After watching my bracket being summarily demolished by the likes of Davidson, Villanova and Butler, I have a hard time agreeing with the Nike Sparq ads that 'there are no Cinderalla's'.

Granted I don't know anything about those teams, but I do know one thing from watching them prevail over their supposedly superior opponents: there really is no 'I' in TEAM.

At the beginning of the year when the college basketball community was told that K-State's No. 1 recruiting class would stay intact under the tuteledge of first-year coach Frank Martin, the buzz was not if the Wildcats would make the NCAA Tournament, but how far they would advance once they did.

After a strong conference start, the 'Cats appeared to be on track to meet or exceed everyone's expectations but their own. However a weak showing in the second half of conference play left the young team squarely on the bubble.

In my opinion, the Wildcats could've gone 8-8 and still have gotten in, solely because of Michael Beasley. Regardless, an at-large bid landed the Wildcats in the NCAA Tournament for the first time in over a decade, only now the talk had switched from 'how far will they go' to 'how long can they last'.

And by 'they', I only assume every sportswriter in the nation meant 'Michael Beasley'.

11th-seeded Kansas State scored one of the first upsets of the tournament when it up-ended sixth-seeded USC and one-time possible teammate O.J. Mayo—Mayo was recruited by DaLonte Hill and played high school basketball with Bill Walker.

K-State's second-round matchup was a different story.

Pitted against Bo Ryan's overwhelmingly team-minded Badgers, the Wildcats 'died by the three', going 0-13 on the night and only 35 percent from the field in the second half. The Badgers, on the other hand, seemed as if they couldn't miss from beyond-the-arc, shooting over 40 percent and 52 percent from the field for the game.

Michael Beasley and Bill Walker still got theirs, putting up 23 and 18, respectively. Yet, the rest of the team put on a performance that Wildcats fans are all too familiar with: scoring a measly 14 points between the 11 other men who laced up and played—proving, once again, that not even the tandem of Michael Beasley and Bill Walker can win a championship alone.

Whether or not Michael Beasley will leave for the NBA remains to be seen, but I have to assume he will go—I know I would if I was virtually guaranteed to be the first pick in the draft.

Additionally, Bill Walker could probably go in the second round based on
atheleticism alone. If he stays another year, there's no doubt in my mind he's a first-rounder. So, for the sake of argument, let's examine the Wildcats of 2009 with Walker, sans Beasley:

Jacob Pullen is my favorite player on this team. He's the first true point guard K-State has had in several years and can dribble-drive with the best guards in the nation. He was the reason K-State beat KU, not Beasley—he protected the ball from the prolific thiefs that are Russell Robinson and Mario Chalmers and should continue to handle the
ball for the Wildcats for another three years.

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