K-State’s Big 12 tourney upset of Tech conjured ‘magic and fairy tales of March’
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Kansas State used a 21-0 run to rally from 14 down to beat Texas Tech.
- Wildcats went 5-for-25 from three and won their second Big 12 tournament game.
- K-State advanced to face Oklahoma State after first multi-win Big 12 tourney since 2005.
The prospect of a fairy tale ending kept Kansas State guard Tess Heal from becoming overly discouraged, even as the Wildcats trailed Texas Tech by 14 late in a second-round game on Thursday at the Big 12 Women’s Basketball Tournament.
“Basketball is such a cool sport,” Heal said. “Crazy things can happen. It’s March. People talk about the magic and the fairy tales of March. You just have to keep going about it.”
K-State, the tourney’s No. 12 seed, did just that. The Wildcats ended the game on an improbable 21-0 run and defeated the fifth-seeded Red Raiders 58-51 at T-Mobile Center.
“You don’t have many comebacks like that,” K-State coach Jeff Mittie said.
Especially when the formula that worked so well the previous day — K-State buried a tournament-record 17 three-pointers in a first-round victory over Cincinnati — wasn’t part of Thursday’s equation. Great defense down the stretch, and enough made free throws, pushed the Wildcats to the finish line.
Kansas State, which hit just five 3-pointers against Tech, grabbed its first lead of Thursday’s game when Nastja Claessens sank a free throw with 2:39 remaining. That made it 52-51 before Heal added a driving layup, extending the Wildcats’ lead to three.
That layup must have felt like a dagger to a Texas Tech team that missed its final 13 shots of the afternoon.
The Wildcats, 17-16, will next meet fourth-seeded Oklahoma State in a quarterfinal on Friday at 11 a.m. K-State has won multiple games at the conference tournament for the first time since reaching the final in 2005.
This story was originally published March 5, 2026 at 1:29 PM with the headline "K-State’s Big 12 tourney upset of Tech conjured ‘magic and fairy tales of March’."