How K-State Wildcats earned potential season-altering win over No. 4 KU: takeaways

Kansas State ended a losing skid and, more importantly, potentially salvaged its season on Monday night when it pulled off a 75-70 overtime victory against rival Kansas inside Bramlage Coliseum.

The Wildcats defeated their in-state rivals in dramatic fashion thanks to a pair of big games from Cam Carter and Tylor Perry.

Perry led all scorers with 26 points, as he saved his best heroics for late in the game. Just about all of his points (21) came after halftime. Every time the Jayhawks tried to keep the ball out of his hands, he kept finding new ways to score anyway.

Carter had 19 points and got the Wildcats off to a strong start by making a few early 3-pointers.

Both guards were on the court for 45 minutes. Neither one of them spent a single second on the bench.

“We just had to really settle into the game, stick to our plan and get back to our principles,” K-State wing Arthur Kaluma said. “And then when you have got a shooter like (Perry) who can create his own shots, it’s easy. We fought back and played a good game of basketball.”

K-State needed all the big plays it could get, as KU raced to a 41-30 lead at the beginning of the second half thanks to strong efforts from Hunter Dickinson (21 points, 15 rebounds) and Dajuan Harris (15 points).

For a while, it seemed like K-State (15-8, 5-5 Big 12) was headed for its fifth straight defeat and KU (18-5, 6-4 Big 12) was destined for an important victory that would keep it in first place of the conference standings.

But the Wildcats fought back, found a way to force overtime and then won the game. They still have work to do if they hope to reach the NCAA Tournament next month, but beating a top-5 opponent like the Jayhawks could help catapult them in the right direction.

“This is why you want to be in this league,” K-State coach Jerome Tang said. “It’s unbelievable. Night in and night out you are playing great teams in great environments. It’s always a slugfest and players just make plays one after another. I am so proud of our guys. There are always opportunities, during the course of a game and a season, to pack it in. These guys are not quitters.”

Not by a long shot.

K-State is incredibly 6-0 in overtime games this season and 11-0 in overtime games under Tang. No Division I team has ever won seven overtime games in a season, according to ESPN. So the Wildcats can potentially set a new record with one more OT game.

The victory ignited a wild scene inside The Octagon of Doom. Security successfully kept K-State fans off the court, so Tang and players rushed the stands instead.

K-State will try to build off this when it next takes the floor on Saturday at BYU.

Until then, here are some takeaways from Monday’s action:

K-State forced overtime in an unexpected way

Points were hard to come by for both teams at the end of regulation. So much so, that the Wildcats had to rely on some unusual sources for offense.

On two of their final possessions, K-State players nervously watched as they missed a pair of heavily contested shots only to end up scoring anyway on put-back attempts from Perry and Arthur Kaluma.

Take a bow if you saw that coming.

Perry, a 5-foot-11 guard, somehow corralled a rebound after Will McNair missed a shot with 1:22 remaining and tipped the ball in with Dickinson, a 7-foot-2 KU forward, trying to keep him off the glass. That bucket tied the score at 62. It also left Dickinson smacking his forehead in disbelief. Afterward, Perry laughed about it.

“That’s my 40-inch vertical that I’ve been talking about,” Perry said. “No, I was just trying to play hard and the ball fell right where I needed it to.”

On the next possession, it was Kaluma, a 6-foot-7 wing, who stepped up. This time, he zoomed in front of the basket and grabbed a missed 3-pointer from Carter. The shot was off by so much that it was actually an air ball. But Kaluma had the presence of mind to haul in the board and score.

They say good players make big plays in big games. Well, they didn’t get any bigger than that for the Wildcats. They found a way to win even when they were forced into an unusual situation.

K-State showed admirable grit after it fell behind by double digits

The Octagon of Doom fell as quiet as a library when the Jayhawks scored the first nine points of the second half and pulled ahead 41-30.

K-State needed to play its best basketball after halftime, and it didn’t happen.

The opposite actually occurred. That was a scary sight for everyone wearing lavender or purple, because it was make-or-break time for the Wildcats.

Not just in this game, but for the entire season.

If K-State was going to end its losing streak and make a push for the NCAA Tournament, it behooved the Wildcats to beat their rival on Big Monday.

Hopes of an upset began to fade when K-State got off to such a slow start in the second half. But there turned out to be no reason for concern, because Tang called a timeout and the Wildcats responded. K-State owned the next three minutes and scored 11 straight points to tie the score at 41.

Kaluma got the run started by hitting a layup and then Perry ignited the crowd by draining back-to-back shots from beyond the arc. Next, Carter converted an and-one layup to truly make things interesting.

“I felt it was critical that we don’t give up transition layups right out of halftime, so the timeout was to get them re-focused,” Tang said. “Our guys did a great job. I think (Perry) had an 8-0 run on his own. But the guys locked back in and the fact that we were able to make it a ballgame against them and put some score pressure on them really helped us.”

The game was close the rest of the way. Tang and his team deserve credit for continuing to fight after it looked like things were slipping away. This team’s record might not be as good as some expected it to be, but you can’t question its fight.

Because of that, the Wildcats now have a big win on their postseason resume.

Jerrell Colbert played good defense on Hunter Dickinson

When Tang decided to stick with the same starting lineup he used against Oklahoma State, he created an interesting matchup in the paint between Dickinson and Jerrell Colbert.

The 7-foot-2 Dickinson is one of the best big men in all of college basketball, and K-State was asking an inexperienced sophomore to try and slow him down.

The Jayhawks understandably tried to exploit Colbert from the get go by giving the ball to Dickinson on their fist possession of the night. But things didn’t go as planned. When Dickinson turned and put up a shot from the baseline, Colbert held his ground and swatted the ball out of bounds.

Later, Colbert made it difficult for KU to get the ball to Dickinson on entry passes by standing in front of him and shielding his vision with his longs arms.

Dickinson went on to put up solid numbers, but it wasn’t a mismatch; Colbert held his own for much of the game.

That might not necessarily show up in the stat sheet, as Dickinson put up a double-double and Colbert was held scoreless. But the Wildcats outscored the Jayhawks by an astounding 21 points when Colbert was on the floor for his 16 minutes of action.

“That is insane,” Perry said. “And he didn’t score a bucket. Anybody who has an impact like that ... and just buy into their roles and buy into this team, look out.”