WACO, Texas (AP) — Kenny Chery had a triple-double, Brady Heslip hit a tying 3-pointer at the buzzer in regulation and Baylor rallied to beat Kansas State 87-73 in two overtimes Saturday night, snapping a four-game home losing streak.

The Bears (16-9, 4-8 Big 12) trailed by 10 with 9 minutes left before rallying to end their longest home skid in nine years.

Baylor’s Taurean Prince banked in a tiebreaking 3-pointer in the second overtime, and had a three-point play on a dunk to put Baylor up by 11 with a minute remaining.

Nino Williams had a career-high 20 points for the Wildcats (17-8, 7-5), who lost their fifth straight on the road.

Chery had the sixth triple-double in school history with 20 points and career highs of 12 assists and 10 rebounds.

Marcus Foster, the hot Kansas State freshman playing 200 miles from his Texas home, had 18 points and 10 assists but missed a free throw late in regulation before Heslip’s tying shot.

Heslip’s swish from well beyond the arc came after a wild sequence of three missed shots before Isaiah Austin came up with a loose ball and passed to Heslip, who let the ball go with the clock inside 2 seconds.

Heslip was 0 of 6 and the Bears were two of 20 from 3-point range before his tying shot.

Cory Jefferson had 21 points and 11 rebounds for Baylor before fouling out on a play that led to the tying free throw from Foster in the first overtime.

The Bears held for the last shot after Foster’s free throw made it 68-all, but Chery missed a jumper.

Prince put Baylor ahead for good early in the second overtime when his 3-pointer from the right wing with the shot clock about to expire banked in. After Williams lost the ball near midcourt, Heslip drove for a layup and a five-point lead.

Will Spradling later hit a 3-pointer to get Kansas State within four, but the Bears ran off eight straight points to put the game away. Prince had five of those points, and Chery the other three.

The Wildcats were coming off consecutive wins over ranked opponents, including an upset of No. 7 Kansas, and led by 10 in both halves before Baylor rallied.

Isaiah Austin had 18 points and a career-high nine blocks, including two to start the second half that sparked an 8-0 run to get Baylor within a point after the Bears scored a season-low 21 in the first half and trailed by nine.

The Bears were down 10 again before Chery finished a 10-0 run with consecutive layups for a 51-all tie.

— Associated Press —

Kansas State Sophomore pitcher Jake Matthys, who set K-State records for wins and saves by a freshman last season, has been named to the National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association (NCBWA) Stopper of the Year Award preseason watch list. The Stopper of the Year Award, established in 2005, is given to the top relief pitcher in NCAA Division I.

A Freshman All-American in 2013, Matthys was named to Collegiate Baseball’s preseason All-America Third Team this past December after he went 9-2 with a 2.05 ERA and nine saves in a school-record 34 appearances during his first season of collegiate baseball. The native of Spring Lake Park, Minn. was also tabbed the Big 12’s Freshman of the Year and named to the All-Big 12 First Team and All-Big 12 Freshman Team.

This marks the second consecutive year a K-State pitcher has been selected to the initial watch list after Nate Williams was named to the list last season. Since 2008, five Wildcats have been named to the Stopper of the Year watch list.

Of the 50 student-athletes selected to the preseason list, the Big 12 had four pitchers on the list, including Matthys. The SEC led all conferences with six players on the list. Matthys is also one of 14 sophomores on the award’s initial watch list.

Nominations for the NCBWA Stopper of the Year Award were made by baseball sports information/media relations contacts. The initial list will be updated with a mid-season release the week of April 21, including the national saves leaders. At the conclusion of the regular season, the Division I national saves leader and four other relief pitching standouts will be selected as finalists and released Wednesday, June 4, prior to start of NCAA Super Regional tournament competition.

— KSU Sports Information —

MANHATTAN, Kan. (AP) — Texas coach Rick Barnes understands how imperative the latter half of the conference schedule is for Kansas State. His team, however, didn’t receive the message.

After escaping TCU with a win on Tuesday, the Longhorns went through a hangover at the hands of the Wildcats.

With only one road win in conference play, the Wildcats needed to continue their dominance on their home court and they capitalized in almost every facet of the game.

Marcus Foster scored a career-high 34 points on 13-of-16 shooting, and Kansas State beat No. 15 Texas 74-57 on Saturday, ending the Longhorns’ seven-game winning streak.

