Takeaways from Kansas State’s thrilling overtime victory against the Baylor Bears

Things like style points rarely exist when a pair of Big 12 basketball teams meet in a conference game.

Kansas State’s 68-64 overtime victory over Baylor on Tuesday at Bramlage Coliseum was the epitome of that point.

Neither team played particularly well. It was almost jarring to see both the Bears and the Wildcats struggle for so long to put up points. But both sides played with admirable levels of effort on defense, which turned things into a good, old-fashioned rock fight in front a raucous lavender-clad crowd.

Midway through the second half, both teams stopped caring about how they looked. It was survival mode. They just wanted to win.

K-State was the better team in that setting.

“Whether we had won this game or not won this game,” K-State coach Jerome Tang said, “I’m really proud of our guys because of the effort that they gave and the togetherness that they showed. I felt they honored our fans, who were unbelievable tonight.”

The Wildcats had to dig deep to find a way to win. They trailed by six with 1:57 remaining in the second half and battled back to force overtime. Then they were behind by five with 1:12 remaining in OT, and things really looked bleak.

Arthur Kaluma was the hero. The junior wing knocked down a deep 3-pointer while being fouled for a rare four-point play that gave his team a 66-64 lead with 20.2 seconds remaining.

“The moment it left my hand,” Kaluma said, “I knew it was good.”

The Wildcats got an important stop on the other end of the court and closed out the game with a pair of free throws from Tylor Perry.

There were other key contributors. Seldom-used freshman RJ Jones surprised everyone in attendance by draining a 3 in overtime, Cam Carter scored 18 points and Will McNair had several important rebounds. But Kaluma made the biggest play of all.

Just like that, Tang’s overtime magic continued.

The Wildcats are now an incredible 10-0 in overtime games with him as their head coach. They are 5-0 on the season.

Nothing came easy for either team in this one, but K-State (13-4, 3-1 Big 12) made just enough plays to walk away with a signature victory over No. 9 Baylor (14-3, 3-1 Big 12).

Cam Carter and Perry each scored 18 points to lead the Wildcats in scoring, while Kaluma had a double-double.

K-State will next be in action on Saturday when it plays host to Oklahoma State.

Until then, here are some takeaways from the action against Baylor:

The Wildcats stay perfect in overtime

It’s hard to explain exactly why the K-State men’s basketball team feels so comfortable in overtime games. But there is clearly no place the Wildcats would rather be.

K-State went a perfect 5-0 in overtime games last season, and it is already 5-0 in overtime games this season.

Even when the Wildcats are down, they are never out. They stayed poised throughout the extra period on Tuesday and came up with a massive four-point shot from Kaluma when it looked like they were in real trouble. Before that, Jones hit a clutch 3-pointer in the corner and Carter answered a triple from Baylor with one of his own.

The Wildcats ended the second half on an 8-2 run and closed out overtime on a 9-0 run.

“We prepare for that environment often,” Kaluma said. “We call it ‘five to grind.’ We work on these situations a lot during practice. So once you get to overtime it’s just another thing that we’ve done before.”

Winning is the goal for every team. At K-State, getting to overtime is a solid alternative.

Turnovers and fouls were problems for the Wildcats

Turning the ball over too often was a problem for Kansas State at times last season. It was once again an issue for the Wildcats in this game.

K-State gave the ball away 17 times, with guard Cam Carter accounting for seven of the turnovers all by himself.

All those mistakes gave Baylor extra opportunities to make shots on a night when that was difficult. Tang might want to start emphasizing specific turnover numbers like he did last season to try and bring those numbers down.

It sounds like he wants to limit them to around 11 in future games.

“If we can have our turnovers at 11 or less we are going to be really hard to beat,” Tang said. “We had two illegal screens today, and I’m OK with that because that means they’re going to be looking around the defense wondering where the next screen is coming from. You live with those as a coach. Some of the travels and some of the passes, it looked like it was the right decision, just bad execution.”

Carter could have cut the team’s total down to 11 without his giveaways. This was a tough game for him, as he also fouled out. At least he made up for many of his errors by scoring 18 points.

K-State delivers another defensive gem

Defense is turning into a calling card for the Wildcats.

K-State was stingy against the Bears. Not only did the Wildcats hold the Bears to 64 points, they forced them to shoot 33% from the field and 18% from 3-point range.

This is nothing new. K-State has been one of the best defensive teams in the conference for a month now. Even when it is on the wrong end of a final score, its defense isn’t to blame.

The Wildcats have held their last eight opponents below 67 points. Four of them couldn’t clear 60. Baylor could barely surpass that number with overtime.

“We don’t just have a guy that is going to go get 30 or 40 every night,” Perry said. “We are so well-rounded. So defensively we are versatile and we know we have to win on the defensive end. We can’t rely on our offense each and every night. We have shown we have struggled on the offensive end. What can be consistent is our defense.”

Jerrell Colbert deserves more playing time

Tang doesn’t often turn to his bench for all that many minutes in the frontcourt. Maybe he should start.

K-State sophomore forward Jerrell Colbert has turned into a dependable reserve since Big 12 play began.

The 6-foot-10 big man helped K-State with six points and one rebound while seeing 17 minutes of action against Baylor. It wasn’t the first time he has given the Wildcats valuable minutes off the bench.

He has now scored in four straight games and made it difficult for other teams to maneuver in the paint whenever he is on defense. It’s fair to wonder why he was only on the court for a grand total of 10 minutes in those games.

It’s doubtful Tang will ask Colbert to play major minutes anytime soon, but Colbert could benefit from a small bump in opportunities. He proved as much against Baylor.

The Bears were ice cold from beyond the arc

Baylor entered this game as the best 3-point shooting team in the country, averaging an incredible 42.2% from beyond the arc, but you wouldn’t know it based on the way they played on Tuesday.

The Bears threw up one brick after the next and finished the night 5-of-28 from 3-point range.

Give credit to K-State for making things difficult on Baylor. It’s extremely rare for Scott Drew’s team to miss so many outside shots. That would have made a loss in this situation tough for the Wildcats to stomach, but they were able to take advantage in the end.