Kansas State: Cartier Diarra
We will always remember former Kansas State guard Cartier Diarra as an almost cartoonish figure thanks to his blown attempt at a windmill dunk which would have tied this season’s contest in Lubbock in the middle of the second half. In fact, that game also featured a verbal blowup between Diarra and his head coach, Bruce Weber, that ended with Weber slamming a stool to the court. It isn’t hard to imagine that the seeds for Diarra’s transfer to Virginia Tech were sown that night at the United Supermarkets Arena as Tech ground out a win that was closer than it needed to be.
But that glorious moment aside, Tech fans shouldn’t miss Diarra next season. That’s because he was the only dynamic scoring option the Wildcats had on their team.
Time and again, Weber’s squad would simply give the ball to the 6-foot-4 guard and let him make plays in isolation sets. He was extremely skilled in that regard and it led to a scoring average of 13.3 points per game.
Though Xavier Sneed led the Cats with 14.2 points per game, he never seemed to be as dangerous as the unpredictable Diarra, who could routinely make the impossible off-balance shot to beat an excellent defensive player. Sneed is a more predictable player and thus, he’s less feared. And by the way, Sneed has graduated meaning that KSU has lost both of this season’s double-digit scorers.
Diarra averaged just over 10 points per game in six career meetings with the Texas Tech basketball program. That included 19 points this season in Manhattan and 10 in Lubbock. And who knows how many more he would have scored that night on the South Plains had he decided to make the smart play on that breakaway dunk attempt and just lay the ball up. After that, he was yanked from the game by his head coach and his KSU career began to come to a premature end.