Kansas State Holds Off Tournament Darling UMBC To Reach The Sweet 16

Well, credit to Kansas State, but everyone wants to talk about UMBC and rightfully so. It was quite literally something we’ve never seen before as No. 16 team was playing in the Round of 32. Everyone was all aboard the UMBC bandwagon, but Kansas State is ultimately the one heading to Atlanta to play Kentucky after the 50-43 victory.

This was an ugly game including an incredibly weird state. Kansas State turned the ball over 16 times and UMBC scored 0 points off of those turnovers. That’s simply unheard of and a large part as to why Kansas State won this game. Ultimately, UMBC simply couldn’t score. This is a team that wants to get up the floor fast and shoot threes and they were limited to 6-for-22 from three.

Kansas State was ultimately saved by Xavier Sneed, who hit a baseline jumper late in the game and came up with a huge steal leading to points as he finished with 8 points, 7 rebounds and 4 steals. Barry Brown led the Wildcats with 18 points while Makol Mawien finished with 11.

Hell of a run for UMBC but the Kansas State win is giving us a Clem and Zah duo in Vegas which is the ultimate tag team duo. It will be interesting to see if Dean Wade – arguably the best player for Kansas State – is able to go on Thursday against Kentucky. He missed today’s game with a foot injury that kept him out of the opening round win over Creighton as well.