K-State moves another step closer to Big 12 championship with 64-52 win at TCU
One more game.
That’s all that stands in the way of the Kansas State basketball team as it continues to march toward a conference championship following a 64-52 victory over TCU on Monday at Schollmaier Arena.
The title scenarios are now simple for the Wildcats (23-7, 13-4 Big 12). They can clinch at least a share of their first Big 12 championship since 2013 by beating Oklahoma in their final game of the regular season on Saturday. And they can claim their first outright league crown since 1977 with a win and a Texas Tech loss at Iowa State.
All eyes will be on the possibility of finishing off the Big 12 season with another win, which would also eliminate rival Kansas from the mix. Saturday will have quite a bit of intrigue.
“It’s very rewarding, but the thing we talk about is not being satisfied,” K-State guard Kamau Stokes said. “And we have talked about that the whole year. We pretty much been in first and we couldn’t get comfortable with that, because we knew teams were going to fight and try to get inside that position. If we take care of business Saturday then it is ours. We have to prepare for that, because they are going to play, too. It would be real lovely to get that.”
The pressure was on K-State to win this game and keep pace with Texas Tech (25-5, 13-4) — which beat Texas on Monday — in the Big 12 championship race, and it responded exactly like a team with championship aspirations should.
Not the easiest of tasks, considering TCU (18-12, 6-11) desperately needs wins to strengthen its case for the NCAA Tournament. But few challenges have felt too difficult for K-State this season.
“I knew it was going to be tough,” Bruce Weber said. “We had to come in here and play a team that was desparate for a win. I guess we did the right things and have the right mindset.”
Barry Brown led the way with 16 points, but he had lots of help. Kamau Stokes drained several big shots on his way to 15 points, while Xavier Sneed had 11 and Makol Mawien added 10.
The Wildcats took control with a momentum-shifting run at the end of the first half that gave them a 36-27 lead.
The game was a defensive slug fest for the first 15 minutes, with both teams often struggling against pressure man defense and needing awkward attempts to beat the shot clock. The Wildcats and Horned Frogs were tied at 23 when Desmond Bane hit a three-pointer at the 4:47 mark of the first half, and it seemed like TCU might push past K-State for the lead.
But K-State had too many answers for that.
The Wildcats started to pull away on an impressive and-one layup from Mike McGuirl, who got four TCU defenders to jump on a shot fake under the basket before finishing a contested through a foul.
TCU responded with a layup on the other end, but then Stokes hit a three and Brown found Dean Wade for a nifty alley-oop dunk in transition. Then, after another TCU layup, K-State finished out the half with two free throws from Wade and a deep three from Stokes.
That felt like an insurmountable lead the way the Wildcats were playing on defense. They forced the Horned Frogs into one bad shot after another in the first half and held them to 40.7 percent shooting, including 2 of 9 from three-point range.
And their comeback chances got even slimmer when K-State started the second half on a 15-3 run that featured a barrage of baskets from Sneed, Mawien, Brown and Stokes.
It felt like game over when Sneed threw down a fastbreak dunk that gave the Wildcats a 51-30 lead with 14:59 remaining.
But TCU fought back and made a game of it by responding with 10 straight points.
Mawien slowed the Horned Frogs by hitting a mid-range jumper and then converting a dunk, but TCU kept coming and pulled as close as 57-50 with six minutes remaining on the clock.
K-State began its championship push by rallying from 21 points down to beat West Virginia in early January. The opportunity to drop out of first place by blowing a 21-point lead of its own briefly appeared possible, but the Wildcats once again had answers.
Stokes was fouled attempting a trey on the other end and made all three free throws to extend K-State’s lead back to double digits.
The Wildcats held on from there and gave themselves an opportunity to make an already strong season truly memorable later this week.
“It will be a big game with a Big 12 championship and this and that,” Brown said. “It is going to be senior night, so emotions will be high. It’s just important to play that game like a regular game.”
This story was originally published March 4, 2019 at 10:02 PM with the headline "K-State moves another step closer to Big 12 championship with 64-52 win at TCU."