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CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- If Kansas State plans to set the clock to midnight on this year's NCAA tournament Cinderella, it will likely have to do so without leading scorer Dean Wade, who could miss Sunday's game against No. 16 seed UMBC. Wade is dealing with a foot injury that kept him off the court in Friday's win over Creighton, and he said that while he felt better Saturday, his movement was still limited, and the notion of getting back into action against the upstart Retrievers seemed tenuous. "I'd love to be out there fighting with them, but the way they're playing, I'm not sure I'd help much," Wade said. "Me sitting on the bench is probably helping the team more than hurting them right now." That doesn't officially rule Wade out, but head coach Bruce Weber downplayed the idea that Wade would be able to see significant action, even if he were able to go. The Wildcats practiced Saturday, but Wade said the progress on his foot remains gradual, hinting that more time would be needed before he is ready to play. "There's a possibility [of playing], but I've got to be smart about it," Wade said. "It's getting better, but I don't want to rush back too fast and re-hurt it. They're trying to keep me off it, and there's times it's pretty sore, but overall, I think it's getting better." The rest of the team has turned its attention to UMBC, an opponent no one expected to be playing. Assistant coach Chris Lowery was tasked with putting together the film on the Retrievers following Friday night's stunning upset of Virginia, and he said he barely slept in order to have a full scouting report ready for his team. "I told Coach [Weber] we better look at them a little bit [last week]," Lowery said. "Thank goodness we did that, or we'd be a little overwhelmed. We didn't want to freelance it. When we watched [UMBC on Friday], they were really prepared for Virginia -- about as well as any team I've ever seen in a winner-take-all situation." K-State players watched much of Friday's historic upset from their hotel lobby, with the reality of their second-round opponent sinking in as the second half of UMBC's dominant victory unfolded. Earlier in the week, Weber worked to ease his team's concerns about a potential matchup with No. 1 Virginia, telling the Wildcats that UVA "wasn't that good." After the Retrievers pulled the upset Friday, he took a different approach to his new adversary. "I was talking about a lot of psychological things after the pairings [were released]," Weber said of his prep work last week. "I just told them I didn't think [Virginia] was that good. You just play with their minds a little bit, and last night, I did it again. Hey, they're not that good -- but this other team [UMBC] is really good. We've got to be ready for them."
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