“They beat us any way you can get beat,” Barnes said. “Right from the beginning whether you want to talk loose balls or from turning the ball over, you are not going to win with turning the ball over 18 times. Some of it had to do with them, but a lot of it had to do with what we were doing, too.”

Foster’s 34 points were the most for a Kansas State freshman since Michael Beasley’s 39-point performance against Kansas on March 1, 2008. Foster’s previous high was 25 points against Oral Roberts on Nov. 13.

Will Spradling added nine points for the Wildcats (16-7, 6-4 Big 12) who extended their home winning streak to 12 games. The win improved coach Bruce Weber’s record at Bramlage Coliseum to 29-2, 13-1 in conference games.

Isaiah Taylor had 17 points for the Longhorns (18-5, 7-3) while Connor Lammert added eight points. Texas entered the game with four players averaging in double figures.

Foster’s impressive dunk off an alley-oop pass was the highlight of an opening 18-4 run for the Wildcats over the game’s opening 8 minutes.

“He did not get any resistance,” Barnes said. “He played terrific. As a team they did whatever they wanted to do. He did a terrific job, and they really deserved to win. The score is not really indicative of how bad they really beat us. He was terrific.”

Kansas State held the Longhorns to 3-of-8 shooting with six turnovers through the 11:41 mark of the first half. Texas finished the half at 25 percent (5 of 20).

Texas’ shooting percentage was its second-lowest of the season and it followed Tuesday’s performance as the two worst of the season both by percentage and score.

“The big thing was the defense,” Weber said. “Holding them to 32 percent and they had 18 turnovers. It allowed us to get transition points. I don’t know if we’ve had fast breaks like that altogether all year as many as we had today.”

Javan Felix and Cameron Ridley were held to only five combined field goals (5 of 19). Ridley, who scored 18 points in the team’s first meeting on Jan. 21, struggled mightily in getting comfortable against the Wildcats interior.

“I was baffled by some of the things that we did,” Barnes said. “We were not shooting the ball well.”

Texas forward Jonathan Holmes left the game with a knee injury. The junior scored the game’s first basket and attempted only two shots before leaving.

Barnes said Holmes will be evaluated when the team returns to Austin. He will undergo an MRI on Sunday.

The 17-point first half by Foster was the best 20 minutes by any K-State player this season. He nearly outscored the Longhorns by himself as the Wildcats led 39-18 at halftime.

“Part of their execution was that they defended the way they wanted to defend and we couldn’t handle it,” Barnes said. “We have to give them credit for that.”

Taylor, who had 15 points in the second half, helped Texas climb within 16 points with 12:15 left in the game, but the Wildcats quickly answered and pushed their lead over 20 points in less than a minute. Each of those baskets was by Foster.

“Texas is a team that makes a lot of runs,” Foster said. “I just felt like they were making their run in trying to come back. I was in the right spot to make plays and my teammates found me.”

Foster was the third Kansas State true freshman to score 30 points joining Beasley and Mike Evans.

After a minor injury on a hard foul forced Kansas State’s Thomas Gipson to sit with 4:47 left, Foster closed his performance by hitting both free throws in place of Gipson.

— Associated Press —

Kansas State senior second baseman Ross Kivett was named to Baseball America’s Preseason All-America Third Team, earning his fourth preseason All-American nod this year. Kivett is the first K-State baseball player to garner four preseason All-American honors in a single season.

The 2013 Big 12 Player of the Year has also been named to the preseason All-American first teams for Collegiate Baseball newspaper, NCBWA and Perfect Game. Kivett was named an All-American by three different organizations following last season, including Baseball America’s third team.

Kivett is the third Wildcat since 2011 to earn preseason All-American accolades from Baseball America. Nick Martini (2011) and Jared King (2013) were both named to the publication’s third team.

The Baseball America preseason All-America teams are voted on by Major League Baseball scouting directors.

Kivett and the Wildcats, who are ranked as high as No. 21 in preseason polls, start the 2014 season on Friday, Feb. 14 at Cal Poly to kick off an eight-game road trip.

— KSU Sports Information —

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. (AP) — Juwan Staten had a career day with 35 points as West Virginia knocked off Kansas State 81-71 on Saturday.

