Seventh-seeded Baylor will look to improve its likelihood of making the NCAA Tournament when it battles No. 10 seed Kansas State on Wednesday evening in a Big 12 Conference tournament second-round game in Kansas City, Mo.
Kansas State advanced with a 71-66 win over 15th-seeded Arizona State in the opening round on Tuesday. The Baylor-Kansas State winner will face No. 2 seed Texas Tech on Thursday in the quarterfinals.
The Bears (18-13) head to Big 12 tournament play after a 65-61 loss at home to conference regular-season champion Houston on Saturday. V.J. Edgecombe racked up 23 points and three steals for Baylor.
Norchad Omier added 13 points and 16 rebounds and Langston Love had 10 points in the loss. The Bears finished the regular campaign with four losses in their final six games.
Omier played in all 31 games for the Bears this season and averaged a double-double (15.6 points and 10.7 rebounds). Edgecombe, who on Tuesday was named Associated Press Big 12 Freshman of the Year, averaged 15 points per game.
Baylor likely will make the NCAA Tournament as an at-large choice no matter the outcome on Wednesday. Bears coach Scott Drew, however, said there still is plenty on the line for the team in this tournament.
“As far as the NCAA Tournament? I would say that our resumé speaks for itself,” Drew said. “We have good non-conference wins. We went .500 in one of the top conferences in the country. So do I feel like that’s good enough? Yes, but we always want to leave no doubt and we want to improve our seed if possible.”
The Wildcats (16-16) received a season-high 26 points from Coleman Hawkins in Tuesday’s win over Arizona State. Dug McDaniel added 14 and Brendan Hausen and Max Jones each had 10.
That production needed to make up for the near absence of David N’Guessan, the team’s leading scorer this season. N’Guessan, who averaged a team-best 13.3 points and 7.2 rebounds per game in the regular season, was limited to five points while dealing with foul trouble.
“I loved Coleman’s aggressiveness — I loved all the guys’ aggressiveness,” Kansas State coach Jerome Tang said. “I thought they took advantage of how we prepared for this and some of the things that we did and some of the things we didn’t do. So I thought they gave us the game that it takes for playing in March.”
Kansas State ended the regular season with losses in five of its last eight games.
Baylor beat Kansas State by eight points at home on Jan. 22. After that loss, the Wildcats went on a six-game winning streak that included victories over four ranked teams.
–Field Level Media
