he just chucked one up there. But we got to get five of those back for sure, and then we had 17 turnovers. So, there's still too way too many possessions out there. If you look at a game where we score 95 points and the percentages are pretty decent, there's a lot of possessions out there that we wasted away."
Â
On his thoughts on the phrase "live and die by the three" when you're know for 3-point shooting…
"I'm familiar with the phrase, but that's not at all a philosophy of ours. We've always had really good three-point shooting teams, but it's more the cumulative effect of having a lot of guys that can make them than it is a strategy of ours to go out and you know set the nets on fire. And there's going to be games, plenty of games where we make single-digit threes and or the percentage isn't there, and then there's going to be somewhere we're really playing on rhythm, and the ball seems to be going in. I mean, even Rechsteiner, he's gonna have days where it's tough. The Missouri game was one of them. You know, he got off to a really bad start, then he started pressing a little bit. So that just that's the hard part about living and dying with the three is you're gonna die with it some, and you gotta find other ways to win when that's not really what's working for you."
Â
On a player who has surprised you so far on the defensive end…
"Jaden Schutt was exceptional against CSUN. Smart player, in position quite a lot. He had multiple deflections from gaps. I think his basketball IQ really helps him on that end of the floor. He's not the best athlete that we have, but he gives us really solid minutes on that end. He really gives us solid minutes on both ends. He's a very dependable guy. Isaiah Abraham is the guy that's going to draw the toughest assignment most days. We deliberately switched him on to Davis on baseline out of bounds plays and side out of bounds plays, where he could get set and ready because he's our best defender. You look at size, strength and athleticism; he can guard a lot of people and do it well."
Â
On what Timo Malovec brings to the team when he gets back from injury…
"He really will settle us down. It may take him a minute to get his feet wet, you know, and playing the first game whenever that is, and being part of it for the first time in gosh months. You know, he hasn't done anything since July, as far as with the team, and so it's unfair to think he's just going to walk in and really change the course of our team, but over time, I think he will. He is a very intelligent player on both ends, highly skilled offensively, and with size has a lot of guard skills. Defensively also just a smart player. He understands the game, sees things that just naturally gifted in the way that he sees the game on both ends of the floor."
Â
On the progress made by both JT Rock and Andrej Kostic…
"Both of them were very much health related, and I would say JT is back to 100 percent. He showed that in the game the other day. He was moving so much better, had a much different mentality, and so we're hoping that his setbacks are very far in the rearview mirror. AK is he's just battling a knee injury that he can't really shake, and he works really hard. He does everything that he can, but it's just kept him from being able to string enough days together to work himself into a position where he should be playing instead of somebody else. And he knows that he's very frustrated. But he's doing everything he can, and we're very hopeful that he'll get there. But he won't play until he needs to be playing."
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How to follow the 'Cats: For complete information on K-State men's basketball, visit www.kstatesports.com and follow the team's social media channels on X, Instagram and Facebook.
Players Mentioned
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