It was the second straight league win for the Mountaineers (13-9, 5-4 Big 12) and third in the last four games. Kansas State (15-7, 5-4) lost for the third time in four contests.

Staten had four rebounds and five assists, and connected on 8 of 13 field goals and 18 of 21 from the line – both free throw marks career bests. Terry Henderson had 13 points, Eron Harris scored 11 and Remi Dibo had 10.

The Wildcats got 20 points from Marcus Foster and 19 from Thomas Gipson.

Those two KSU players connected on 18 of 27 shots, but Staten provided much of what the Mountaineers needed to avenge a 78-56 defeat in Manhattan on Jan. 18, which has proved to be West Virginia’s worst loss of the season.

Staten’s previous career-high in points (28) and free throws made/attempted (14 of 19) was against Duquesne on Nov. 17, 2003.

His 18 made free throws broke a school record held by Rod Thorn, set against against George Washington in 1963.

Free throws were important to WVU, which connected on 29 of 37 of the foul shots, even after Staten missed his first two of the game.

WVU’s 78.4 percentage from the line far surpassed the 8 of 19 (42.1) percent effort by Kansas State, as the Wildcats missed key free throws and close-in shots throughout the game.

WVU built an 8-point first half lead, but the second half saw two major runs. K-State rattled off eight straight points to knot the score at 53 with 12:17 to go. But Staten scored six of the next seven points to put West Virginia ahead 60-53 with 9:30 showing.

Kansas State whittled it down to one at 68-67 with 3:09 left on a 6-0 run concluded by a jumper from Foster, who posted his second league 20-plus point game of his first season.

However, Gipson flicked the ball out-of-bounds on KSU’s next possession and Dibo followed with a 3-pointer. Henderson added two free throws to push the lead back to six at 73-67.

After Foster canned one-of-two free throws, teammate Shane Southwell let another ball get out-of-bounds. The Mountaineers connected on six straight free throws, then a dunk by Staten, to close out the game.

— Associated Press —

MANHATTAN, Kan. (AP) — Will Spradling scored a season-high 17 points, including four free throws in the closing seconds, to help Kansas State hold off Texas Tech 66-58 on Tuesday night.

Nino Williams added 13 points and Wesley Iwundu had 11 for the Wildcats (15-6, 5-3 Big 12), who ended a two-game skid despite getting very little from their three leading scorers.

Marcus Foster had two points on 1-for-8 shooting, Shane Southwell missed his first seven shots and finished with four points, and Thomas Gipson scored seven before fouling out.

The Red Raiders (10-11, 2-6) closed within 48-47 midway through the second half, but the stingiest defense in the Big 12 kept answering the call, and Texas Tech never regained the lead.

Jaye Crockett had 15 points to lead Texas Tech. Dusty Hannahs finished with 14.

Kansas State methodically built a 32-20 halftime advantage on the strength of its defense, which made the Red Raiders look downright silly in the way it harassed them around the rim.

Crockett, who came in averaging 14 points and six rebounds, managed just three points and two boards in the first half. Robert Turner was the only Texas Tech player to make more than one field goal – he had two – while Toddrick Gotcher scored a team-high five points.

As awful as the Red Raiders were on offense, they actually jumped out to a 9-8 lead. But the Wildcats answered with a 16-2 run, taking advantage of 10-minute stretch in which the visitors were 1 of 10 from the floor and turned the ball over four times.

Hannahs spurred Texas Tech’s comeback in the second half.

The sophomore guard scored nine straight points shortly out of the break, and a 3-pointer by Crockett got the Red Raiders within 48-47 with 7 minutes left. Kansas State nearly regained control with six quick points, but Hannahs buried another 3 to answer the run.

The plucky Wildcats simply refused to let the Red Raiders finish off their comeback.

Spradling made a couple of foul shots, and then Iwundu scored a sloppy bucket at the rim after a scrum in the paint to give Kansas State a 58-52 lead with 2 1/2 minutes to go.

Crockett made a couple of free throws to cut into the lead with 45 seconds left, and Kansas State promptly threw away the inbounds pass. But before the Red Raiders ever got a chance to set up their offense, Spradling picked the pocket of Randy Onwuasor to get the ball back.

Spradling was fouled and made both free throws, and the parade to the foul line began in earnest. Southwell added two more moments later, Williams added the next two, and Spradling made two more with 6.2 seconds left to seal the victory.

— Associated Press —