Iowa State men’s basketball: DeAndre Kane wins Big 12 newcomer of the week award

Much to the chagrin of BYU fans, Iowa State’s DeAndre Kane got awarded, not punished, by the Big 12 in their weekly awards.

Nov 20, 2013; Provo, UT, USA; Iowa State Cyclones guard DeAndre Kane (center) after being told of his ejection for a flagrant 2 foul against Brigham Young Cougars forward Eric Mika (not pictured) in the second half at Marriott Center. Iowa State Cyclones won 90-88. Mandatory Credit: Chris Nicoll-USA TODAY Sports

Kane won the Big 12 newcomer of the week award after his double-double helped the Cyclones win a highly-contested 90-88 game at Provo against the Cougars.

Notably, this is the third straight week that Iowa State has won a conference weekly award, which is the third time in history that one team has won three straight awards in the first three weeks.

Kane was ejected in the BYU game for his accidental eye-gouge of Eric Mika in the final four minutes of the game. Cougar fans are adamant that Kane, and he had to hear it after the fact on Twitter.

The transfer from Marshall said in an article by The Gazette that he didn’t do it on purpose.

"“If anybody thinks that was (done) purposely, I don’t know, maybe they’re crazy,” Kane said. “I was trying to make a basketball play. That was not intentional. If I’m trying to poke somebody in the eye playing basketball, I shouldn’t be playing basketball. I was trying to go for the ball. If they couldn’t see that, I don’t know what else to tell you.”"

Still pictures of the action look far worse than what actually happened. A commenter opposed to Kane’s actions from a previous post actually proved his own argument wrong. They supplied a video via Instagram that can clearly show Kane not having enough reaction time to purposely eye-gouge Mika.

Also this week, Oklahoma State’s Marcus Smart won the player of the week award after his career-high 39 points in a blowout win over Memphis.