Winning ugly has never looked more beautiful for Kansas State after win over Georgia

Kansas State’s 56-51 victory over Georgia on Saturday at Bramlage Coliseum was as ugly as it was gutsy.

The Bulldogs (12-8, 3-5 SEC) took the Wildcats (16-5, 5-3 Big 12) out of their fast-paced comfort zone. They slowed things down and dominated on the glass. They made tough shots and took a second-half lead. They forced K-State coach Bruce Weber to eliminate substitutions and ride his five starters the entire second half.

The first team to 50 was going to win, and Georgia appeared in control up 49-44 with 6 minutes, 30 second remaining. So how did K-State turn things around for a victory that Weber later described as “monumental?”

Start with defense. Finish with guts.

Weber asked junior guard Barry Brown to defend Georgia point guard Juwan Parker in crunch time, and he disrupted Georgia in every way imaginable. The Bulldogs couldn’t pass the ball into the paint or swing passes across the perimeter with the ease they had most of the way. Suddenly, they couldn’t buy a shot and managed just two points over the final 6:30, going 1 for 10 from the field.

“We had a real good defensive stretch,” Weber said. “I was just happy we found a way to win the game another way. Not just pretty and smooth and making shots. This was a hard-fought, grind-out game. It shows a lot.”

The Wildcats started their current four-game winning streak with offense. The top-shooting team in the Big 12, they blitzed Oklahoma, TCU and Baylor to surge into second place of the conference standings. But many wondered what would happen when they went cold.

On Saturday, they turned up the intensity on defense.

Dean Wade scored a game-high 20 points and nailed two important runners in the final minutes, but no one else contributed much on the offensive end. Brown managed just nine points, and K-State’s bench went scoreless.

In fact, Weber had so little confidence in his reserves that he played them a combined 19 minutes and asked Makol Mawien (30 minutes), Cartier Diarra (36 minutes), Xavier Sneed (37 minutes), Wade (38 minutes) and Brown (40) to play the vast majority of the game by themselves.

Weber didn’t make a single substitution in the second half, saying this game was too important to worry about fatigue.

“They were ready to grind it out,” Weber said. “We had long timeouts and we used them to keep them as fresh as we could. It is about toughness, and about making plays down the stretch. It was probably the first time all year we have had to grind out the game and find a way to win.”

The strategy worked, but K-State players showed obvious signs of fatigue throughout the game. With Kansas up next on Monday, it’s fair to wonder if they will have maximum energy against the Jayhawks.

“It was tough,” Brown said. “They are a physical team. They battled pretty tough. I know Dean and some of the big men must be pretty tired. There was a lot of bumping and grinding inside. They weathered the storm and we found a way to win.”

Tournament team?

Beating Oklahoma wasn’t enough. Neither was beating TCU. Even a road win over Baylor didn’t seem to register with college basketball experts. K-State entered its game against Georgia as a bubble team, barely in or barely out of most NCAA Tournament projections.

That should change now.

Brown said K-State is “most definitely” an NCAA Tournament team after this win, and it’s hard to argue the Wildcats’ credentials. A pillow soft nonconference schedule continues to hurt the overall resume, but beating Georgia will help ease concerns for the selection committee.

Georgia is another bubble team, and it’s always good to gain ground on one of those from another conference.

K-State should be thinking bigger than simply making the NCAA Tournament, especially with first-place at stake in the Big 12 standings against Kansas on Monday. But it is in good shape for an at-large berth into the NCAA Tournament at the moment.

Mr. Clutch

Wade deserves credit for pushing through a challenging matchup with Georgia forward Yante Maten and scoring 20 points. He deserves extra credit for making a pair of running shots in the final moments to give K-State its first lead since the beginning of the second half.

Two years ago, he found himself in the right place at the right time and hit a game-winner at Georgia. On Saturday, he took over.

This was yet another sign of how Wade has matured.

“I was a lot more passive the last couple years,” Wade said. “This year, I am just trying to make the right play, even if it is just driving in and kicking it out to one of my teammates. This game, I found myself open a couple of times and was able to take advantage of it. I felt pretty confident in myself, and I made a couple shots.”

This story was originally published January 27, 2018 at 5:12 PM with the headline "Winning ugly has never looked more beautiful for Kansas State after win over Georgia."