KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Iowa State coach Fred Hoiberg wanted to see an up-and-down game against plodding Kansas State, one where the scoreboard would spin like a slot machine as points piled up.

He certainly didn’t want to see the Wildcats with 85 points by the end of it.

“They do such a good job of slowing you down,” Hoiberg said. “If you would have told me they were going to score 85, I would have told you that we were going to have trouble winning the game.”

He was right in one respect: The Cyclones did have trouble. But behind another big game from Melvin Ejim, the Big 12’s player of the year, and plenty of help from his supporting cast, the No. 16 Cyclones held on for a 91-85 victory in the Big 12 tournament quarterfinals.

“They match up really well with us,” said Ejim, who had 24 points and 10 rebounds. “That’s why it’s always so close. They’re a great team and they always play good defense.”

Well, except when they’re facing the Cyclones. Iowa State advanced to Friday night’s Big 12 semifinal against No. 10 Kansas, which beat Oklahoma State 77-70 in overtime.

No. 4 seed Iowa State (24-7) was clinging to an 87-85 lead with just over a minute left when Ejim missed a layup and the No. 5 seed Wildcats (20-12) got the rebound. They raced the other way, but Shane Southwell lost control going toward the rim and Iowa State came away with it.

Long was fouled and made both free throws with 16.2 seconds left. Marcus Foster missed a 3 at the other end, and Long scored a layup in transition to put an exclamation mark on the win.

Dustin Hogue finished with 19 points and 10 rebounds, Georges Niang added 18 points and Naz Long had 14 points for the Cyclones. DeAndre Kane scored 11 before fouling out.

Foster scored 21 points to lead the Wildcats, who had been holding opponents to 64.9 points, best in the Big 12. Southwell added 19 points, freshman Nigel Johnson had a career-best 17 and big man Thomas Gipson finished with 13 points.

“I guess it was an entertaining game,” Wildcats coach Bruce Weber said. “You shoot 54 percent and scored 85 points and you still don’t win, it’s disappointing.”

Iowa State shot poorly in the first half but dominated on the boards, while the Wildcats couldn’t seem to miss, yet coughed the ball up nine times.

The upshot of it all was that the teams played nearly to a standstill, just as they did in their two regular-season games. They each won at home in the regular season.

Iowa State had a chance to take a comfortable lead into the break, but Southwell scored a fourth-chance bucket with 14 seconds left in the half. Hoiberg called timeout to set up a play, but Kane turned the ball over and Foster hit a 3 before the buzzer.

Instead of leading by double-digits, the Cyclones had to settle for a 44-41 advantage.

They remained one step ahead of the Wildcats until the 12-minute mark, when Thomas made two free throws and Omari Lawrence made another to give Kansas state a 60-59 lead. It was the first time that Kansas State had played from ahead since there was 7:30 left in the first half.

By that point, the game resembled a boxing match.

Every time Kansas State scored, the Cyclones answered the jab. Whenever Iowa State would pull ahead, the Wildcats delivered a blow of their own. And more than once, the officiating crew had to peel bodies off the floor while calming down red-faced coaches on both benches.

The fouls started to pile up, too. Foster picked up his fourth foul with 11 minutes left, and Kane took a seat on the Iowa State bench with four fouls and 9:57 to play.

Hoiberg was the first one to tempt fate by putting Kane back in with about 6 minutes left, but he was called for an offensive foul with 3:55 remaining. Kane clearly took exception to it, staring down the official who called it while the teams huddled during the under-4 timeout.

The Cyclones still led 76-74 at that point, but slowly crept out to a lead down the stretch, and then made due without Kane during a tense final push by Kansas State. Long scored for an 85-80 lead and, after Gipson scored for the Wildcats, Niang’s spinning layup made it 87-82.

Foster hit a 3 to give Kansas State a chance, but the Cyclones held on in the final minute.

“They’re a really good team,” Hogue said. “We were just able to make some stops and hit some shots down the stretch.”

— Associated Press —

MANHATTAN, Kan. (AP) — Kenny Chery kept stepping to the free-throw line and kept knocking them down.

Ten times in a row.

The stretch of perfection came in the midst of 17 straight made free throws for Baylor, and was part of a 29-point outpouring by the junior guard that helped the streaking Bears hold on for a tense 76-74 victory over Kansas State on Saturday.

“Our senior leadership got us together and said, `We need to make free throws,” said Chery, who finished 13 of 14 from the line. “We made them.”

Kansas State had the ball with three-tenths of a second left, but Will Spradling’s full-court inbound pass was picked off by Cory Jefferson, allowing time to run out.

“They made plays. You have to give them credit,” Kansas State coach Bruce Weber said.

Jefferson added 16 points for the Bears (21-10, 9-9 Big 12), who erased a 12-point second-half deficit to win for the seventh time in their last eight games. They also beat the Wildcats (20-11, 10-8) twice in the same season for the first time in school history.

