KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The Big 12 Tournament quarterfinals featured eight teams that should hear their names called on Selection Sunday for the NCAA Tournament.
But, as it seems to have gone this tournament, the night session was much more competitive than the day session. Iowa State and Arizona dispatched opponents with relative ease. BYU and Houston played a grinding showdown, while TCU gave Kansas all it could handle.
Here were the results of the quarterfinal games:
Game 9: No. 5 Iowa State 75, No. 4 Texas Tech 53
Game 10: No. 1 Arizona 81, No. 8 UCF 59
Game 11: No. 2 Houston 73, No. 10 BYU 66
Game 12: No. No. 3 Kansas 78, No. 6 TCU 73
Here are the takeaways from the day.
Kansas Escapes
With this Kansas team you never know what you’re going to get. Like many teams playing their first game in this tournament — and on this new floor — the Jayhawks needed time to get their feet under them. Coach Bill Self said about as much on his pre-game radio show.
TCU didn’t make things easy, either. While the Horned Frogs never got a massive lead on KU as they did at Allen Fieldhouse in January, the game was close. TCU was not there to play the foil. The Horned Frogs played like they had every chance to win. And, they did have every chance.
In fact, you could make the argument that had the Horned Frogs not gotten out of their own way in the final four minutes they could have won. I counted four turnovers when it mattered most, and many of them were unforced errors. It was a bewildering stretch for coach Jamie Dixon and his team who played punch-for-punch with Kansas the entire game.
That means that a little run Kansas made mattered the most. Kansas was up one point with 5:13 left and put together a 6-0 run. Simple stuff. A Darryn Peterson jumper. Two Elmarko Jackson free throws. A dunk by Bryson Tiller. KU up seven with 3:22 left. The Jayhawks made it stand because TCU couldn’t possess the ball long enough to create scoring chances.
Kansas’ identity remains funky. The Jayhawks made four 3-poitners but forced 14 TCU turnovers and scored 18 points. KU only outrebounded TCU by one, 41-40. KU won points in the paint but not by much. What won them the game was a remarkable 30-for-37 clip at the free throw line. It was remarkable for the percentage and the number of foul shots. Kansas shot twice as many as TCU (14-of-18). That’s … quite the disparity.
Peterson scored 24 points and played 37 minutes. Maybe he has turned the proverbial corner.
The Jayhawks needed all of it to escape from this one. Chances are Kansas plays better Friday night against Houston. Chances are Houston plays better, too.
“The best thing we did was get fouled and shoot free throws,” Self said. “It was a survive and advance game.”
Vengeance is a Cyclone
Iowa State almost had a perfect season at home. ALMOST. The culprit was Texas Tech, which sauntered into Ames a couple of weekends ago without JT Toppin and walked out like they owned the place.
Then, on Thursday, Texas Tech punched Iowa State in the mouth and went up 17-5 with 13:58 left in the first half. The Cyclones were done with it after that. They outscored the Red Raiders, 70-40 after that. If Patrick Mahomes was in the house, he went home very unhappy, perhaps just as unhappy as Otzelberger walked out of Hilton Coliseum two weekends ago.
“They came to our home, and they were the more aggressive team,” Iowa State coach T.J. Otzelberger said. “It was important for us to come out and set the tone on defense and on the glass. After the first five minutes we did a great job of that for the final 35 minutes.”
The loss was in the back of players’ minds, for sure.
“It added a little extra motivation to the game,” Iowa State’s Tamin Lipsey said.
Iowa State has had its own issues with consistency late in the season and in the NCAA Tournament. But Thursday was a good example of why I believe Iowa State is still built for this. The Cyclones held the Red Raiders to 34% shooting, outrebounded them by 10 and outscored them in the paint, 42-18. Iowa State turned Texas Tech’s liability — a lack of Toppin — and exploited it.
Joshua Jefferson had 18 points, 13 rebounds and six assists. Guard Tamin Lipsey led with 20 points and four assists. Iowa State shot 54%.
The only thing missing was Milan Momcilovic, who only had five points and teams continue to give him little relief on defense. Iowa State needs him to get unlocked before the NCAA Tournament. His shooting is their differentiator for a long March run.
But, on Thursday, Iowa State got its revenge. Wonder if it tasted like Busch Light?
Kingston’s Dagger
With less than two minutes to play in the game, BYU’s Aleksej Kostic did it again. He drilled a 3-pointer with 1:59 left to play that cut Houston’s lead to 64-61. Kostic went off for BYU in the final two minutes of the first half. He drilled a couple of 3-pointers to help it build a 41-37 lead at the break. In the first half, Houston didn’t answer.
In the second half, it did. On the next possession, Houston came down to its end and freshman guard Kingston Flemings drilled a 3-pointer. Calmly. Coldly. Efficiently. Houston up six. That was essentially ballgame, even though BYU kept fighting.
But, one half after Houston didn’t have an answer for a big 3-pointer, it did. That’s Houston’s toughness in key moments and its ability to learn, adapt and meet big moments. It’s why Houston is so hard to beat in moments like this.
Like AJ Dybantsa has heard the trust of BYU coach Kevin Young, Flemings has done the same with Houston coach Kelvin Sampson. Flemings, one of the conference’s many talented freshmen, had 17 points, four rebounds, three assists and two steals.
“He’s done that a lot,” Houston coach Kelvin Sampson said. “When we get to the [five-minute] competition part of our practices, each team has to make 10 shots in a minute. You’re competing against the clock, so you have to make 50 total as a team in five minutes. There is no one more competitive in that than Kingston.”
Like Dybantsa, Flemings could be heading to the NBA after the season. Like Dybantsa and BYU, Houston will only get as far as Flemings can take them. And he could take Houston quite far in the NCAA Tournament.
The Perfunctory ‘W’
If there was ever a perfunctory win in a conference tournament, Arizona’s win over UCF was it.
The Wildcats made it anti-climactic from the start. Fifteen minutes into the game Arizona was up 39-12. It was their largest lead of the game and fueled in part by a 15-0 run. The Wildcats shot 48% from the floor, committed just eight turnovers, outrebounded UCF by eight and dominated the paint, 38-28.
For those wanting to punch holes in Jaden Bradley’s Big 12 player of the year award — which he received at pre-game — he had eight points, five rebounds and three assists. Look, the coaches have their awards, and we all have our opinions. I selected Texas Tech’s JT Toppin as my player of the year, if you’re asking (you’re clearly not).
But Bradley’s biggest value is setting up his teammates, and the freshmen were the beneficiaries on Thursday. Brayden Burries had 21 points, Koa Peat had 12 points, and Ivan Kharchenkov had 10 points.
Arizona looked like itself on Thursday and that’s bad news for the rest of the field here in Kansas City.
“Thank goodness we got off to a good start in this one,” Arizona coach Tommy Lloyd said. “The point of a tournament like this is to get to the next one.”
By the way, Lloyd is pretty good at this coaching thing, isn’t he?
