Barry Brown leads Kansas State over Washington State 68-65

It helps when you practice the situation that presents itself.

Kansas State rode Barry Brown Jr.’s seventh career 20-point game to pull out a 68-65 victory over Washington State Tuesday night in a late, nationally televised contest an hour up the road from the Cougars’ usual lair.

Up by as many as 17 in the first half, the Wildcats trailed by eight down the stretch then rallied to take the lead in the final minute on a Brown dunk followed by four free throws.

“We’ve been in that position too many times and come out losers,” Brown said. “I just got in the huddle and said ‘Man, we got it right here. We just have to do it.’

“We have this drill we call the 3:54 drill where we play like it’s the last three minutes, 54 seconds. It worked out to be almost exactly like we practice it. We prepared for this moment so there was no reason to be nervous.”

The game was billed as a home game for Washington State (7-4), and the Cougars like to call the Spokane Arena their “Home Away From Home.” In reality, it’s more of a timeshare they visit once a year.

Essentially, the only thing that kept this from being a neutral site game was the collection of crimson and gray attire in the stands as K-State (10-2) took control early with a 9-0 run less than four minutes into the game sparked by a Kamau Stokes three-pointer and fueled by back-to-back jumpers by Makol Mawien and Dean Wade.

And then the Washington State’s Carter Skaggs helped the Spokane crowd discover some Cougar Love in the Gonzaga Bulldogs backyard.

Skaggs came off the bench to knock down three of five shots from behind the three-point line to help cut a 17-point K-State lead down to just 10 points.

“For some reason I thought they didn’t have very good rhythm offensively until Skaggs came in there and made some shots,” coach Bruce Weber said. “I feel that, if we had made some shots (the lead) would have been up 18- or 20-points.”

The Cougars roared out of intermission. Viont’e Daniels wasted no time launching a three-pointer from the baseline to shave the lead into single digits and Skaggs continued his hit stretch with back-to-back three-pointers and a field goal from just inside the arc. Malachi Flynn hit a trey to cut the lead to one, 42-41.

Brown answered with a three and a layup, but after Skaggs hit again from deep Flynn got to the basket for a three-point play that gave Washington State the lead, 49-47.

A pair of Flynn treys helped push the Washington State advantage to 57-49 before K-State grabbed the momentum.

“We told them they (Washington State) had been down 20 twice already this season and they came back and won,” Weber said. “Even a 10-point lead wasn’t safe and it went a lot quicker than I thought it would.

“I thought we lost our poise a little bit during that middle stretch. We started trying to hit grand slams and there was no one on base. In a couple huddles I told them ‘Guys, this is about stops and rebounds. It’s not about making shots. We were able to make, I think, five straight stops down the stretch.”

In fact, Washington State now has trailed in seven of its 11 games and come back to win four times.

Brown finished shooting 8 of 17 from the field and was 6 for 6 from the free-throw line to finish with 23 points. Mawien finished with 14 points and grabbed nine boards.

Skaggs finished shooting 6 of 10 from long-range and finished with 24 points. Flynn hit 4 of 14 from deep and tallied 23.

The win completes K-State’s nonconference schedule and the Wildcats’ next game is the Dec. 29 at Iowa State.

“This is a great way for us to finish nonconference play and head into our first conference game on the road,” Weber said. “This gives us momentum going forward.”

This story was originally published December 21, 2017 at 12:28 AM with the headline "Barry Brown leads Kansas State over Washington State 68-65."