Baylor’s winning stretch coincides with the return of Chery to the starting lineup. He had been struggling with turf toe earlier in the season, when the Bears were slip-sliding through the conference schedule and in danger of being eliminated from NCAA tournament contention.

Now, they’re riding a wave of momentum into next week’s Big 12 tournament.

“I wouldn’t pick against us right now,” Baylor coach Scott Drew said. “I think our guys have showed we have some resiliency, we have some toughness and we have some heart.”

Marcus Foster scored 29 points while Thomas Gipson added 16 and Nino Williams 15 for the Wildcats, who had their school-record 15-game winning streak at Bramlage Coliseum come to an end.

“I don’t know what our chances are in March Madness,” Gipson said, “but we want to win the Big 12 tournament so that we have a chance.”

At least, be assured of a chance. Kansas State and Baylor have both done enough to warrant strong consideration as at-large picks when Selection Sunday rolls around.

That’s a far cry from where they started the season — the Wildcats lost their opener at home to Northern Colorado, while the Bears at one point lost five straight Big 12 games. Both of them managed to pick up some marquee wins, though, taking some of the pressure off next week.

“We’ve still got games left,” Weber said, “and I hope they’re ready to play in Kansas City and they can make amends for today’s loss.”

The Wildcats would have felt even better about their chances if they would have protected a 33-25 halftime lead that eventually grew to 12 points early in the second half.

That’s when the Wildcats went cold from the field, making two field goals in an 8-minute stretch, and seemed to stop defending the Bears altogether.

“Once they got rolling,” Gipson said, “it was hard for us to stop.”

Brady Heslip’s 3-pointer with about 10 minutes remaining gave Baylor its first lead, but it was still 46-all with about 8 minutes left when the Wildcats started to miss free throws. They clanked out five of six at one point, and the Bears slowly crept out to a 56-49 lead.

Every time the Wildcats threatened to get close, the Bears had an answer.

Foster hit a 3-pointer to make it 66-62, and Royce O’Neale was fouled and made two free throws. Foster hit another 3, Chery made two free throws. Gipson scored with 31 seconds left to make it 70-67, and Chery again stepped to the foul line and made two free throws.

“Kenny was huge,” Drew said. “He’s been great from the free-throw line.”

Gary Franklin added two more free throws with 14.4 seconds left, and after Foster’s final 3-pointer, Chery finished off the incredible display of foul shooting with two more to wrap it up.

“Free-throw shooting is kind of like field-goal kicking. You just never really know,” Drew said. “We’ve worked hard on free-throw shooting, and I’m glad the guys who have shot it well. The close games, you got to make free throws. That’s been critical to getting wins down the stretch.”

— Associated Press —

LUBBOCK, Texas (AP) — Marcus Foster scored 17 points, shooting 3 of 6 from beyond the arc, to lead Kansas State to a 60-56 win over Texas Tech Tuesday night and secure a much-needed road win as conference play dwindles down.

Wesley Iwundu added 12 points, 11 of them coming in the second half, and five rebounds for the Wildcats. Thomas Gipson and Will Spradling each scored 10.

Dejan Kravic led the Red Raiders with 13 points, six rebounds and four blocks and Jordan Tolbert added 10 points and nine rebounds.

Texas Tech (13-15) led by as many as nine, 38-29, with 13:02 to go but the Wildcats (19-9) responded with a 25-9 run, including nine consecutive to end the run with a seven-point lead, 54-47 with 4:34 to go.

Iwundu scored the go-ahead free throw to complete a 3-point play after a layup with 55 seconds to go to make it 57-56. Spradling added one free throw when Tech was forced to foul, then Iwundu put in a layup with one second to go after a Red Raider turnover to close the win

That three-pointer put Spradling in the school record books as the 25th player at Kansas State to score 1,000 points. The win also gives coach Bruce Weber the best two-year start in Kansas State history with 46 wins, passing Lon Kruger.

Kansas State led for most of the first half until Kravic sank two free throws to take a 17-16 lead with 7:06 left in the half. The Wildcats regained the lead on a pair of Gipson free throws to make it 25-24 with 1:05 until the break, but Dusty Hannahs hit a jumper with 41 seconds in the half and the Red Raiders took a 26-25 lead into the locker room.

The Red Raiders came out of the break fired up and built the lead to as many as nine points on a Kravic layup with 13:02 to go, but the Wildcats fought back and took their first lead in almost fifteen minutes on an Iwundu dunk with 5:35 to go to make it 48-47.

That dunk ignited a 9-0 Kansas State run led by Nino Williams and capped off with a 3-pointer by Spradling to boost the Wildcats ahead 54-47.

Texas Tech called a timeout and regained focus with a run of its own, scoring seven points in 44 seconds, between 3:33 and 2:49, to tie it 54-54.

A few Red Raiders were on the floor fighting for a loose ball that Kansas State recovered and got into the hands of Iwundu, who maneuvered around Hannahs for a layup and a trip to the line. Iwundu made the shot to take a 57-56 lead with 55 seconds to go.

