K-State had gotten the leg up in the last three Big 12 games, taking early leads against Texas, Baylor and Oklahoma State, but on Saturday the TCU Horned Frogs carried a lead into the halftime break. A lead that would hold up and grow, as the Frogs secured a 82-68 victory.
The game got off to a slow start with both teams taking questionable shots and defenses stiffening up. TCU would become the first team to settle in offensively though, getting a big boost from K-State’s looseness with the ball in the first 20 minutes.
K-State committed 12 first-half turnovers, some of which led to 16 points off turnovers for TCU. Florida transfer Keyontae Johnson struggled to hang onto the ball early on committing five of his own in the first half, washing out a solid scoring output of eight points in the first half.
TCU abused K-State inside by moving bigs around the floor tactically to open up the paint and leading to Eddie Lampkin’s 13 points in the first half. The one saving grace for the Wildcats would be the notion that TCU blew a 13-point halftime lead at Texas on Tuesday night.
The afternoon would not go much better for the Wildcats though, as TCU was able to push the lead out to over 20 points before the midway part of the second half. In that same time frame, TCU had accrued over 40 points in the paint. By the end of the game, TCU had muscled their way to 54 points in the paint
As the game went on the Wildcats were able to use a flurry of scoring and Nowell’s offense coming alive to bring the final score to a much tighter look than what it was for a majority of the game.
Keyontae Johnson finished as K-State’s leading scorer with 18 points, and Emmanuel Miller paced the Horned Frogs with 23.
K-State only shot 29% from three, while turning the ball over 20 times, leading to 26 TCU points. Second chance points also were a killer for K-State again, getting outscored 20–8 in that department.
Next up for K-State is their home game on Tuesday at 6:00 PM with No. 2 Kansas. The Wildcats will also see where they slide in the AP Top 25 on Monday afternoon, after entering the week at No. 11 and going 1-1.
K-State is now 15-2 (4-1), while TCU is 14-3 (3-2).