By Wendell Barnhouse
Big12Sports.com Correspondent
KANSAS CITY, Mo. – If they could look but not hear, TCU’s players would have thought they were playing in front of their biggest home crowd of the season. As the lower (No. 9) seed, the Horned Frogs were wearing purple and that’s what most of the fans in the Sprint Center were sporting.
However, those fans were cheering for No. 8 seed Kansas State. No matter. TCU posted its first victory in the Phillips 66 Big 12 Men’s Championship Wednesday thanks to a steady performance. The Horned Frogs seized the lead with 10:31 remaining in the first half and never gave it up for a 67-65 first-round victory.
TCU (18-14) advances to Thursday’s quarterfinals and will take on No. 1 seed Kansas at 1:30 p.m. The Horned Frogs’ lost the season series with the Jayhawks but the total margin was 12 points.
““We match up well with Kansas,” said TCU senior guard Trey Ziegler, who scored 15. “We feel like they play the same style of basketball we do. They're a tough, physical, defensive team.We had two good games against them so hopefully we can continue to compete.”
Kansas State (15-17) started the game like it was the team wanted to keep its season alive. The Wildcats made eight of their first 10 shots and got a total of eight points from reserves Stephen Hurt and Maleek Harris.
For the next 11:39, the Wildcats failed to scratch from the field and TCU went on a 16-2 run with sophomore Karviar Shepherd scoring seven of his nine points during the spurt.
“Just seems like we always dig ourselves a hole and have to fight back to get the lead or cut it to however points we needed to,” said Kansas State senior Thomas Gipson, who finished with 16 points and seven rebounds. “Our shots just didn't go in. We gave them that run and it's tough to come back from that on anybody, not just against TCU but anybody you play.”
The Wildcats trailed by 12 late in the first half and coach Bruce Weber went to desperation mode, putting Gipson and Nino Williams back in the game despite two fouls on each. K-State trailed 35-27 at halftime.
The Horned Frogs constantly made big plays to keep K-State at bay. Kyan Anderson’s 3-pointer with 9:03 made it 50-44. Sophomore Kenrich Williams had a sky-high offensive rebound and putback to make it 61-52 with 4:33 remaining.
And after the Wildcats pulled to within 64-62 with 1:58 on a three-point play by Williams, TCU’s Williams blocked Wesley Iwundu at the rim with just under a minute to play. Ziegler made two free throws at 0:32 and Williams made one-of-two from the line with 13 seconds remaining to put it away.
“Coming into it we thought it was going to be our game so that's just the mentality we have,” said Anderson, who finished with 16. “I told these guys, try to make the solid plays, don't lose aggressiveness and just make solid plays down the stretch and we did that.”
The Wildcats went 4-2 against Kansas, Oklahoma State and Iowa State but went 2-3 against TCU and Texas Tech.
“I think the game was kind of a microcosm of our whole season, a bunch of ups and downs,” Weber said.