When Texas Tech was forced to foul, Spradling made the first of two free throws to lead 58-56. The Red Raiders missed an opportunity to tie or win as a miscommunication resulted in Robert Turner turning the ball over to Foster, which led to an Iwundu layup.

The Red Raiders out-rebounded the Wildcats 34-24 and scored 16 second chance points to the Wildcats four but didn’t close it out in the final minute.

— Associated Press —

NORMAN, Okla. (AP) — Buddy Hield scored 18 points and Isaiah Cousins added 17 to help Oklahoma beat Kansas State 86-73 and clear up the Big 12 standings with four games remaining in league play.

The runaway win helped break a three-way tie for third with Oklahoma, Kansas State and Iowa State all entering the day with 8-5 league marks. Iowa State’s 71-60 Saturday win over TCU kept the Cyclones knotted with the Sooners.

Oklahoma (20-7, 9-5) dominated in nearly every category, leading by as many as 27 points in the second half.

The Sooners took their first lead 3 minutes in when Hield drained a 3-pointer following a Kansas State turnover. From there, Oklahoma outscored the Wildcats 34-17 to lead 41-22 at the half.

Cameron Clark scored 11 and Jordan Woodard added 10 for the Sooners, who have won three of their last four games going into Monday night at Kansas.

Marcus Foster led Kansas State with 21 points. Nigel Johnson scored 11 and Thomas Gipson added 10.

The Wildcats (18-9, 8-6) lost their sixth consecutive road game and are 1-6 in away league games.

Kansas State dug a hole early it couldn’t climb out of, committing 10 first-half turnovers and shooting 39 percent with no starter scoring more than five points.

Oklahoma turned those turnovers into 17 points and controlled the tempo, outrebounding Kansas State 21-15 in the half and 32-28 for the game.

The Wildcats outscored Oklahoma 51-45 in the second half but it wasn’t enough in what has been a difficult season away from home.

The Wildcats have done some of their best work this season at home inside Bramlage Coliseum — winning their last 14 games, including beating No. 15 Texas and No. 7 Kansas.

Saturday’s game was a much different story than when the two teams met in Manhattan, Kan., on Jan. 14. Kansas State led 39-38 after the first half and came from behind in the final 5 minutes to win 72-66 with five different players scoring in double figures.

Saturday, the Wildcats didn’t have a player reach double-figure scoring until 7:51 remaining when Foster hit his second 3-pointer of the afternoon.

Both Oklahoma and Kansas State play two of their final three games at home.

— Associated Press —

MANHATTAN, Kan. (AP) — Thomas Gipson had 16 points and 11 rebounds, Marcus Foster added 13 points and Kansas State used a big second-half run to put away TCU 65-53 on Wednesday night.

Nino Williams added 11 points and Will Spradling had 10 for the Wildcats (18-8, 8-5 Big 12), who bounced back from a double-overtime loss at Baylor over the weekend to match a school record with their 14th consecutive win at Bramlage Coliseum.

The Horned Frogs (9-16, 0-13) actually pulled even with Kansas State midway through the second half, but the Wildcats answered with a 15-2 run to seize control. Most of the damage came in the paint, where Gipson and D.J. Johnson were able to use their size to their advantage.

Kyan Anderson led TCU with 23 points, his fourth straight game of at least 20. Karviar Shepherd added 12 points, but otherwise the junior guard got precious little help.

The Horned Frogs fell to 2-29 in conference play since joining the Big 12.

Early on, it looked as though things were headed for a rout. Kansas State hit six of its first eight shots while the Horned Frogs made just two of their first nine, and the result was a 13-4 lead that had a sparse crowd settling in for a comfy evening.

Back-to-back turnovers left them feeling restless again.

The Wildcats wound up turning it over 13 times in the first half — balls were passed into the first row of seats, dribbled off feet, deflected off noggins. The cacophony of mistakes, combined with mounting foul trouble, prevented Kansas State from ever stretching the lead.

Meanwhile, Anderson was slashing to the rim just about every time down floor, either getting a layup or getting to the foul line. He had 17 points at the break, including a basket with just five seconds remaining that sent the Horned Frogs to the locker room down by a point.

The game remained close in the early stages of the second half, neither team able to get into any sort of offensive rhythm. Part of that was fouls but part of it was sloppy play.

It wasn’t until Spradling drained a 3-pointer with 12 minutes left to break a 42-all tie that Kansas State finally had some life again. Williams followed up with a basket, Johnson got to the foul line and the Wildcats were off on their game-changing run.

At one point, TCU coach Trent Johnson called timeout and spent the majority of it arguing with referee Tom Eades. When the game resumed, Williams kept the momentum going for Kansas State, and by the time Gipson made a couple of free throws the lead had grown to 57-44.

The Wildcats coaxed the last few minutes off the clock to give coach Bruce Weber his 45th win since taking over the program. That moves Weber into a tie with current Oklahoma coach Lon Kruger for the most victories by any coach in his first two years at Kansas State.

— Associated Press —