Here’s what went wrong for Kansas State in final minutes of basketball loss at TCU

Everyone on the Kansas State bench rose to their feet and celebrated when Max Jones drained a 3-pointer in the closing moments of a road basketball game against TCU on Saturday at Schollmaier Arena.

The clutch shot put the Wildcats ahead by six points with 3 minutes, 14 seconds remaining in an important Big 12 contest. It looked like they were going to win and stay atop the conference standings

But it wasn’t to be. The emotions on the K-State bench went from euphoria to despair as TCU scored the final seven points of the game and escaped with a 63-62 victory.

“They made one more play than we did,” K-State basketball coach Jerome Tang said.

Another member of the team expressed his emotions on the way out of the arena by saying, “Well, that (stunk).“

No one can blame the Wildcats for feeling like they let this game slip away. It was there for the taking. All they had to do was score one more basket and they would have been able to hold off the Horned Frogs.

It didn’t happen.

“Give them credit for playing really good defense,” Tang said.

So what went wrong down the stretch? A lot. Here is a rundown of all the different ways that the Wildcats managed to lose this game.

Let’s start with free throws. K-State could have closed out this game by simply making its free throws over the final few minutes. Instead, both Dug McDaniel and David N’Guessan missed on the front end of a pair of one-and-one opportunities. Those misses gave TCU extra possessions without extending the K-State lead.

Those misses dampened a pair of otherwise strong games from those players. McDaniel led the Wildcats with 12 points and N’Guessan had 10 points to go with 17 rebounds.

“It’s a bunch of different plays that you can look back at that could have been better,” N’Guessan said. “But, at the end of the game, you have got to make free throws. I take responsibility for that. I have to step up to the line and make those.”

Of course, K-State missed from all over at the end of this game. Brendan Hausen missed a corner 3. Coleman Hawkins missed a driving layup. And McDaniel came up empty on a pair of shots around the basket.

The highest profile of McDaniel’s misses came on the final possession when he drove to the basket and missed a contested layup with the clock winding down. K-State got a pair of offensive rebounds off of the miss but failed to convert.

TCU escaped with a dramatic win.

K-State players lamented the final play of the night. It went poorly from the beginning when Tang instructed his team to call a timeout after the ball crossed midcourt. But the timeout was called too early and the Wildcats had to in-bound the ball from the backcourt.

“We wanted to go fast, that’s all,” Tang said. “I thought (McDaniel) made the right decision. He turned on a ball screen and got to the rim. He made five of those similar type shots earlier and then we had two offensive rebound opportunities at it.”

McDaniel shook his head afterward. He attempted a difficult shot, but it was close to going in.

“I wouldn’t say I got what I wanted,” McDaniel said, “but I saw an opening and I took it.”

The Horned Frogs had better luck when they were on offense. For example, TCU guard Brendan Wenzel drained a deep and well-defended shot from 3-point range to make the score 62-61 with 1:17 remaining. It was his first basket of the day, and it came on an absolute prayer.

Sometimes that is what it takes to win a back-and-forth game in the Big 12.

TCU found a way to make clutch plays down the stretch. K-State faltered in the final moments.