On Feb. 5, Kansas State scored a 74-67 win over rival Kansas that had monumental implications. K-State took a two-game lead over the Jayhawks in the Big 12 Conference race and maintained that edge to the end of the regular season. 

The Wildcats split the first Big 12 championship to which Kansas could stake no claim in 15 years, sharing the honor with Texas Tech. A year after the Wildcats made a run to the Elite Eight, and with Xavier Sneed leading a veteran roster, one might think K-State earned recognition as one of the conference’s current standard-bearers. 

Right? Well…

The preseason Big 12 poll tabbed the Wildcats ninth in the 10-team race, ahead of just TCU. In the pole position — who else? — Kansas. 

K-State, like the rest of the Big 12, has long lived in Kansas’ shadow. Take 1988, when Mitch Richmond balled out and the Wildcats reached the Elite Eight. The unprecedented March for the team from Manhattan occurred the same spring as Danny and The Miracles making Tournament history. 

But to end the Jayhawks’ championship streak and follow it up tagged for the basement of the Big 12? 

“It's not great for your fans and selling tickets,” K-State coach Bruce Weber quipped at Big 12 media day. “At the same time, for us, it doesn't matter. Every year there's somebody that's picked eighth or ninth, [or] seventh that ends up being in the top of the league; that ends up, like Texas Tech, playing for a national championship.”

While the presence of Kansas looms over so much in Big 12 basketball, K-State’s more recently existed on a plane with Texas Tech. 

K-State’s co-champion of a season ago, Texas Tech, was projected to finish seventh a year ago. The Red Raiders were coming off a 2018 Elite Eight, just like the Wildcats, but the loss of Zhaire Smith to the NBA draft begged the question, who would step up? 

Jarrett Culver, Tariq Owens and Davide Moretti answered that question rather resoundingly. K-State’s own corps of new names and faces have a similar opportunity. 

And like last year’s Big 12 co-champions and national runners-up, those faces in Manhattan are only new to those outside of the program. 

Sneed is back for K-State after testing the NBA waters, but gone from the reigning championship roster are Barry Brown, Dean Wade and Kamau Stokes. The Wildcats tasked with replacing their production include Makol Mawien, Cartier Diarra and Levi Stockard -- all of whom were on the rosters of the Elite Eight and Big 12-winning teams. 

It’s a work-in-progress to be sure, but hardly a rebuild. 

“We’re still getting better, still got a lot of people learning a lot of different things for us,” Sneed said following a Nov. 19 win over Arkansas-Pine Bluff. “But everyone is taking on the challenge of learning.”

The Fort Myers Tip-Off marks an important milestone in the Wildcats’ maturation process. K-State faces Pittsburgh in semifinal play, with the prospect of a title game matchup Wednesday with a win. 

“Looking forward to getting another championship,” Sneed said. “That’s one of our goals we’re trying to check off our list."

Before the Wildcats beat Kansas in February 2019 to take a step toward a historic Big 12 championship, they outlasted the field at the 2018 Paradise Jam. The road to exceeding expectations come February and March once again begins in earnest for K-State in Fort Myers.