Kansas State continues hot streak with blowout victory over TCU at Big 12 Tournament
The wrong team was wearing white.
Kansas State looked nothing like an underdog seed as it pummeled TCU 71-50 in the first game of the Big 12 men’s basketball tournament on Wednesday at T-Mobile Center.
Sure, the Wildcats entered the event as its No. 9 seed, and therefore had to wear their purple road uniforms against the favored No. 8 seed Horned Frogs. But those colors were decided well before K-State ended the regular season on an impressive tear that featured three wins in their final four games and entered the postseason with momentum.
Bruce Weber’s team kept its hot streak going by delivering its finest performance of the year, an all-around strong effort that felt light years removed from the 13-game losing streak it suffered through earlier this season.
“We have really built up to this point and gotten better, man,” K-State senior guard Mike McGuirl said. “We have got a lot of young talent on this team, a lot of really good young players. They have taken pride in learning and growing. This is really fun to be a part of.”
Things feel a lot different in the locker room than they did even a month ago. Now that the Wildcats have won four of their last five, punctuated by this blowout, they are suddenly playing with swagger.
That is most evident on the defensive end of the floor, where K-State held TCU to 50 points on 37% shooting. McGuirl was feeling so confident that he went for a rare block in the paint against TCU freshman Mike Miles during the second half and ended up with a Dikembe Mutombo style highlight.
“It felt like we were playing basketball the right way,” McGuirl said. “We were playing hard, playing the right way, sharing the ball, talking to each other and having fun.”
But K-State’s improvement is also noticeable on offense, where McGuirl and freshman guard Nijel Pack are starting to emerge as consistent scorers.
Pack led the way by draining five three-pointers on his way to a game-high 23 points, while McGuirl scored 17 points in a variety of ways. They both also had five assists. Weber said he motivated Pack by reminding him he was snubbed from the Big 12’s all-freshman team earlier in the week.
Add it all up, and this was K-State’s largest victory margin of the season since a 70-46 home win over Jacksonville in December. It was also the Wildcats’ first 20-point victory over a conference opponent since the 2018-19 season when it shared the regular season league title with Texas Tech.
K-State began this Big 12 Tournament the same way it ended last season’s shortened championship, as winners.
“I’m really excited and happy for our guys,” Weber said. “Where we’ve come from to where we are now is amazing.”
It’s fair to say the Wildcats are peaking at the right time — during the postseason.
K-State (9-19) will try to keep that momentum going against No. 1 seed Baylor (21-1) in a quarterfinal game at 1:30 p.m. Thursday.
This game was close for most of the first half until Pack closed out the period by draining three-pointers on K-State’s final two possessions, giving the Wildcats a 29-23 advantage.
“That was a great momentum switch for us going into halftime,” Pack said. “They went on a great run but we were able to close it out. Then we came out swinging again in the second half and Mike McGuirl gave us a big boost with his shots.”
Indeed, McGuirl opened up the second half with six straight points and the Wildcats never looked back. They scored 16 straight points at one point and led by as many as 27.
It’s been rare to see K-State leading big this season. Some fans probably did a double take when they noticed the Wildcats up 61-34 midway through the second half. But it wasn’t a lie.
These aren’t the same Wildcats that lost all those games early on.
“I’m not too surprised,” McGuirl said. “We’ve been getting better. Tonight we were able to show that we have gotten better and that we have made a lot of strides.”
This story was originally published March 10, 2021 at 7:40 PM with the headline "Kansas State continues hot streak with blowout victory over TCU at Big 12 Tournament."