‘It came down to one play’: Takeaways from K-State’s basketball loss to Nebraska

Nebraska’s 86-85 victory over Kansas State in the championship game of the Hall of Fame Classic on Friday night was so loud and exciting that Huskers basketball coach Fred Hoiberg said the atmosphere inside T-Mobile Center reminded him of the old Big 12 Tournament.

“It’s always fun coming back here,” Hoiberg said.

You might expect the winning coach to say something like that during his postgame news conference. What made this matchup special was that K-State basketball coach Jerome Tang felt the same way.

“That was an incredible experience,” Tang said. “Obviously, the outcome wasn’t what we wanted. But I’m proud of my guys, their fight and their resilience. We dug ourselves a hole, but we didn’t hang our heads. It was just a great college basketball game.”

Indeed, the Wildcats went toe-to-toe with the Huskers for 40 minutes in an entertaining November game. But they ultimately fell one play short and lost when the smallest player on the court (Nebraska guard Sam Hoiberg) grabbed a clutch offensive rebound and then drew a foul underneath the basket with 1.2 seconds remaining.

K-State got the miss it needed to force overtime. But Nebraska found a different way to win. The score was tied when Sam Hoiberg stepped to the free-throw line. Then he put his team ahead for good with a game-winning shot. K-State was unable to put up a shot of its own in the closing seconds.

That made for a painful ending for the Wildcats.

“It came down to one play,” K-State guard PJ Haggerty said. “We have just got to go back to the drawing board and bounce back.”

Haggerty led K-State with 27 points. Abdi Bashir added 26 for the Wildcats. But it wasn’t quite enough with Pryce Sandfort scoring 21 points for Nebraska and Rienk Mast adding 20.

With the loss, K-State dropped to 5-1. Nebraska improved to 6-0.

Up next for the Wildcats is a game at Indiana on Tuesday.

Until then, here are takeaways from Friday’s action.

Abdi Bashir was on a heater from 3-point range

K-State coach Jerome Tang recruited Abdi Bashir for one primary reason. He wanted the Monmouth transfer to make 3-pointers this season. Lots of them.

It didn’t matter to Tang that Bashir was one of the lowest-rated defenders in all of college basketball at his previous school. Bashir can be a flamethrower from deep. That makes him a valuable player, and he proved it against the Huskers.

Bashir drained a whopping seven 3-pointers. He needed 15 attempts to make that many, but that didn’t bother anyone wearing purple. Once Bashir started to heat up in the second half, they wanted Bashir to fire away every time he was open.

He obliged and scored 26 points.

Bashir was at his best early in the second half when he made three quick 3-pointers to help K-State erase a 45-35 halftime deficit.

Bashir took shots early in possessions, when he was guarded closely in the corner and even a time or two when Nebraska left him open.

It felt like they all had a chance to go in.

PJ Haggerty had a quiet 27 points

That may not seem possible, but this felt like an average game for the Memphis transfer even though he finished with 27 points, seven assists and six rebounds.

Perhaps it only felt that way because Bashir outshined him as a shooter and Haggerty looked to distribute at times.

But Haggerty found a way to stuff the stat sheet against a defense that was doing everything it could think of to slow him down.

“That team is really hard to guard,” Fred Hoiberg said. “They shoot it from all over the place. They run good stuff. Haggerty is a problem. I thought we did a heck of a job on him, and he had 27. He’s tough.”

Kansas State was hurt by early turnovers

Nebraska played with poise when it took the court for the championship game of this Hall of Fame Classic.

K-State did the opposite.

The Wildcats looked nervous with a trophy on the line. That much was evident as they committed the first seven turnovers of the game and fell behind 27-12 before the purple-and-red crowd had fully settled in.

Elias Rapieque was credited with three of the early turnovers, but several K-State players were sloppy with the ball. Haggerty lost three turnovers in the fist half, too. Nebraska took advantage by scoring 17 points off of turnovers in the first half.

Tang likely told his players to calm down during timeout huddles. It eventually worked, and K-State went toe-to-toe with Nebraska for the remainder of the first half. But they were unable to climb out of an early hole and went into halftime trailing 45-35.

Those early mistakes were costly for the Wildcats. Without them, they may have won.

Nebraska hammered K-State in the paint

It was entertaining to watch K-State and Nebraska play this game with contrasting styles.

The Wildcats bombed away from 3-point range. They were happy to win or lose on the perimeter.

The Huskers took their share of outside shots, too. But they also worked the ball inside to their big men. That turned out to be an effective strategy, as Nebraska outscored K-State by a wide margin (48-24) in the paint.

K-State gave up far too many layups to Nebraska, which is something Tang will no doubt try to improve with his defense moving forward.

This was a fun atmosphere for a November basketball game

It felt a little bit like the old Big Eight days inside T-Mobile Center.

K-State and Nebraska fans packed the lower bowl of the arena and then cheered on their teams in an exciting early season basketball game.

There was more purple than red in attendance, but both sides were well represented. “K-S-U” chants filled the building before tipoff. “Go Big Red” chants took over during Nebraska runs.

It’s been a while since K-State and Nebraska were conference rivals, but this game clearly meant a little extra for both teams.

Hoiberg and Tang were right to praise the crowd. They made this a fun game to watch.

This story was originally published November 21, 2025 at 11:10 PM.

Kellis Robinett

The Wichita Eagle

Kellis Robinett covers Kansas State athletics for The Wichita Eagle and The Kansas City Star. A winner of more than a dozen national writing awards, he lives in Manhattan with his wife and four children.