The Kansas State Wildcats held on to beat Bradley 50-47 Tuesday night despite poor shooting in the first half.

The Wildcats shot just 23.1 percent from the floor on 3-13 shooting in the first half and went 11-12 from the free throw line to keep the score close going into the half trailing 19-18. Nigel Johnson sank a 3-pointer to end the second half which gave the Wildcats a spark that carried over into the second half.

“We drew up a play at the last timeout, they executed perfect. Nigel stepped up, he hadn’t been making shots, and he stepped up and made a big shot,” said Coach Bruce Weber. “I thought that was a huge, huge basket. We came out of half and got to the free throw line, got a rebound on a missed free throw, got it again and got a bucket. So now we score three, five, six points in a row and I think we got a little confidence.”

Kansas State’s leading scorer Marcus Foster went 0-4 from the field and 0-2 from 3-point range in the first half but continued the Wildcats spark in the second half making back-to-back 3-point shots.

“We just came together, talked about it in the locker room, corrected the things we needed to correct, and came out and played stronger. People started hitting shots, I got going a little bit. That’s all it came down to really in the 2nd half, we just picked up our energy level,” said Foster.

Kansas States 18 first half points tie for the fewest first half points in Bramlage Coliseum history (18 vs Kansas 2/13/2012).

The Wildcats finished still finished the game shooting just 35.3 percent from the field, 5-10 from 3-point range, and 21-30 from the charity stripe. They were led by Nino Williams who finished with 14 points and 12 rebounds, making it just the 2nd double-double in his career.

Kansas State will now have four days to prepare for Savannah State who comes to Bramlage Coliseum Sunday for a 5 p.m. tip-off.