Let me start with Monday's big upset. Kansas-Kansas State is a big rivalry, and K-State was at home. Kansas State had a great crowd and was playing with a chip on its shoulder. Kansas hadn't lost in Bramlage since 2007-08, when it won the national championship. As a player, you always think anything is possible, and K-State proved it that game.
Our whole team was at our women's game watching them play Texas A&M, so we were keeping up with the Kansas-Kansas State updates on the phone. There were people around us giving us the score, and then we'd look up the stats on our phones. When we saw Pullen had 23 points at the half, we started saying to each other that he was putting the team on his back. I remember thinking, "I guess he's sticking to his word of what he said earlier in the season that he didn't want to play in the NIT." That's what leaders do.
I could see where he was coming from and why he would say it, being a senior and coming off the kind of season the Wildcats had last season. But the norm is that no player would just come out in the media and say that. Those are big words to back up. And it's up to your whole team to have that mentality, not just one person. You have to have your whole team buy into that, and then you can back it up. It seems like his whole team is buying into it now, and that's the important thing.
